E- Governance in INDIA- Evolution, Growth and Challenges

Vikas Chaddha, Associate Professor, RKG group of Institutions, Ghaziabad Mail: vikas.chaddha@gmail.com Contact No. 9953258432 Abstract: In all societies, the formation of public governance is largely dependent on its contextual parameters, including social structure, economic condition, political atmosphere, cultural pattern and technological trend. The nature of governance often changes depending on the intensity and speed of transition in some of these surrounding factors. In the current age, one of the most significant contextual phenomena affecting public governance is the revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). Internationally, this revolution in ICT has facilitated the globalization of the economy, business, finance and culture. In line with this global trend, India has undertaken massive initiatives to introduce e-governance at the national, state and local levels. In terms of the total number of government websites, although the advanced industrial countries top the list, India is ranked seventh in the global list. Similar to the previously mentioned common rationales, the top policy-makers in India tend to justify the adoption and expansion of e-governance on the grounds that it costs less, reduces waste, promotes transparency, eliminates corruption, generates possibilities to resolve rural poverty and inequality, and guarantees a better future for citizens. In short, the government tends to portray egovernance as the panacea for all ranges of problems confronting India. This paper is an attempt by the author to provide an insight regarding evolution of e-governance, Present Scenario of egovernance, Challenges and Strategies for addressing immediate objectives with a vision for future in mind

Introduction: The revolution in ICT has facilitated the globalization of the economy, business, finance and culture. Today ICT constitutes the fastest growing component of the global economy. Internally, within each society, the conventional forms of communication (print media, motion pictures, radio, telephones, and records) are increasingly being replaced with digital and wireless technologies such as cellular telephones, satellites, electronic mail and, above all, the internet (Gudaitis, 2001). However, the most influential dimension of this revolution is the worldwide proliferation of access to the internet. This contextual phenomenon, which has changed the nature of the workforce, human relations and public expectations, represents a considerable challenge to the state to adjust its public governance. In response to this transition in the context of governance, in almost every country, the state has taken the necessary initiatives to restructure political and administrative institutions by adopting ict in order to enhance electronic interaction and service delivery (Menzel, 1998; Galbi, 2001). Today public servants are encouraged and trained to be familiar with the tools and languages of ICT. In fact, there have emerged many buzzwords including digital governance, smart
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governance, net-governance, cyber-management and digital democracy which overlap with the notion of electronic governance or egovernance (MIT, 2001b). Although the advocates of egovernance tend to define it as something that is always beneficial,2 a value-neutral perspective may interpret it as a new mode of governance that extensively uses advanced forms of ict in pursuing public policies, maintaining organizational relations, interacting with customers and delivering services (Ghere and Young, 1998). However, one of the most significant dimensions of e-governance is the creation and maintenance of websites by legislatures, ministries, agencies, political parties, local institutions, and so on.3 The main rationales behind this opting for egovernance are that egovernance will reduce costs and delays in delivering services, expand citizens access to public sector information, reinforce innovation in public agencies, increase transparency and public accountability, weaken authoritarian tendencies and strengthen civil society and democracy (Pardo, 2000; Heeks, 2001a; Norris, 2001). With the increasing awareness among citizens about their rights and the resultant increase in expectations from the government to perform and deliver, the whole paradigm of governance has changed. Government, today, is expected to be transparent in its dealings, accountable for its activities and faster in its responses. This has made the use of ICT imperative in any agenda drawn towards achieving good governance. It has also led to the realization that such technologies could be used to achieve a wide range of objectives and lead to faster and more equitable development with a wider reach. In its Fourth Report entitled Ethics in Governance, the Commission had clearly stated that the tools of modern technology such as Information and Communications Technology (ICT) should be used to transform the relationship of the government with its constituents, citizens and businesses, and also between its own agencies. While recognizing the potential of ICT in transforming and redefining processes and systems of governance, the Commission had suggested that e-Governance is the logical next step in the use of ICT in systems of governance in order to ensure wider participation and deeper involvement of citizens, institutions, civil society groups and the private sector in the decision making process of governance. e-Governance or electronic governance is basically the application of Information and Communications Technology to the processes of Government functioning in order to bring about Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent (SMART) governance.3 This would generally involve the use of ICTs by government agencies for any or all of the following reasons: (a) Exchange of information with citizens, businesses or other government departments (b) Speedier and more efficient delivery of public services (c) Improving internal efficiency (d) Reducing costs / increasing revenue (e) Re-structuring of administrative processes and (f) Improving quality of services. Defining e-governance Although the term e-Governance has gained currency in recent years, there is no standard definition of this term. Different governments and organizations define this term to suit their own aims and objectives. Sometimes, the term e-government is also used instead of e-Governance. Some widely used definitions are listed below: According to the World Bank
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E-Governance refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions. Thus, the stress here is on use of information technologies in improving citizengovernment interactions, cost-cutting and generation of revenue and transparency. UNESCO defines e-Governance as: Governance refers to the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of a countrys affairs, including citizens articulation of their interests and exercise of their legal rights and obligations. E-Governance may be understood as the performance of this governance via the electronic medium in order to facilitate an efficient, speedy and transparent process of disseminating information to the public, and other agencies, and for performing government administration activities. This definition visualizes the use of the electronic medium in the exercise of authority in the management of a countrys affairs along with articulation of citizens interests leading to greater transparency and efficiency. The Council of Europe has taken e-Governance to mean:6 the use of electronic technologies in three areas of public action: - relations between the public authorities and civil society - functioning of the public authorities at all stages of the democratic process (electronic democracy) - the provision of public services (electronic public services) In this case, the focus is on making use of electronic technologies with a view to encourage better interaction between government and citizens, promote democracy and provide public services. Evolution and growth of e-governance in India The introduction of e-government systems in India started out in the late 60s and early 70s with an emphasis on computerizing applications for defence services, for the economic planning department, for the national census, for elections and for tax collections etc. The government mainly did the spending and the development was entirely done by internal Information Technology departments. In the 80s the National Informatics Centre was established, whose
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main role was to implement and support large-scale computerization projects in India. The 90s saw the emergence of a national IT initiative by the Government of India with corresponding plans in the states. External funding was sought from agencies such as the World Bank and external parties such as NGOs and private corporations were involved in the computerization efforts. The focus also shifted to external e-government systems that could provide services to the public. The 90s saw a spate of e-government initiatives in India, in various states, that addressed issues of land records management through digitalisation, issue of government documents to public and collection of various dues via kiosk-based centres and the use of GIS-based services for assisting agriculture. While the emphasis has been primarily on automation and computerization, state governments have also endeavored to use ICT tools into connectivity, networking, setting up systems for processing information and delivering services. At a micro level, this has ranged from IT automation in individual departments, electronic file handling and workflow systems, access to entitlements, public grievance systems, service delivery for high volume routine transactions such as payment of bills, tax dues to meeting poverty alleviation goals through the promotion of entrepreneurial models and provision of market information. The thrust has varied across initiatives, with some focusing on enabling the citizen-state interface for various government services, and others focusing on bettering livelihoods. Every state govt has taken the initiative to form an IT task force to outline IT policy document for the state and the citizen charters have started appearing on govt. websites. For governments, the more overt motivation to shift from manual processes to IT-enabled processes may be increased efficiency in administration and service delivery, but this shift can be conceived as a worthwhile investment with potential for returns. Following are some of the recent e-governance projects implemented by various state govts.

Some E-governance Initiatives State/Union Territory Andhra Pradesh Initiatives covering departmental automation, user charge collection, delivery of policy/programme information and delivery of entitlements e-Seva, CARD, VOICE, MPHS, FAST, e-Cops, AP onlineOne-stop-shop on the Internet, Saukaryam, Online Transaction processing Sales Tax Administration Management Information Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society, Treasury office, e-linking project
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Bihar Chattisgarh

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Delhi

Automatic Vehicle Tracking System, Computerisation of website of RCS office, Electronic Clearance System, Management Information System for Education etc Dharani Project Mahiti Shakti, request for Government documents online, Form book online, G R book online, census online, tender notice. Nai Disha Lok Mitra

Goa Gujarat

Haryana Himachal Pradesh Karnataka Kerala

Bhoomi, Khajane, Kaveri e-Srinkhala, RDNet, Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for the Disbursement of Services (FRIENDS) Gyandoot, Gram Sampark, Smart Card in Transport Department, Computerization MP State Agricultural Marketing Board (Mandi Board) etc SETU, Online Complaint Management SystemMumbai Jan Mitra, RajSWIFT, Lokmitra, RajNIDHI Rasi MaiyamsKanchipuram; Application forms related to public utility, tender notices and display

Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Rajasthan Tamil Nadu

North-Eastern States Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram Nagaland & Community Information Center. Forms available on

the Meghalaya website under schemes related to

social welfare, food civil supplies and consumer affairs, housing transport etc.

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Current and future challenges: Lack of IT Literacy and awareness regarding benefits of e-governance

There is general lack of awareness regarding benefits of e-governance as well as the process involved in implementing successful G-C, G-G and G-B projects. The administrative structure is not geared for maintaining, storing and retrieving the governance information electronically. The general tendency is to obtain the data from the files (print) as and when required rather than using Document Management and workflow technologies. Lately the use of DMS and workflow technologies has been able to find its use only in those departments where there is perceptible lightening of workload of the subordinate staff.

Underutilization of existing ICT infrastructure

To a larger extent, the computers in the department are used for the purpose of word processing only, resulting in the underutilization of the computers in terms of their use in data mining for supporting management decisions. The time gap between the procurement of the hardware and development of the custom applications is so large that by the time application is Ready for use, the hardware becomes obsolete. Attitude of Government Departments

The psychology of government servants is quite different from that of private sectors. Traditionally the government servants have derived their sustenance from the fact that they are important repositories of govt. data. Thus any effort to implement DMS and workflow technologies or bringing out the change in the system is met with resistance from the govt. servants. Lack of coordination between Govt. Department and Solution developers

Designing of any application requires a very close interaction between the govt. department and the agency developing the solutions. At present the users in govt. departments do not contribute enough to design the solution architecture. Consequently the solution developed and implemented does not address the requirements of an e-governance project and hence does not get implemented.
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Resistance to re-structuring:

Successful implementation of e-governance projects requires lots of restructuring in administrative processes, redefining of administrative procedures and formats which finds the resistance in almost all the departments at all the levels. Additionally there is lack of expertise of departmental MIS executives in exploiting data mining techniques, updating and collection of real time content onto website etc. Therefore the content as is collected or maintained by various e-governance portals is unreliable or full of gaps. In such a scenario, its difficult for any egovernance solution to achieve its intended results. Infrastructural deficiencies

Infrastructure to support e-governance initiatives does not exist within government departments. The agony is that the government departments are not equipped to be in a position to project the clear requirements nor are there any guidelines for involving private sector. Whatever efforts have been made by various govt. organizations may be defined as islands of computerization. The infrastructure creation is not guided by a uniform national policy, but is dependent on the needs of individual officers championing a few projects. Therefore, the required networking and communication equipment is either non existent in govt. departments, or if it exists at all, it does not serve any tangible purpose as far as the requirement of e-governance project is concerned. The use of connectivity options provided by govt. agencies like NICNET etc. are used in a very limited manner for data transmission purpose between various locations viz. Distt., State , Center etc. and is mainly utilized for e-mail and Internet purpose only. Conclusion For success of an e-governance project and superior service delivery, it is imperative that the government agencies focus on whole citizen experience. Focusing on the citizen is essential for long term success. The govt. agencies need to integrate information from all points of citizen interaction. The overall architecture for e-Governance needs to ensure that the architecture components are extensible and scalable to adapt to the changing environments. The real challenges are how to develop and sustain successful e-governance projects and deliver state of the art e-services to citizens. Unfortunately its not as easy as adding e in front of your service delivery mechanism. Successful e-governance initiatives can never be taken in haste. Particularly for the democratic nation of the billion people like India, e-Governance should enable seamless access to information and seamless flow of information across the state and central government in the federal setup. No country has so far implemented an e-governance system for one
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billion people. Some of the requirements for implementing successful e-governance across the nation are: e-Governance framework across the nation with enough bandwidth to service a population of one billion. Connectivity framework for making the services reaches rural areas of the country or development of alternative means of services such as e-governance kiosks in regional languages. National Citizen Database which is the primary unit of data for all governance vertical and horizontal applications across the state and central governments. E-governance and interoperability standards for the exchange of secure information with non-repudiation, across the state and central government departments seamlessly. A secure delivery framework by means of virtual private network connecting across the state and central government departments. Datacenters in centre and states to handle the departmental workflow automation, collaboration, interaction, exchange of information with authentication.

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Misra, B.P., Agarwal, A. and Kumar, A. (2001) Panel Discussion: IT and Citizen Services, The Roundtable on IT in Governance, 12 January, New Delhi. [http://www.ima-india.com/papers/itindex.htm] Rahul De. E-Government systems in developing countries: Stakeholders and conflict. In M.A. Wimmer, R. Traunmuller, A. Gronlund, and K.V. Andersen, editors, Proceedings of Electronic Government, 4th International Conference, Copenhagen, Aug 2005, LNCS 3591, pages 2637. Springer-Verlag, 2005. S. Krishna and G. Walsham. Implementing public information systems in developing countries: Learning from a success story. Information Technology for Development, 11(2):118, 2005. T.T. Sreekumar. E-Governance and social exclusion: Evidences from the field. In 11th International AntiCorruption Conference, 25-28 May, 2003, Seoul, Rupublic of Korea, 2003.

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