Empowering Digital Citizens: How Digital Transformation is Revitalising Public Services in India
By Anuj Kapur
For years, governments have been discussing the ongoing ‘wave’ of digital transformation – how states will be able to automate administrative processes and move traditionally non-digital information, such as healthcare, tax records, land registries, wills and probate services, and much more online. The ultimate ambition of digitising these services and operations is to make it easier and more efficient for public servants to access and manage documents and information necessary to handle a case, and in turn, make it easier for citizens to access vital government services. Digitisation can include both the scanning of documents and fiche but also the application of metadata to PDFs and the extraction of data from existing digital documents.
The Core of Digital Transformation
If digitisation can optimise resources and improve timelines and service, why is the public sector still dealing with a patchwork of traditional and digital archives? To achieve digital transformation is to tackle the digitisation of sensitive and confidential document collections, in many cases in a variety of different formats, usually for long-term preservation. To do this, technology providers need to understand the pain points of the public sector and work with them to understand workflow issues and regulatory compliance requirements and overcome inertia. Data protection laws, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, establish strict requirements and processes to safeguard the confidentiality of documents and personal data. These regulations must be taken into consideration throughout any digitisation programme.
Many industries encounter the same challenges faced by public administrations – they have to digitise a mixture of traditional, physical and digital archives. It is therefore essential to analyse how the documents within these archives are organised and managed, as well as the frequency with which they are consulted to determine the digitisation workflow to use and best document management platform to use.
In some cases, it is necessary to develop new software to work with legacy systems. Administrations must also consider how they want to digitise. Looking at outsourcing services, undertaking a complete transformation of systems and processes, or staggered digitisation of records are all viables paths dependent on need.
Digitisation in Action: Best Practices & Key Steps
To digitise documents in a secure, compliant manner that optimises their usability, it is essential to start from the ground up, classifying documents by type, security and confidentiality level, as well as by frequency of use and safeguarding times. At this essential first step, on which the rest of the digitisation workflow is based, it is essential to carry out a cleaning process. Documents that are no longer valid, or that must legally be destroyed after a certain period, should be identified and destroyed or removed from digital systems. This destruction process also makes it possible to optimise space and reduce costs for digitisation projects.
Once the identification phase is complete it is necessary to begin the actual digitisation. For hard-copy records this will include scanning, but existing digital documents may also need to be made searchable or use AI and ML to identify and extract data which can then be transferred to a database. Digitisation can be carried out by government agencies either on their own premises or externally at a secure, third-party site. Some third parties do also offer on-site scanning at customer premises and due to the nature of the documents government and public bodies have in their custody, many prefer this approach, although it is typically less cost- and time-efficient.
After the digitisation phase, digitised documents are stored in an appropriate system. This step should be adapted to the needs of the organisation, so that it can be done either on its own platform or on a third-party platform. A system suited for ongoing information management or archiving will give civil servants the ability to automatically apply document retention rules for data privacy compliance.
The final phase, automation, involves creating automatic process flows, often between different sets of data, for maximum efficiency. This enables employees to access information more quickly and easily, improving response times and agility in customer service.
Transforming Public Sector Thought
Resistance to change is a common element in all public administration and has been a serious barrier to digitisation and digital transformation efforts. However, ‘change fatigue’ is also increasingly common.
This challenge can be addressed by highlighting the benefits of adopting new technologies, demonstrating the benefits of implementing this type of initiative, and keeping programmes as simple and goal focused as possible.
The end-goal of digital transformation in the public sector is to remove the obstacles that limit access to government services, speed up processes while maintaining or improving accuracy, and improve the experience of citizens. Through the digitisation of legacy documents from health services, tax offices and social security departments, governments can guarantee the security and confidentiality of the records that shape the lives of their citizens and empower civil servants to optimise services.
The rise of the digital native calls for the creation of a digital world that works for all, and it is the role of technology providers to work closely with governments to make this a reality.
Where Does India Stand?
The Covid-19 pandemic was a catalyst that accelerated these digital transformation efforts as large populations like India were subjected to prolonged lockdowns which compelled the citizens to work remotely and use technology to perform mundane tasks like banking. As a response to address the situation, the Government fast tracked efforts and made rapid technological advancements, while also investing in the broader technology sector. This approach was further outlined and formalized in the country’s Digital Strategy and National e-Governance Programme (NeGP). Subsequently, several initiatives have been launched under these programs over the last few years, with a key focus to achieve seamless public service accessibility. Thus, the digitalization of records has not only allowed governments to optimize their resources, but also be more agile in their information management.
(The author is Anuj Kapur, Vice President & Head of India Region, Iron Mountain, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
