Scientific Innovation in service of society

Governance Issues Service delivery

Improving Governance in Public Systems Introduction Public sector innovation involves creating, developing and implementing practical ideas that achieve a public benefit.
These ideas have to be at least in part new and they have to be taken up for implementation rather than remaining simply as ideas.
More importantly, they need to be useful and practical.

An innovation in public systems can be defined as a process/policy intervention that Improves the public service delivery, enhances the efficiency of governance structure i.e. simplifying procedures etc.
It must improve citizen satisfaction, promote transparency and accountability, reduce the time taken for service delivery, reduce the cost without affecting the efficacy and efficiency.

Service Innovations- intend to introduce a new service, product or improvement in the quality of an existing service or product.
Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is a mobile application developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which enables e-payments directly through banks.
Service Delivery Innovations Common Service Centres (CSCs) are the public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, education and agriculture services, apart from a host of Business to Citizen (B2C) services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country.

Electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a Pan-India electronic trading portal launched in 2016 completely funded by the Central Government and implemented by small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFACI).
It created a national network of physical mandis which can be accessed online thus enabling buyers, situated even outside the State, to participate in trading at the local level.

National Policy on Biofuels (2018) was first drafted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in 2009 but later was shifted to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in 2017 and was finally launched in 2018.
The policy encourages the use of biofuels by extending appropriate financial incentives under various categories which results in reduce import dependency, a cleaner environment, employment generation etc.

Systemic Innovations employ new or improved ways of interacting with the citizens and engage them in service design which encourages a participative approach in governance.
India Innovation Growth Program is a public, private partnership of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and Lockheed Martin Corporation.
This initiative throws open a chance to the public to suggest innovative solutions to major societal problems.

Problems, failures and complaints makes innovation either possible or necessary.
Attuned to new trends, customer demands, data or technologies and innovations that are happening elsewhere.
Better understanding of how people live their lives, and how services are used to help improve them.
Find new insights into what people need, to end up with a clearly defined problem.
Generating and Sharing Useful Ideas Prioritise the areas of concern (e.g. health, education, infrastructure, water supply, sanitation, PDS etc.) which need to be addressed.
Channelize data, information and knowledge into a usable form so that it can be fully exploited to support evidence-based decision making.

High Potential for Adoption/Replication Ecological Sanitation (ECOSAN)
As the country has set out on the Swachh Bharat Mission, one of the major attributes is to end open defecation.
ECOSAN, an initiative that is one of its kind, offers an economical and simple-to-use option in contrast to the conventional waste transfer methods where the human excreta and body wash water do not go waste.
The toilet is in daily use and never smells. The urine is collected in a drum/pot outside the toilet for later use, and body wash water is used beneficially by diversion to the tress outside. ECOSAN toilets are much more helpful in flood-prone areas as it is completely sealed and would not result in overflow.
They are highly useful in drought-prone areas for being a remarkable alternative in the sustainable use of water.
ECOSAN toilets reduce health risks by avoiding contamination of drinking water by human waste; to prevent ground and surface water pollution, and to reuse the energy content within the human waste.

The technological approach developed by Prof. Rajagopalan Vasudevan has been found to be very useful in utilising plastic waste on a large scale.
The utilisation of plastic waste to improve the properties of the bituminous mix offers a very promising alternative with its bulk and eco-friendly usage.
The plastic roads ensure enhanced loads carrying strength, water resistance, negligible maintenance cost and reduction of bitumen consumption by 10 percent.

Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) is in the process of adding greenery to the infrastructure being created, thereby contributing to the enhanced green cover in and around Kochi.

Establishment of Vision Centres in rural villages with tele-ophthalmology connectivity with Base Hospitals is an effective model to reach patients who otherwise do not have access to quality eye care.
This model makes eye care services available for the rural population at their doorsteps thus leading to a considerable reduction of the burden of cost and in preventing avoidable blindness.

It would be correct to conclude that innovations in public systems are indispensable and it is both a continuous process as well as a result.
It is also a specific area of high importance where tools, methods and approaches are in constant evolution to facilitate identification, documentation and replication of innovations.

You must note down examples like use of plastics in roads. You can use these examples in questions related to technology and development.
Also read in detail about National Biofuel policy 2018. It is already available on abhipedia.