QUESTION 1.

• Talking about the massive opportunity for Indian businesses, especially SMEs, Amit
Deshpande, Director Seller Services, Amazon India said “In recent years, the growth of
global e-commerce has made export of products an intensifying force in India’s foreign trade,
offering millions of enterprises, most of which are small and medium Businesses (SMB’s), an
opportunity to expand beyond the domestic market. There is great demand for Indian products,
not only from the millions of Indians living abroad but global consumers across ethnicities who
benefit from a vast and unique selection at reasonable prices from Indian sellers. We look
forward to helping businesses navigate through the complexities of selling globally and develop
an international footprint by leveraging the enormous demand for their products across borders
and thus transform the way India makes and sells.”

• To enable businesses take Indian creations to the world, Amazon has

provided local enablement solutions through verified third party service
providers. These initiatives include logistics partners, tax consultants
and compliance experts to make the process of global selling smooth and
friction-free.

• To help manufacturers and businesses familiarize themselves with the

tastes and preferences of the local country where they are selling and
launch relevant selection, Amazon’s global selling team also helps them
understand local demand patterns, while also helping sellers improve the
discoverability of their products on each marketplace.

• There are over a million independent businesses selling in Amazon store

worldwide and they account for over half of all products sold. Actually,
their sales continue to outpace our own retail sales which is exciting to
see. We know that customers value a wide selection and the opportunity
to discover local small businesses. Selling partners play a key role in that
for us and offer products across all categories.
 • While COVID-19 has created many challenges for small businesses,
Amazon have seen smaller companies continue to grow with them,
despite the crisis. In 2020, the number of U.S. SMB (small and medium
businesses) sellers that surpassed $1 million in sales grew by more than
20% and more than 3,700 surpassed $1 million in sales for the first time.
And, SMBs selling on the Amazon.com store have created an estimated
1.1 million jobs.

Reasons for Small Business

Success:

• In the emerging global economy, e-commerce has

increasingly become a necessary component of business

strategy and work as a strong catalyst for economic

development. E- Commerce plays a pivotal role in the

growth of small and medium enterprises in India as its adoption

are spreading at a fast rate. The success of

SMEs stands at the usage of e-commerce in the business.

• In recent years, computers and the Internet have become

an integral part of the societies. The Internet has created
a new medium for communication and commerce for the
businesses. Today, it is hard to imagine a business
working without using a computer. These technological
advances have also largely affected small and medium-
sized enterprises (SMEs). While large companies have
been quick to adopt information and communication
 technologies, SMEs have been slow to adopt these
technologies in general for various reasons, especially in
developing countries.

The Benefits of Technology for the

Small Business Sector

We are living in a time where the internet is an integral part of our lives. Either
it’s about choosing the right route for your destination, or, researching before
purchasing something, the internet has covered it all. There is no denying the
fact that we are moving towards a world that would be internet dependent.
Especially during the times of COVID-19, when consumer behaviour has
witnessed a shift towards online shopping, it’s the right time for you to
understand the effects and benefits of eCommerce to take your retail store
online.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs:

As the pandemic propels a speedy shift towards automation, micro, small, and
medium enterprises (MSMEs) need to be made part of this transition to ensure more
inclusive growth and faster poverty alleviation. The Coronavirus outbreak caught
digitally unschooled companies on the back foot. In the aftermath of the pandemic,
industrial automation has seen an acceleration across sectors as it had a visible impact
on operations in factories due to the fear of infections. Conversely, digital natives
managed to keep operations ticking from the outset as they were conversant with the
remote working model.

Indeed, digitally savvy companies have been part of the ongoing Industry 4.0
paradigm from its early days, introducing automation in their traditional
manufacturing and industrial activities by deploying smart technologies.
Besides automation, smart business and manufacturing practices comprise big
data capabilities the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, machine learning,
and more.

Learning from how the digitally connected entities better-managed supply

chain disruptions, some of the digital latecomers have been fast-tracking digital
and automation programmes. Supported by 24×7 connectivity, automation,
advanced analytics, and smart manufacturing practices, ‘acceleration’ is the
buzzword in adopting norms of Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. Additionally, automation and AI-enabled tools are especially
beneficial for sectors grappling with a severe shortage of workers. Some of the
latter migrated to their native towns due to the closure of manufacturing units
during the nationwide lockdown.
Small, independent manufacturers
could be crucial to reshaping
industry post-COVID

Pandemic has impacted 82% of small businesses

• COVID-19 showed the limits of globalized manufacturing processes

to meet people's needs.
• Localized production could allow for greater resilience and
opportunity as the globe struggles with the coronavirus.
 ✓ The resultant lockdowns, which are springing up again across the
country with rise in cases, have an impact on the economic front as
demand disappears along with dip in income generation.

✓ The survey was conducted among over 250 companies, evenly split
between the manufacturing and services industries, having a turnover of
₹100-250 crore yearly.

✓ Over two-thirds of those surveyed, or 70 per cent, said it will take them
nearly a year to recover demand levels prior to COVID-19.

✓ Citing its interactions with small businesses over the last two decades,
the company said access to markets and better credit facility has been the
major challenges in scaling up their operations.
Better credit facilities were the top-most voted aspect by companies, with 59 per
cent of them saying it can aid in post-pandemic revival, followed by better
marketing support (48 per cent) and adoption of technology (35 per cent).
QUESTION 2.

E-Governance is clearly emerging as a tool for greater accountability and

transparency, better service delivery and for linking the government and
citizens.
E-Governance is how government works, shares information, and delivers
services to external and internal clients. It harnesses information and
communication technology (ICT) to transform relationships with citizens and
businesses, and between arms of the government. Benefits of the same can
include reduced corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, higher
revenues, and lower costs. Use of ICT in e-Governance can serve a variety of
different ends including better delivery of government services to citizens,
improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through
access to information, and more efficient government management.

Salient Features by government to citizens (G2C) initiative conducted in the are

recently.
-Computerization of land records.
-Computerizing records of rights.
-Computerizing details of crops. cultivation, soil classification, irrigation.
-Scanning of basic land records and digitization of cadastral maps.
-Online issuance of birth certificate.

C. Key benefits of the G2C initiative.

-To enhance the quality of government services to citizens-number of citizens
complaints fell down by 50%.
-To bring in more transparency in services offered by government- 65% of citizens
have been satisfied.
-To reduce cost of citizens-45% of citizens where happy with the initiative.
-To make government services more accessible-number of citizen complaints fell
down by 65%.

Project FRIENDS in Kerala: FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for the
Disbursement of Services) is a Single Window Facility providing citizens the means to pay taxes and
other financial dues to the State Government. The services are provided through
FRIENDS Janasevana Kendrams located in the district headquarters.

FRIENDS
FRIENDS (Fast Reliable Instant Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services) Jan Sevana
Kendrams has been designed as a single-window facility where citizens can make government
related transactions with ease & comfort and without delay. In FRIENDS bills/dues to
government are collected under a common roof. Adopting an easy-to-recall acronym
‘FRIENDS', the facility is now operational in all the 14 districts of Kerala.

This is a key mission mode e-Governance (G2C) initiative of the Government of Kerala.
FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for the Disbursement of Services) is
a Single Window Facility providing citizens the means to pay taxes and other financial
dues to the State Government. It was launched in Thiruvananthapuram in June 2000 and
replicated in other district headquarters during 2001-02. The services are provided through
FRIENDS Janasevana Kendrams located in the district headquarters. This project is a class-
sic case of achieving front end computerized service delivery to citizens without waiting for
completion of back-end computerization in various government departments.
Vision and Objectives:

1. To provide an integrated electronic interface, where citizens can

access Government ser-vices, pay bills taxes and obtain
information from Government

2. Implementation of any centre any payment’ concept

3. Collection centre for Government in every two to three kilometers

without any additional infrastructure cost

4.To treat the citizen as a valuable customer and to

maintain upgrade services

To induct a philosophy of better service delivery in Government.This

project thus tries to avoid the complex issues involved in business process
re-engineeringin the participating departments. In fact, the FRIENDS
counters are not even networkedwith the participating departments/entities.

Issues– But also have been many issues associated with whole project. Some of them
are deficiencies noticed in planning, system design, organisational and management con-
trolls, persistent delays in remittance of money collected from the FRIENDS Centres, Non-
constitution of IT steering committee, no norms fixed for the completing a transaction.
Services–The centres work from 9 am to 7 pm on all days including Sundays, except
national holidays. The counters are equipped to handle around 1000 types of bills (in various
combinations) as listed below:

FREES– To remove bottlenecks at the time of processing, a government order was

 issued to treat a receipt from a FRIEND’S counter as equivalent to a receipt from the
concerned government entity. FREES (FRIENDS Re-engineered and Enterprises Enabled
Software) which would incorporate the ’Any Centre Any Payment Mode’. FREES Applica-
tion has centralised database system with the feature utility payment can be done on any
FRIENDS or AKSHAYA all over Kerala with a single user interface. Through this system
new services or agency can be added without changing the software. It has on-line data
fetching and updating from and to the departmental servers- for Vehicle Tax, Water Bill
and Property Tax. The new solution is a centralized web enabled system and will enable
FRIENDS and Akshaya centres to use the same application which is hosted at the State
Data Centre.

Work Breakdown Structure

FRIENDS project is headed by the Director, Kerala State IT Mission, and his team in-
clues a Manager, Business Development and a Project Assistant. At the district level,
all the FRIENDS centres have two Project Managers and staff who are designated as
Service Officers. The physical distribution of scrolls and other information to concerned
participating departments are done with the help of Women’s Self Help Groups (Kudum-
bashree)
 Impact: Costs and Benefits
There are indirect costs and indirect benefits of the project including the
aspect of opportunity costs, but it is very difficult to gain evidence on
these. Some of the major direct costs and benefits, both financial and
otherwise, are provided below, mostly based on a study by the author.
The FRIENDS centre in Trivandrum (the state capital) required some
US$80,000-worth of capital investment (including software). This was the
pilot centre, and has 20 counters. Centres in other locations, which have
an average of 10 counters, have required an average investment of
US$48,000.

The average monthly recurrent expenditure incurred by each centre

comes to US$1,340, which includes hardware maintenance charges and
payments on account of rent, electricity, etc. These costs are borne
centrally by the Department of IT. The salaries of the Service Officers are
an additional recurrent cost, covered by those government departments
that collect payments at the centres. FRIENDS centres can also be used
for payments to BSNL (a Government of India-owned telecommunications
company). BSNL does not provide staff at the centres; instead, it provides
a transaction payment of roughly 12 cents per BSNL-related transaction,
giving an average monthly income for each centre of US$250.

It has been calculated that, with FRIENDS, citizens need to spend an

average of only 35% of the cost involved in making separate payments at
department counters. By saving on travel costs, costs of using agents, and
related costs, citizens using FRIENDS centres therefore make an average
monthly saving of about US$1 per citizen. Moreover, on average, citizens
save about 42 minutes of their time every month. On average, each centre
deals with around 400 citizen transactions per day.
The level of satisfaction could be gauged from the fact that 97.4 % of users
prefer FRIENDS to department counters according to surveys undertaken. The
increased participation of women customers is also a positive contribution.
Moreover, the project in itself was able to convince 80.1% of the user-citizens
of the possibilities of ICTs in providing better citizen services. It has also
demonstrated that, with appropriate training, skill upgradation and technology,
existing government employees can deliver better services.
QUESTION 3(A).

A smart city is an urban area that utilizes technology to provide services and
solve city issues. It involves the use of multiple electronic methods and sensors
to collect data. Insights generated from the data are then used to manage assets,
resources, and services efficiently. The data generated is used to enhance the
operations across the city.

The creation of a smart city starts by first defining the scope of the project by
identifying the areas of potential and prioritizing the expectations and desired
benefits. Once that is done, you can collaborate with other stakeholders to effectively
implement the transformation. The data collected is then properly managed by
developing effective tools that can manage the huge database. Choose the right
technology to facilitate and enhance efficient service delivery and finally maintaining
the services offered effectively.

Turning the city of Leh into a smart city will offer numerous benefits, which
include:
• Efficient distribution of resources.
• Seamless communication.
• More effective, data-driven decision-making.
• Enhanced citizens and government engagement.
• Safer communities.
• Reduced environmental footprint.
• Enhanced transportation.

The Centre has identified infrastructure projects to turn Leh and

Kargil into smart cities. The Ministry of Housing and Urban
Affairs is working on a proposal from the Ministry of Home
Affairs (MHA) and has identified key infrastructure projects in
major priority areas such as drinking water supply, tourism,
sanitation and transport. These priority areas were identified
after elaborate consultations with several municipal committees,
 non-profit organizations, market associations, youth and the
common people.

The consultation with stakeholders which began in July

identified the priority areas where people want additional
faculties in several areas. Among other projects identified during
these consultations, a command-and-control room for
coordination of activities such as street lighting, transportation,
water supply, garbage disposal and segregation is also in the
cards.

The common concerns during all the consultative meetings

between the stakeholders were economic development and
climate change. Among other projects identified during the
meetings include projects for piped drinking water throughout
the year especially during the winter season, garbage
management, green garbage disposal projects, public areas
development, waste-water management, traffic management and
parking issues, beautification of Leh and Kargil main market
places, development of tourist places, maintenance of heritage,
and investing in clean energy projects.

The Union Territory has been given the list of suggestions for
deliberation and implementation. The ball is now in the
administration’s court over the course of the implementation of
the Smart City Mission. The choice is whether to form a special
purpose vehicle like all cities to manage the projects or just
implement the projects like municipal projects.
QUESTION 3(B).

Smart cities are the ones which put digital technology and data to work so
as to make better decisions and improve life quality. Comprehensively,
real-time data provides agencies with enhanced ability of watching events
as they develop, understand the change of demand patters and respond
quickly with lower-cost solutions. As a result, the one “smart” city in the
world I would choose for benchmarking is the city of Copenhagen which
has the best plan for collecting and utilizing data to create a better
business climate, greener city and provide citizens with a higher life
quality

i) Better Business Climate

The transformation of Copenhagen into a smart city has been
driven by the establishment of Copenhagen Solutions Lab. This
Lab has a large project named “Copenhagen Connecting,” an
initiative which brings the government, citizens, research
organizations and businesses together in building infrastructure
to collect data for the city’s benefit. The collection of data from
Wi-Fi access points allows researchers to create intelligent
systems of traffic management that limit congestion and
optimize traffic. The analysis of anonymized data is used in
monitoring how cars, bikes and pedestrians move through the
city therefore helping them direct traffic in real time, find
parking spaces and perform street-lighting according to weather
conditions. Also, citizens can link their vehicles and bikes into
the network to prevent theft.

ii) Greener City

One of the reasons Copenhagen wins the award for best “smart
city” is the use of data by Copenhagen Connecting to drive the
city to a greener direction. As the today’s cities continue to
evolve and thrive, overcrowding, traffic and pollution can
 become a challenge therefore requiring innovation and creativity
to tackle the problems. As a result, Copenhagen has
demonstrated the use of technological power and big data
insights to install sensors in sewers and garbage cans to optimize
city services like waste management, trash removal and water
sanitation.

iii) Inclusive Public Spaces

The development of inclusive public spaces has made
Copenhagen a city for the people by achieving balance between
spaces for specific uses and public spaces for the whole
population. Copenhagen has progressed towards the
development of attractive public spaces as demonstrated by the
increase in facilities which offer greater leisure activities and
installed outdoor urban furniture throughout the city.

iv)Smart grids.

These are an important technology in smart cities. The improved

flexibility of the smart grid permits greater penetration of highly
variable renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind
power. Mobile devices (such as smartphones, tablets) are
another key technology allowing citizens to connect to the smart
city services.

v) Electronic cards.

They're also known as smart cards. They are another common

component in smart city contexts. These cards possess a unique
encrypted identifier that allows the owner to log into a range of
government provided services (or e-services) without setting up
 multiple accounts. The single identifier allows governments to
aggregate data about citizens and their preferences to improve
the provision of services and to determine common interests of
groups. This technology has been implemented in Southampton.