DailyPost 2432
GOVERNANCE TECHNOLOGY
Have you heard of something of this nature? Does the procurement and usage of technology in government happen in bits and pieces, not converging into one single purpose. Even the technologies used can be of differential versions and levels, whether there was a goal thought of, is another big question mark. Given the vast gamut of activities which the government covers, all of it being conspicuously different from the corporate functioning in its very requirement, nature, and output, there is need to have a complete new genre of technology called governance technology. The open market fishing has brought us here, it can not take us any further.
Infusion of large inputs of management education and practice in the government has not yielded the desired results. It will not. A corporate consultant can understand and deliver governance results is a misconception. A business case study will not deliver the results which can emanate out of the governance case study. But we hardly have any. Same is the state of affairs with technology or may be worse. While everyone vouches for technology, who is there to make it all pervasive. Even if the thought ever erupts in someone’s mind, how will it be brought into action. With uniformity and standardization not being our hallmark how far can be we go. A NIST type of organization is must for creation of this whole genre of governance technology in India.
This would provide the confidence to move forward. While the government facilitated VPN during Covid times, so that the corporate world worked uninterrupted, how many in the government were having that facility and for what purpose. But for essential services, can work from home run the government, whatever might be the eventuality. Can the governmental organizations involved in the trade of transforming India by digital tools, infra and practice, been able to develop products of the scale, value, usage, robust and resilient? If you try to manage technology will never manage what you intend to manage. It is bluffing your own self.
The steel frame today cannot run of statements, sweet talking, presentations, proclamations, claims and counter claims. It needs a genre of technology, specific in nature, iterated and validated over time which crisscrosses integrating the government seamlessly, to deliver multifarious results based on governance rules and logic. The access and privileges provided to differential levels across organizations depending on business need can transform governance. Can a SAP run the complex governance of this country? Unity in diversity of governance can ushered in only through technology, tailor made for this purpose. Readymade does not work. On size fits all and that too for India is the running joke of technology in governance. We need a blueprint to start with? Who will bell the cat? Time is running out? *What role can a specialized large language model do for the government?
SANS GOVERNACNE TECHNOLOGY, WE WILL BEATING AROUND THE GOVERNANCE BUSH.
Sanjay Sahay