This interview appeared in India Abroad, New York, Oct 21, 2011
Sam Pitroda has advised
more than half a dozen prime ministers of India over the last three decades
regarding technology applications and policy. Shivanand Kanavi captures the highlights of this rich experience in a conversation.
"We need to redesign the nation"
Sam Pitroda has advised
more than half a dozen prime ministers of India over the last three decades
regarding technology applications and policy. Shivanand Kanavi captures the highlights of this rich experience in a conversation.
How did your engagement with government of India as a
technology advisor start nearly thirty years ago?
In the early 80`s
computers were just becoming more and more viable in terms of desktop, that was
the time Rajiv Gandhi came into the mainstream of politics as a young MP in
India. He was visionary and was himself technology savvy. He saw that computers
could play very imp role. I had background in telecom, IT, and software in the
US and I was also young and because of my background in telecom, I decided to
look at telecom as an instrument of change in nation building.
How did C-DOT come along?
Mrs Gandhi and Rajiv
Gandhi gave me an opportunity to set up C-DOT (Center for Development of Telematics)
to develop indigenous technology for India’s effort to digitize networks. Then
we had electro-mechanicals [switches]. However we were going digital so we
needed products, and one idea was to get products and technologies from MNCs like
Alcatel and another approach was to develop indigenously using Indian
talent to meet Indian needs like rural telephony,
smaller exchange that can withstand Indian climate; dust; high temp and all of
that, so my entry into India was to essentially focus on digital networks, develop
rural telecom through C-DOT.
Were you not part of the “computer boys” of Rajiv Gandhi’s era?
Collectively we all
felt computers have a role to play not only in telecom but also in other areas
and if we really want people to see the benefits of IT then we need to apply it
quickly in areas where average Indian could see the advantage. Otherwise they
would all say, look this is all fancy stuff only for the rich, urban, elite etc.
Many used to say ‘what does this guy know about rural areas? Rural India is
very different’. People used to tell me you should work on agriculture, drinking
water and sanitation. I used to say ‘you are right, but I don’t know anything
about it. You need to find an agriculture or a water expert. I happen to know
about IT & telecom so I can only work on it, my knowledge is limited, but
there are so many other things going on in the world like biotech, nanotech I don’t
know anything about it so I have to focus on what I know and someone else has
to focus on other areas’.
How did the idea of computerisation of Indian railways’
passenger reservation system, which celebrates s Silver Jubilee this year,
originate? That actually changed people’s perceptions on the ground.
Rajiv was convinced
that technology can be an instrument of change. We said we must look for area
which affects large number of people. Many people wait at the railway stations e.g.
a person is waiting at the railway station window no 6 to get a ticket to
Nagpur and you get all the way up to the line and when you say you want a
ticket to Nagpur you are told that you have to go to window no 7 and so you
have to start all over again. The hassle of getting railway ticket, going to
station for booking it etc all that was a painful experience for every citizen.
So we thought how about using this for railway reservation.
Problem however were the
unions. They were going to be against it as the general impression was that computers
take away jobs and that automation is not good. ‘Automation is for the west not
for India and India should not automate anything. We should focus on labour
intensive technology. We have more people we need to create more jobs so manual
is the only way to do it’.
How did you overcome the resistance to the idea?
Unions reacted saying ‘no
way’ we will allow this to happen. We started dialogue with unions saying this
is important in the long-run and in passengers’ interest. In one of the
conversations somebody figured out that if we put computers we would need to
have Air-Conditioned rooms so people will benefit from the better work
conditions and environments. So we said let’s try it in some place and create a
POC (Proof Of Concept). We told the board, ‘give us a slot to try and if you
are not happy, unions are not happy then we will revisit’. So people agreed
that we should try. Dr P P Gupta the then CMD of CMC was very happy. He was
given the mandate to prove the concept. CMC was seen as a new organization; dynamic
and innovative. We had the talent in CMC to do this kind of things. After a lot
of effort, when we showed the unions that it can work, then we saw change.
In India at that point in time we also didn’t have the
capabilities, if there had been RFPs then they would have surely gone to the
IBMs of the world but then the mood was ‘indigenous development’. When proved
the concept, people saw it and said consumer would substantially benefit from
it as they won’t have to go through the hassle, but then the challenge was how
we did it. Even today revenue-wise freight is more important, but we wanted to
look at benefit for consumer because then the acceptance for computers overall
at a national level would be better, so in a sense it was a railway project but
it was more than that. It was a project to prove to all stakeholders; our
consumers in many fields and unions in many fields that automation is not bad.
Computers are not bad. They will upgrade the jobs. Now your people will work in
AC. All those things were critical.
What about wider adoption of IT in the railway operations?
That’s how the CRIS (Centre
for Railway Information Systems) was born. Besides reservation there are lots
of other things but it took 20yrs for people to embrace this whole idea in a big
way. Reservation and ticketing was an instant success. People thought it was a
miracle and I would say this was the first grand success for IT in India. By
then C-DOT was rolling and exchanges and telecom modernisation were seen as the
important.
Going back to the railways story, don’t you think we could
use technology to make them safer?
In the Indian Railways,
we have huge possibility to use IT for travelling, traffic billing, we have
built the highway we want satellite based or GSM based real time monitoring
anti-collision device etc. All of that it is very simple. Indian Railway has
40,000 kms of its own optical fibre they are trying to put another 10000 so IT
is becoming important in railways in traffic building. Many people die at
railway crossings everywhere. We could give the person manning it this little
device, which listens to the train coming in and gives an alarm signal that
train coming so get off the track. Technology should be used to prevent such
deaths. Very soon many technology initiatives of Indian railways are going to
be announced.
There were also other technology missions….
Yes more technology
missions came in where we could take technology to address the routine problems
of people related to water, literacy, immunization, edible oil, and telecom. These
were the 5 missions to which we added dairy development as the 6th mission.
Then we started changing the mindsets. That was a big accomplishment in a
country of then 800 million people-to convince people that technology is
something that is positive. Technology is not bad it is not urban, exotic, fancy.
To me in those 5 years this was the main accomplishment and it will benefit our
young.
What are your current preoccupations?
Today we are nation of
connected millions, unfortunately people don’t quiet appreciate this big
revolution that has happened in the history of India. So far we were a nation
of unconnected millions, now we are all connected in some fashion. You can
reach Kashmir, Mizoram, Kanya Kumari just like that. So what does it mean for a
nation going forward? How do you redesign the strategies based on connectivity for development? Should
we go around doing the same thing that we have done in the past and not notice
the fact that we are a nation of a billion connected now? Something huge
happened in last decade let’s sit back and take advantage of it. How do we do everything
we do today, differently? I think that’s the main challenge how do we examine
governance, public services.
So what it means is
that now we need to redesign the nation, if I may use that word. How do we get
birth certificate, how do we get land record, how we can file a police report.
Today when I file a police report in kerala somebody in Maharashtra can’t read
it due to different format, different column, and names do we standardize that
so that when a police report is filed in Kerala it is available in Maharashtra i.e. anybody in
Maharashtra can read it and can we do it online because we are connected? Everything
we do has to be rethought.
In a sense everything
we do today is obsolete; people say we don’t have enough professors, with connectivity
we can take a great professor from IIT Kharagpur and broadcast to 2000 colleges.
All of that is possible now, distance learning, e-governance all of this can be
a reality. Can we provide for video
conferencing so that people don’t have to travel hours for a 5 mins meeting?
What we are doing now, could have been done on Skype. So we can avoid you
travelling for an hour and half to reach this place to see me. All of these things
are possible but this will take time to change the mindset of people. I was
once telling PM, “a lot of people come to see you. You could schedule a 10 min
interview with a person in Kerala that individual gets up in the morning takes
a flight goes to PM’s house where 15 people are waiting he is always hassled it’s
going to be 7:30 then 7:45 then you meet for 5 mins and he says “Sir
ye problem hai”( Sir, such and such is a problem).. Poor guy has lost
whole day so much petrol so much time... you could do the same on video
conferencing”.
So going back to the
original thought we are nation of connected million and we need to do things differently
we need to use cameras, videos, scanning to reduce travel you know to manage
our cities better. We cannot manage our cities the way we have been managing. For
example, today everybody is focused on urbanisation but their idea is Mumbai
has 18 million people and it will become 26 million in........ But we don’t
want extrapolation. We need restructuring. How will I use GIS (Geographical
Information System) to make Mumbai better. How to use scanners to make Mumbai
secure? We really need to make our cities smarter. Come up with different ideas
how we improve our slums.
Where is the resistance now?
The government in a
sense is not technology friendly. There are young individuals like Jayaram
Ramesh’s of the world, who are tech savvy, but there are secretaries in IT who
don’t use computers. The Department of Electronics uses manual files to make
decisions; they should computerize their files, how many people in Department
of Electronics use computers to make decisions. They are taking decisions on
technology but they are using manual files. But that’s the system we have. You
never see people in Indian government taking notes on a laptop, how many
ministers know how to use laptops. You have to be connected you have to be able
to read your e-mails, you can’t write or call your secretary and say “dictate
karta hoon note likho” (will dictate a letter note it down) and then
mail it and then wait for the reply. Those days are over, we are a connected
people. We have built this nation in the last 20 years based on technology. Today
if we have over $300 billion forex reserve it is only because of technology. IT
has given us great deal of global recognition, lots of global companies of our
own, lots of success stories, our advantage is we are in large numbers.
