“ITForParivahan” enters next phase as Industry lauds path breaking initiative

Overview of Roads and Highways sector in India:

India has 5.23 million km long road network which is 2^nd largest in the world while out of it just 0.1 million are National Highways and Expressways. Importantly, National Highways carry about 40% of country’s total traffic even though they are just 1.7% of total road length. Economically also Roads play significantly role as India’s 65% of freight and 80% passenger traffic is carried.

Indian roads are one of deadliest roads in the world as about 1.4 lakh people died during 2014 due to road accidents while 4.93 lakhs got wounded. India is losing at least 16 precious lives per hour caused by road mishaps. In 2014, more than 4.89 lakh road accidents were reported in the country out of 37% caused by over speeding. Importantly, 75,000 who died were between 15 to 34 years and 82% of them male i.e. young earning population.

Growth in road construction for India has not been in line with growth in number of vehicles for last many years. Currently, more than 190 million vehicles are running on Indian roads and expected to post double digits growth in coming years. Since May 2014, speed of road construction has jumped from 2 km per day to more than 15 km per day and expected to touch 30 km per day by March 2016. Even after that nobody can deny the fact that Indian roads are getting crowded every day posing huge challenge for safety of commuters.

IT Task Force:

Understanding its importance and role in development of India, the Government of India formed IT taskforce for ministry of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping. The mandate of taskforce is - Leveraging IT for transparency, economy, speed and reach to achieve “Minimum Government Maximum Governance”. Chaired by Hon. Minister Shri. Nitin Gadkari; IT Task Force members include Dr. Mohandas Pai, Vinit Goenka, Prashant Pole, Girish Shrivastava and Abhijit Desai.

ITForParivahan:

As a part of IT Taskforce initiatives, Mohandas Pai (Ex. CFO of Infosys) and Vinit Goenka (Ex. IBM, Former Co-convener BJP National IT-Cell) launched mass crowdsourcing initiative called “ITForParivahan”. The nationwide dedicated team of more than 150 technocrats led by Shri. Vinit Goenka is reaching out large number of people to invite suggestions and ideas.

As a part of an initiative, more than 11 million are contacted via Email while Social Media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Linkedin being used to create awareness among common citizens. As a part of month long Phase 1 which ended on 15^th October 2015, more than 35,000 suggestions were received. More than 30% suggestions came related to safety and security followed by efficiency & speed (22%), Innovation (12%) and Transparency (8%).

Twitter campaign with hashtag #ITForParivahan created lot of buzz on Social Media as large number of tweeples joined by sending views and ideas. Importantly, ITForParivahan is a great example how Social Media and Digital platform can be effectively use to reach to involve common citizen as a part of participatory governance.       

ITForParivahan Conclave

To conclude Phase I, ITForParivahan Conclave was organized on 23^rd October 2015 at New Delhi. Large number of industry leaders from IT sector attended the event to understand the concept as well as view top ideas presented.

Mohandas Pai emphasized about role of ITForParivahan to create startups to boost Make in India and Digital India. He also stressed on role of Public Transport in urban India and how modern technologies can create efficiency and speed for it.

Another notable personality, Debjani Ghosh (MD, Intel South Asia) highlighted the market potential which ITForParivahan crated for IT Industry. She also appealed for bringing in innovative solutions to improve safety of women commuters as females constitute large proportion in service industry.

Founder and CEO of risk management consulting firm, ORKASH, Mr. Ashish Sonal highlighted need to create full proof solutions to eliminate leakages in the system for increased transparency by following practical and out of the box approach.

Executive Director of MAIT, Anwar Shirpurwala spoke about role of ITForParivahan to create collaborative ecosystem between Government and IT industry which could lead to large number of newer jobs.  

Vinit Goenka, who championed entire initiative of ITForParivahan, talked about importance of participatory governance for policy making. As a result, nation can achieve true essence of democracy by making government more accountable and responsive.

He also lauded efforts and involvement of youths who voluntarily joined ITForParivahan to contribute for nation building. He said ITForParivahan is a testimony of the fact, if key decision makers create right platform then citizens would respond positively and contribute.

The Road Ahead

ITForParivahan has entered Phase II and reaching out to industry, consultants, experts and influencers. With increased focus by government on infrastructure development in coming years, roads and highways would play important role and expected to generate more than 50 lakh jobs in next 5 years.

ITForParivahan can provide much needed technological edge to create modern transport infrastructure. It would also boost technological adoption of by creating platform for innovators, IT industry and systems providers to create new niche of market in coming years. It would also bring synergy among government initiatives like MakeInIndia, Digital India and Smart City by leveraging Information Technology in Parivahan.

ITForParivahan is a paradigm shift which Indian democracy always needed to involve various segments into governance and policy making by providing easy and friendly platform.