In a significant departure from the “Make in India” posture, India which can compete with the world for global IT super power status has adopted a surprisingly approach to hosting Government data on the cloud which is both a concern for information security and also a measure that could kill indigenous public sector organizations like NIC and BSNL.
When Mr Modi took over, one of his policies which attracted me most was the idea of turning Public Sector units profitable by bringing in a “Private Sector Management Culture” instead of actually privatizing the holding. During the UPA days, there was a systematic effort to kill public sector to benefit vested private sector interests through corrupt practices. In this process, Air India as well as BSNL/MTNL turned sick only to make the private sector counterparts grow in strength. Part of this was due to the lack of efficiency of the public sector employees who failed to modernize their approach with the changes in the environment, but most of it was due to the active political support to the private sector competitors.
The “Make In India” concept was also a right step in this direction of making public sector operation profitable without privatization of ownership. Air India has now become better. Railways is showing significant innovative approach to stay profitable. IT might not have done enough to exploit all the opportunities as it has stumbled from one bad decision to another such as the encryption policy, the Facebook policy etc..
Obviously, the private sector also has to survive and we need FDI and therefore there is a need to find a compromise solution in certain sectors where foreign investment is inevitable since indigenous services are not available. However in the field of telecom the local resources must be good enough to make a significant progress with indigenous initiatives lead by public sector agencies which have a huge infrastructure.
It is therefore necessary to find solutions to effectively use available resources in terms of hardware, software and network with BSNL and NIC as well as CDAC to ensure that a big part of India’s growth comes with the use of these public sector agencies. There is no need to kill these agencies just to promote private interests.
Even when the first dilution of this policy has to be accommodated, we need to first look at Indian Corporates before we turn to foreign agencies.
Indian private sector has the freedom to offer their services globally and so are the foreign companies operating in India. Hence we cannot be too restrictive to foreign businesses to pick up business opportunities in India and we need to accept that these are commercial operations have to go on for the sake of providing level playing field to international trade.
However, when it comes to handling of “Information” particularly from the “Government”, the issues of National Security should be paramount. With increasing interest in “Big Data” and data mining for international espionage, cyber terrorism and cyber war, we cannot jeopardize national security by exposing national security sensitive data to the international private sector companies who will not have any commitment to India’s national security and will also be under a legal obligation to provide a backdoor to US intelligence agencies.
Despite the growing friendship with US and the possibility of defense collaboration with them, India’s interests will be best served by keeping its cards close to its chest as long as feasible.
We therefore feel that the decision of the Government to consider allowing its departments to use cloud services of IBM, Amazon and Microsoft is retrograde. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) should therefore revisit its proposal to host data from different Government departments on the services of these foreign companies even if they set up servers in India.
The Meity often takes its decisions in consultation with NASSCOM which is highly influenced and driven by the interests of private sector mostly of the Microsoft type. The bureaucrats in the department are either unable to take or not willing to take a tough stand against commercial interests represented by NASSCOM.
Naavi.org recently pointed out how DSCI promoted FIDO Alliance products by conducting special seminars in Bangalore and Mumbai (Is NASSCOM promoting an Online authentication system which is not ITA 2008 compliant?).
A trend has set in where NASSCOM becomes a shelter for retiring Meity employees and hence the cozy relationship is natural and will continue.
It is therefore necessary for wiser men in the PMO to ensure that the commercial influence does not corrupt the National Security posture of the decisions. Hence in certain areas, public sector agencies need to be given a priority treatment. If they lack necessary expertise or technology, efforts should be to fill in the gaps rather than blame the people who may be fighting a battle with one hand tied behind their backs.
Presently there are two areas in which Government can show its resolve to “Privatize the Management of Public Sector agencies” like BSNL and NIC.
First we shall consider BSNL. It has a huge telecom network which includes Optic fiber network and connectivity to villages through landlines. This network needs to be fully harnessed.
At the same time we are seeing Reliance Jio entering at the high end market of VoLTE and trying to capture a substantial part of the market. Today Jio is a greater threat for Airtel than BSNL. But in due course Jio may also start hurting BSNL if no corrective steps are taken now.
The other private sector players have already ganged up in a cartel to deny inter connectivity to Jio which is illegal and against their license terms. However, since it is a question of their survival, they will find some means to ensure that Jio services are disrupted from time to time to the extent that their customers will be frustrated enough to try to remain with the competing service providers. The legacy service providers may resist number porting to Jio and ensure that customers delay their shifting to Jio.
This fight will go to TRAI and TRAI’s decision whatever it be will go to Supreme Court and over the next 6 month, this battle will create a huge mess in the telecom segment that will put our Digital progress back by several years.
But BSNL cannot join this dirty fight. It has to protect its interest separately. We also need to find a solution to clear this mess in the larger interest of the country.
In this context, I see one solution here where there can be a “Win-Win” possibility for BSNL and Jio.
I think BSNL and Jio should explore the possibility of collaboration where BSNL will provide a “Gateway Switch” to connect Jio customers to any network (Universal switch to connect to other networks from BSNL proxyID) where the request for connectivity from Jio to other networks are connected through a proxy server of BSNL so that the other networks will not be able to identify and filter out Jio requests. BSNL can charge a fee to Jio for the service. If these calls are to be dropped, the competitors would have to block BSNL connectivity requests also which will legally be “Denying Service to disrupt a Government Network” which can be considered as an offence under Section 66F of ITA 2000/8 (Yes, it is called Cyber Terrorism). I suppose therefore that BSNL will be a shield with which Jio can have a smooth business devoid of unfair practices.
In return, BSNL can ensure that it remains the king in landline business besides retaining its existing residual business in 2G, 3G and 4G voice and data. I also see a potential in running a secure 2G voice network for Government servants to avoid conversations between Government officials being tapped by international spy agencies.
This would also prevent Jio from eating into the landline business of BSNL in future since their Optical Fiber network has the potential for killing the BSNL landline business as well.
The strategy therefore would help BSNL survive and grow in its domain of strength and benefit by the interconnectivity proxy services that are suggested here.
I am sure that Airtel and others would oppose such a move under the TRAI guidelines as improper but I think there is a legal possibility of providing such services within the current license provisions. The threat of Jio-BSNL collaboration should be sufficient to soften the industry players to stop their unfair practice and grudgingly allow number porting and connectivity to Jio.
As regards NIC, its business potential can be in data center services and digital signature services. Presently NIC is restricting its services to Government sector. If MeiTY wants to open out Government business to private sector, there is no reason why they should mind if NIC also goes for private sector business. This may generate good revenue for NIC by bringing its service charges on par with the private sector. CDAC can certainly help NIC in technology upgradation. Even IDRBT may be able to merge its digital signature business with NIC so that the digital signature and e-sign business can be run as a profit making venture between NIC , CDAC and IDRBT.
This conglomerate should also be able to offer many commercial services to the citizens in the Digi Locker related services and Aadhar Authentication services and become hugely profitable.
I am aware that there are many technical inadequacies with NIC which need to be addressed. But CDAC is capable of addressing these technical inadequacies and the network of Government sector is large enough to harness the business across the country. CDAC should also not drop its old project to find our indigenous operating system for computers.
If these two organizations namely BSNL and NIC-Private become profitable, then India’s Digital India dream would get a good boost.
Hope Government at the PMO level starts thinking of these possibilities without depending on recommendations from NASSCOM driven interests.
Naavi
