Bangalore an IT city? Check with Bangalore Development Authority

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the biggest land developer in the city known for its IT, has a poor idea of what information technology is, and how it could be used.

That impression is inescapable when one reads the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the agency's failure to follow the norms while implementing IT initiatives.

The BDA had a vision of using information technology (IT) and establish an integrated management system for its various business processes. The IT initiatives were also expected to enable the public to access every information they needed from the BDA.

"However, we found that BDA had not formulated any IT policy to guide its IT initiatives. The IT initiatives were disaggregated and did not factor in the wider picture and the potential need for future enhancement. The BDA failed to follow the established system development practices and ended up developing several software packages without establishing a clear link to its key strategic priorities,'' the CAG report said.

It has also found that the BDA handled the software development unprofessionally and the value for money achieved by various IT projects was "very poor". The BDA's ineffective engagement of its stakeholders in the development of software, lack of clear vision of the senior management of the IT initiatives and inadequate oversight of the implementation of these initiatives were key factors, resulting in failure of many of the IT projects undertaken," the CAG said.
Moreover, "Improper management of the contracts of the vendors led to several financial irregularities,'' the report said.
It said the property tax, shop-rent and attendance management modules functional in BDA suffered from several flaws in design.

"We found several instances of inadequate application controls, lack of integration of various interfaces, adoption of ad hoc and unauthorised procedures to rectify errors, inadequate security of databases, etc., which effectively meant that the BDA had been relying heavily on these ailing systems with all their existing flaws to conduct its business,'' said DJ Bhadra, Principal Accountant General.

Bhadra said the BDA needed to take immediate and appropriate steps to overcome these shortcomings and deliver a robust IT solution.