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Unit 1: IT for Managers

While most government agencies struggle with getting buy-in from users, members of Notes
the IT department welcomed the computerisation. However, it wasn’t a breeze. As with
most e-governance projects, the biggest problems were faced at the grassroot level. The
department is now pursuing a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) exercise, which is
expected to improve intelligence gathering and decision-making capabilities.
Apart from tracking evaders, there’s another reason why BPR is being driven with such
urgency: an increasing number of assesees. Meanwhile, creating fire-tracks to trap evaders
was only part of the battle. There was an immediate need to hose down other fronts that
are increasingly open to attack. An ever-growing amount of tax information being
unloaded on the system is creating vast fields of data that could go up in flames – leaving
the department without a back-up plan. A business continuity site that’s being set up in
Mumbai and a cold disaster recovery site in Chennai will fix this and allow the department
to focus its energies into monitoring almost all tax-related matters on a continuous basis.

With among the highest instances of citizen interaction, the department requires
tremendous cooperation from the government – and the department is getting it. Mathur
says, “the government is open-handedly and open-heartedly supporting the department.”
He isn’t being euphemistic; the government is paying for IT in the IT department ` 1,000
crore of it.
With so much support, the department feels obliged to pro-actively implement the network
plan, but it can’t do it all. This is why it decided to outsource some of its work to organisations
like National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL), which has been entrusted with the
management of the network and three key subsystems: Electronic Return Acceptance and
Consolidation System (ERACS), Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS) and Central PAN
Ledger Generation System (CPLGS). With NSDL acting as a clearinghouse for information,
the department is free to roll ahead with its BPR project. The results of the re-engineering
will go live on June 30, 2006. Part of this rollout will include a new three-tiered architecture,
something that is critical to establish the single centralised database in Delhi. Mathur
affirms that “everything is totally in place.”

It’s hard to find fault with his confidence considering that the department won the Golden
Icon at the Ninth National Conference on e-governance in 2006. Mathur completely
dismisses any chance of failure.
Questions
1. Make a list of benefits of moving from a fully manual system to an IT-enabled one.
2. Research a little about National Computer Centre of India. When was it established
and what are its functions?

Source: http://www.cio.in/case-study/it-stands-i-t-department

1.6 Summary

 Information technology is related to studying, designing and developing information
related to computers.

 IT has been used for improving productivity, reducing cost, enhancing decision making
process, enhancing customer relationships, and developing new strategic applications.
 The function of IT is to ensure that an environment can remain safe and free of viruses or,
in the case of an email network, free of spam that can slow down progress and affect a
person’s access to their own account.

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