attaining e-governance through social change (case...

Attaining e-Governance through Social Change

(Case Study on Automated Auctioning)

Srivathsa E.S

NIIT Technologies Ltd

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Contents

1. Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 3

2. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 5

3. Business Challenge ........................................................................................................................... 6

4. Auction Process .................................................................................................................................. 7

5. Post-Auction Process ........................................................................................................................ 8

6. Auction Hall ....................................................................................................................................... 11

7. Growers Lounge ............................................................................................................................... 12

8. Godown .............................................................................................................................................. 13

9. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 18

10. Author(s) Profile ............................................................................................................................ 19

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1. Abstract

The Government of India under the Tobacco Board Act of 1975, established the

Tobacco Board. The Board came into existence from 1.1.1976 and opened its Head

Quarters at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.

India stands 3rd in production of tobacco in the World. In spite of successful

implementation of auction system for last 23 yrs., certain shortcomings were

experienced in auctioning the FCV Tobacco at board designated auction halls.

The challenges were

Corruption.

Non transparent Auction

Unfair price

Inaccurate data

With the aid of IT & Communication Technology, the Board decided to move e-

Governance way and introduced e-Auction for marketing of FCV tobacco, aiming to

overcome the pitfalls in auction system and dissemination of information to

stakeholders.

Partnering with our organization TB implemented e-Auction of tobacco across its 31

auction platforms spanning across Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka interconnecting to

HQ.

This brought significant change to life of stake holders (TB staff, Farmers, Buyers). This

also brought a challenge to organization to satisfy stakeholders.

Setup and operate infrastructure in remote places.

Maintenance and Technical staff‘s availability and managing.

Develop product easy to operate and maintain.

To make auction process transparent and accurate.

Connect to HQ.

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Considering these facts solution was built on BOO model.

The paper covers the path of implementing and overcoming the challenges to bring

significant operational change in the board activity and to the life of all stakeholders.

Transparent Auctioning.

Fair and free bidding.

Growers witnessing the auction process live.

Fair price to the grower community.

Improved operational efficiency and accuracy of data.

Data availability for market trend and price analysis.

Enabling Quick decision making.

The board along with its technical partner has been a back bone for nation’s tobacco

farmers lives and also to the trading community.

Keywords : e-Governance, e-Auction, Tobacco board

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2. Introduction

Tobacco Board, a statutory body functioning under the administrative control of Ministry

of Commerce, Govt. of India, has been set up to regulate production and marketing of

Virginia tobacco grown in the country. The headquarters of Tobacco Board is located at

Guntur with regional offices at Rajahmundry, Guntur, Ongole and Mysore.

Currently each of the regional offices of Tobacco Board has a set of auction platforms,

which are responsible for managing the crop production and auction of the produce for

a specific geographical area. The total number of Auction platforms is 31.

The board’s initiative of going e-governance way has helped the board to satisfy there

goal. The challenge was to implement a simple, cost effective IT solution that can be

implemented, maintained and managed easily at minimum cost and still uphold its

services from the board towards its main customer’s (Traders and Growers).

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3. Business Challenge

The business challenge was to remove the manual auction system and introduce a

robust electronic auctioning system that would

a. increase the efficiency of the auction process

b. Foolproof

c. Reduce human intervention in the auction process

d. Realize acceptable price for the crop,

e. Ensuring Transparency

f. Increased the operational efficiency of board.

The challenge is to improve the through put of the auction process and hence

accomplishing more quantity of tobacco auctioned. The auction data consolidated at HQ

for the reporting and analysis This data to be used for future planning and improving the

auction process and thereby to reach the goal of the board’s existence by providing fair,

transparent, efficient auction regulations that shall benefit the growers primarily and the

buyer’s business interests.

Methodology/process

Pre-Auction Process

Grower Authorization

Receipt of tobacco bale.

Issue of bale ticket after due barcoding with lot no

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4. Auction Process

Classification of tobacco by Board’s grading.

Bidding is conducted for each bale

The auctioneer announces the starting price and buyers are allowed to

participate in the bidding

The bale is awarded to buyer who bids at highest price

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5. Post-Auction Process

Acceptance or rejection by grower

Acceptance or rejection by buyer

Delivery of unsold/rejected bales to growers, Hauling to godown.

Payment to growers and buyers receipts generation.

Payment to growers by way of consolidated cheques

Data Consolidation at HQ without manual intervention.

System overview

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Process

Reception

The Receptions is the place where the gronwers bales are accepted and automatically

weight is captured with the interface and a bale ticket with bar code is generated and

then the bale enters the auction hall.

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6. Auction Hall

The HHT application enables the grading and the classification of the bale and the

Auction

The buyers (bidders) are provided with the HHT devices loaded with a separate

application through which the buyers can step up or down the bid amount once the AS

initiates the bidding. After the predefined bid time the bidder who has bidded highest

value wins the bid and auction goes on for the next bale.

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7. Growers Lounge

There are two displays one provides the details of the ongoing auction bidding lot

details and the other displays the summary of last auction details along with its status.

This way the grower can know openly the price he is getting and running price openly.

Grower can reject the auction if he has not got the price he expected. Buyer can also

reject the bale depending on the quality and other parameters. TB officials can reject

the bale based on quality and also on various parameters they have been predefined.

Each and every party involved in the auction of tobacco has equal opportunity to

exercise his decision openly and fairly.

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8. Godown

Godown module provides the storage and safeguarding the purchased tobacco of the

buyers until they are lifted. This module captures the demurrage also if there is a

predefined period is exceeded.

The system generates Delivery note and necessary documents.

The necessary data is uploaded to the HQ and the data is consolidated at HQ and MIS

reports are generated at the HQ application.

Technology Stream

Particulars Auction Plat form Head Quarters

Operating System Suze Linux Windows 2000 Enterprise

Web/App Server Tomcat Tomcat

Data base My SQL MS SQL Server 2014

Auction system Synergy e- Auction Synergy HQ Application

Languages used J2EE, .net J2EE

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Hand held devices

OS

Windows mobile -

HHT Application .net -

Operational Challenges

1. Teams alignment

2. Retaining resources.

3. Stake holders involvement

Team’s Alignment.

Since the project has two teams Infrastructure team and Application team. The

application team was made to travel to all sites to train the infrastructure team to get

equipped with the level 1 service that can be provided at APF. The infrastructure team

at onsite were nurtured and trained repeatedly. The site engineers were made as SPOC

at APF and were aligned with application team for further support.

Retaining resources.

Retaining the talent was a challenge as the teams were made to stay in remote places

and they were not part of the corporate culture. This was overcommed by frequent team

level get together and team building exercise at the onsite levels twice in a season to

ensure that the team gels well. The technical trainings and get to gathers focused on

ideas and values that can improve the support process.

Stake holder’s involvement

During each season survey of stake holders was conducted, collecting suggestion and

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ideas , the same was published to all stake holders on the status of their suggestions.

This was take with all the stake holders of the project (Farmers, Traders & TB staff).The

suggestions were discussed with TB officials and prioritized and implemented in a

timeframe.

Critical Success factors

Focused monitoring of services rendered.

Consistent Involvement of stake holders

Quick implementation of solutions

Quantified Benefits to the business after implementation of the E-Auction system

Growers Perspective

Manual System E-Auction System

• Purchase Platform run by Purchasers. • No opportunity to reject for Growers. • Price dictated by buyers. • Non Transparent auction. • Opportunity for corruption. • Approximately 400 – 500 bales / day

auctioned. • Data provided to Growers after a day

manually.

• Purchase Platform run by Board. • Growers have right to reject. • Start price declared by board. • Bidding is must and no curtailing of the

buyer. • Auction is transparent live. • Corruption free. • Approximately 1200 -1500 bales / day

auctioned. • Daily sale note is provided there by

realization of revenue in a week time. • There is a 100 % rate increase in the rate

realized by the grower.

Traders Perspective


• Bidding was done by announcing orally. • No opportunity to plan the buying of good

tobacco.

• Bidding is automated using HHT. • Can plan based on the grading using hht

provided.

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• TB Staff and buyer nexus. • Opportunity for corruption. • Data not available to them after auction. • Malpractices in delivery.

• No need to have a nexus with TB staff as its open and transparent.

• Bidding can be done without any restriction.

• Data available instantaneously after auction.

• Less chance of malpractices in delivery as its digitally coded lots.

• Appropriate calculation of service charges and demurrage.

• No errors in calculation. • One time registering and BGs can be

uploaded immediately.

Tobacco Board Perspective


• More Human resources to conduct auction. • Manual auction and too much physical

strain and stress. • Approximately 400 – 500 bales / day

auctioned. • Reporting delays. • Human errors maximum • TAT for payment was around 15 days. • Payment tracking difficult. • Difficult in loan monitoring. • Manual Gate pass generation

• Less human resource requirement to conduct auction ( reduced to one from 4 members).

• Less Strain and stress • Approximately 1500 – 1800 bales / day

auctioned • Human errors eliminated • TAT for payments less than a week. • Easy loan monitoring as it reports in sale

note. • Automated gate pass and stock verification

process using hht. • Automated reporting to HQ. • Almost Paperless reporting achieved.

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Stake holder’s opinion

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9. Conclusion

Overall a great opportunity to serve the farming community (back bone of our country)

using technology to realize there price for there hard grown crop and in satisfaction of

serving the nation with technology being part of the e-governance project.

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10. Author(s) Profile

Name : Srivathsa E,S

PMP # 1606731

PMI Membership #: 2504423

Organization: NIIT Technologies Ltd.

Address: 31/2, RK Towers,

Hosur Main Road, Rupena Agrahara

Bangalore- 560068

Phone: +918030289500

Fax: +918030289799

Mobile: +919980933564

Official Email: [email protected]

Personal Email: [email protected]

https://my.pmi.org/profile/membership

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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Engineer in computer science and engineering from kuvempu university, Karnataka, A

PMP certified professional started career as a software engineer and climbed the ladder

up to Sr. Project manager with and experience of 15+ years in the field of software

development now managing some of the complex projects.

Has successfully executed projects across Technologies and domains like e-

Governance, Banking, Publishing, Automobile, Agriculture and Finance, transportation,

Travel and Logistics, Automation of cargo management at major Indian international

airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore etc.

Has been executing e-auction system for Tobacco board, A enterprise of ministry of

commerce, union government of India.

attaining e-governance through social change (case...

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