Article by Vijay Pal Dalmia, Advocate, Supreme Court of
India and Delhi High Court, Partner & Head of Intellectual
Property Laws Division, Vaish Associates Advocates,
India
Email id: vpdalmia@vaishlaw.com
Mobile No.: +91 9810081079
The India Enterprise Infrastructure Architecture (IndEA) 2.0 plan proposed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), India, with the premise behind such a plan being focus on the continuous evolution of the digital ecosystem as well the reliance of government bodies and agencies on using such ecosystems, for the sake of ease and convenience. In lieu of rapid changes in regards to key data being stored on separate ecosystems for separate governmental agencies, and state and central government bodies; the plan simply aims to lay down a "sandbox framework" in order to better facilitate the ease of interoperability between these separate but inter-related agencies.
The previous iteration of the plan, IndEA 1.0, was also created keeping in mind further improvements to be carried out to the plan, and was formulated with the aim of establishing "best-in-class architectural governance, processes, and practices with optimal utilization of ICT infrastructure and applications to offer one Government experience to the citizens and businesses"1.
While the first framework simply aimed at enabling for the utilization itself of "enterprise architecture" via establishing dedicated cloud services and online platforms for the larger holistic goal of enabling better systems of e-Governance, as it was kickstarted by the Digital India campaign. The first framework placed larger emphasis on "unity in diversity", while the 2.0 plan, aims at ensuring more inter-operability between the systems that the first plan established and seeks to do so by instilling more uniformity. The differences between the two shall be highlighted further, and before doing so, one must first understand what all the 2.0 plan entails and whether or not it is capable of actually facilitating what it seeks to create.
Why establish a Framework?
India has made significant strides in trying to improve its e-Government Development Index (eGDI) which aims at quantifying the ease of accessing and utilizing e-Governance services in any nation. This improvement has seen it accrue a rating of 0.5964 in the index, which ranks 100 amongst 193 nations, and is still below the global average, and significantly lower than the global best of 0.91932. The ease of access and facilities of e-Governance and very significant in affecting how many foreign investors might be interested in any particular nation, and overall, directly affects the means to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for any country, and the inter-connectivity between governmental systems and systems of enterprises, and how efficiently they can operate together, plays a pivotal role in doing so3. Therefore, simply ignoring such data, presuming that it is not affecting the growth of the nation directly, would be naivety. This, coupled with the continuous and ever-growing development of the Information Technology sector, not only in India but across the globe, are what led to the formulation of the Digital India plan, in 2015, to move alongside the growing changes, instead of being left behind and having too catch-up.
As a part of this scheme, the original IndEA framework was proposed, and eventually, the newer IndEA 2.0 framework being introduced, keeping in mind the downfalls of the previous framework. The older model enabled for state and central government bodies, bifurcated into eight separate frameworks, to formulate their own systems for enabling e-Governance. The issue that came about with such a model was that many of these would end up creating platforms that are either not interconnected with others, or would create platforms that couldn't be connected with a common data repository even if they tried. The need of the hour then, swiftly, changed towards unifying these systems in the next framework that might be proposed, as these frameworks can further facilitate more growth in the IT sector, and into avenue of artificial technology as well.
Firstly, the newer framework attempted to solve this issue by implementing a core central framework as the 'foundation' of the framework as a whole. This core would also act as a repository for other frameworks, thereby unifying all the smaller systems while also ensuring diversity amongst the other systems.
Another approach by which it facilitates this unification of platforms is by calling for the unification of the ID systems employed by these separate platforms. Similar to what Aadhar aimed to do with simplifying the process of physical verification, this framework seeks to use the central repositories as the hub for these common IDs, which can be used to log in to all the separate platforms. This would make the process of accessing these e-Governance websites a lot more efficient and streamlined for the end-user as well as making it easier for the intermediaries to access data from one platform to another by simply relying on the central repository as the main hub.
With this streamlined system of having registries in place, there are other factors that must also be considered. A system to ensure authentication of these IDs must also be put in place, in order to certify the veracity of the user and their IDs. In order to make this system easier, platforms and repositories are encouraged to put in place systems of KYC (Know Your Customer) in order to link key identification instruments, such as Aadhar, with the virtual user ID. This only strengthens the veracity of each user ID created and helps the platforms in ensuring no empty or bot accounts as well. This information can also be further connected to the central repository, which would mean each different platform can have access to this, if need be, thereby supplementing the goal of ease and efficiency, which this framework seeks to accomplish.
Problems with the Framework
At first glance, establishing a central repository to keep hold of all crucial information of the users of several platforms can create a very simple problem: if one holds all this data in one place, how does one protect it. The security of this data becomes a pivotal issue because if such data is subject to any form of breaches, it can very easily put sensitive information in the wrong hands and can cause unprecedented damages. There was foresight in the framework, in regards to this issue, and in order to prevent such damages, it recommends the creation of Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA), done so by NITI Aayog, which is aimed at creating such architecture that acts as the barrier between the central repository and all other platforms.
This not only ensures systems of protection of data from outsiders but also ensures a verification platform which platforms must first pass through, in order to gain access to the central repository. Taking inspiration from the GDPR, enacted in EU nations, and other international legislation aimed at data protection, the DEPA aims to ensure systems of protection and verification, as the information it seeks to protect is extremely sensitive.
Another problem that arises out of having just a single repository or hub is that the value of this hub increases with an increase in flow of data. With more and more platforms being linked, this repository increases its worth much more significantly, and the problem in doing so arises with the intermediary in such instances or the "middle man" as a layman would call it. The intermediaries tasked with maintaining the flow of such data between providers and end-users are only as valuable as the flow of data itself between the provider and the user. Higher transfer of data and storage of data means the intermediary will have much more of a monopoly on such data and thereby would be able to levy higher fees/taxes, as the case may be, for such data.
In order to prevent this, the system that IndEA Framework 2.0 suggests, does not simply include a link between separate platforms and one localized repository. It seeks to establish a core for these individual platforms itself, which acts as the repository for data for these platforms. These, in turn, are linked with the central repository, thereby allowing for unity without forcing uniformity. This ensures the diversity of the platforms, in regards to the data they collect and the separate purposes of each platform, while also ensuring that these platforms will have access to other platforms for data on any particular user that wishes to use their platform. The flow of value, that this decentralization creates, is elucidated much more clearly in the figure below4;
This idea of unification without falling victim to uniformity, is not only emphasized by the afore-said flow of value, but is further strengthened by the fact that these registries that this framework wishes to establish, will not be universal, but would be federated registries, meaning each registry will exist for a specific purpose. These registries will be further linked to the providers using a common gateway, which can ensure that the data on these separate registries is secure, while not affecting the efficiency in the flow of information as well.
As it has been mentioned above as well, the key to linking these registries lies in the creation of the Digital ID, which much like the Aadhar scheme, wishes to streamline the process of accessing different domains for different departments of the government, by ensuring access via one common digital ID. This digital ID therefore, acts as the common link between the registries of different domains.
Importance of the Framework
The framework does not directly establish any frameworks but rather lays down the architecture around which the "way forward" can be framed for e-Governance in the country. The framework seeks to empower the central government to further facilitate the creation of these registries by the individual departments and calls for the government to thereby provide adequate technical as well as financial support needed in order to do so. The framework, rather than imposing anything that can have any immediate impact, focuses majorly on the holistic vision of establishing a large network by which ease of e-Governance can be established. It's a medium to long-term plan, in that larger scheme of Digital India, with the sole aim being to improve access to information via digital means in the country as a whole.
It is constituted by a set of 45 building blocks organized into ten groups or 'zones' of the master plan. Five of them are core, 12 are common, and 11 are reference building blocks; the plan does aim at laying down the best foundation for further improvements and changes to be built upon. The rest are building blocks at the domain or state level5. Such long-term plans are a step in the right direction; however, the true success of these longer plans comes after viewing how the execution of these takes place. If done correctly, the plan acts as a good enabler, a stepping stone towards what it seeks to achieve, and what has been aforementioned to be the sole aim of the plan, which is to shift many facets of Governance to a digital ecosphere to ease the access of these facilities and to improve the conditions of e-Governance in a country as diverse as India, which it does by not aiming to forcefully impose some metric of uniformity across separate systems, but to recognize the distinction that might arise between these separate domain, and despite this, aiming to unify them.
Conclusion
The larger purpose of the Digital India plan by the Central government, which in itself is responsible for this framework, was to move towards establishing a presence of India in the digital ecosphere as well. This benefits any nation because digital systems have observably led to an increase in efficiency and thereby directly supplement the growth of any economy. The holistic approach taken in striving towards this goal is a much-needed breath of fresh air, as the plan does not seek to change too much, while establishing means for change. It simply lays down the framework for which further progress can be made in e-Governance, and lays down the architecture for establishing an ecosystem for the government to provide its own services, and seeks to do so in a better manner, especially relative to the first IndEA framework.
With approaches such as this, it encourages the central government to move forth towards more progress in the digital sector, and to improve the position of the country as a whole, not only in terms of the e-Government Development Index, as aforementioned, but also to keep progressing with the digital sphere, which directly affects the growth of the country.
Footnotes
1. IndEA Framework (2018), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY);
Accessed from; https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/IndEA_Framework_1.0.pdf
2. Data Accessed from; https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data/Country-Information/id/77-India
3. Boh, W. F., & Yellin, D. (2006). Using Enterprise Architecture Standards in Managing Information Technology. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(3), 163-207.
4. Supra, 1, pp. 41.
Accessed from; https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/InDEA%202_0%20Report%20Draft%20V6%2024%20Jan%2022_Rev.pdf
5. Overview of the IndEA 2.0 Framework, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY);
Accessed from; https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Brief_Overview_of_IndEA_2.pdf
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