E-governance in India: Concept,

Initiatives and Issues

Structure

 Introduction

 Types of Government interaction in e-governance

 Some initiatives in the same field

 National e-governance Plan

 Recent Initiatives

 m-governance

 Government initiatives for m-governance

 Advantages of e-governance

 Disadvantages of e-governance

 Challenges in e-governance

 Conclusion

Introduction

The “e” in e-Governance stands for ‘electronic’. Thus, e-Governance is

basically associated with carrying out the functions and achieving the results of
governance through the utilization of ICT (Information and Communications
Technology).

While Governance relates to safeguarding the legal rights of all citizens, an

equally important aspect is concerned with ensuring equitable access to public
services and the benefits of economic growth to all. It also ensures government
to be transparent in its dealings, accountable for its activities and faster in its
responses as part of good governance.

However, this would require the government to change itself – its processes,
its outlook, laws, rules and regulations and also its way of interacting with the
citizens. It would also require capacity building within the government and
creation of general awareness about e-Governance among the citizens

ICT provides efficient storing and retrieval of data, instantaneous

transmission of information, processing information and data faster than the
earlier manual systems, speeding up governmental processes, taking decisions
expeditiously and judiciously, increasing transparency and enforcing
accountability. It also helps in increasing the reach of government – both
geographically and demographically.

In India, the main thrust for e-Governance was provided by the launching of
NICNET in 1987 – the national satellite-based computer network. This was
followed by the launch of the District Information System of the National
Informatics Centre (DISNIC) programme to computerize all district offices in
the country for which free hardware and software was offered to the State
Governments. NICNET was extended via the State capitals to all district
headquarters by 1990. In the ensuing years, with ongoing computerization,
tele-connectivity and internet connectivity established a large number of e-
Governance initiatives, both at the Union and State levels.

Types of Government Interaction in e-governance.

 G2G: Government to Government

 G2C: Government to Citizen

 G2B: Government to Business

 G2E: Government to Employee

Some Initiatives in the same field

1. Government to Citizen (G2C) Initiatives:

 Computerizationof Land Records: In collaboration with NIC. Ensuring

that landowners get computerized copies of ownership, crop
 and tenancy and updated copies of Records of Rights (RoRs) on demand.

 Bhoomi Project: Online delivery of Land Records. Self-sustainable e-

Governance project for the computerized delivery of 20 million rural land
records to 6.7 million farmers through 177 Government-owned kiosks in the
State of Karnataka

 Gyandoot: It is an Intranet-based Government to Citizen (G2C) service

delivery initiative. It was initiated in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh in
January 2000 with the twin objective of providing relevant information to the
rural population and acting as an interface between the district administration
and the people.

 Lokvani Project in Uttar Pradesh: Lokvani is a public-private partnership

project at Sitapur District in Uttar Pradesh which was initiated in November,
2004. Its objective is to provide a single window, self-sustainable e-
Governance solution with regard to handling of grievances, land record
maintenance and providing a mixture of essential services.

 ProjectFRIENDS 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.

 e-MitraProject in Rajasthan: e-Mitra is an integrated project to facilitate

the urban and the rural masses with maximum possible services
related to different state government departments through Lokmitra-
Janmitra Centers/Kiosks.

 e-Seva (Andhra Pradesh): This project is designed to provide ‘Government

toCitizen’ and ‘e-Business to Citizen’ services. The highlight of the
eSeva project is that all the services are delivered online to consumers
/citizens by connecting them to the respective government departments and
providing online information at the point of service delivery.

 Admission to Professional Colleges – Common Entrance Test (CET):

With the rapid growth in the demand as well as supply of professional
education, the process of admission to these institutions became a major
challenge in the early 1990s. Recourse was then taken to ICT to make the
process of admission transparent and objective. One of the pioneering efforts
 was made by Karnataka. The State Government decided to conduct a
common entrance test based on which admission to different colleges and
disciplines was made.

1. Government to Business (G2B) Initiatives:

 e-Procurement Project in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat:

To reduce the time and cost of doing business for both vendors
and government.

 MCA 21: By the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The project aims at providing
easy and secure online access to all registry related services provided by the
Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs to corporates and other stakeholders at any
time and in a manner that best suits them.

1. Government to Government (G2G) Initiatives:

 Khajane Project in Karnataka: It is a comprehensive online treasury

computerization project of the Government of Karnataka. The project has
resulted in the computerization of the entire treasury related activities of
the State Government and the system has the ability to track every activity
right from the approval of the State Budget to the point of rendering
accounts to the government.

 SmartGov (Andhra Pradesh): SmartGov has been developed to streamline

operations, enhance efficiency through workflow automation and
knowledge management for implementation in the Andhra Pradesh
Secretariat.

National E-governance Plan

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has been formulated by the

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) and
Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) in
2006.

The NeGP aims at improving delivery of Government services to citizens and

businesses with the following vision: “Make all Government services accessible
to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets
and ensure efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable
costs to realise the basic needs of the common man.”

Central government initiatives as mission mode projects (MMP)

 e-office

The Government of India has recognized the need to modernize the Central
Government offices through the introduction of Information and
Communications Technology. e-Office is aimed at increasing the usage of
work flow and rule based file routing, quick search and retrieval of files and
office orders, digital signatures for authentication, forms and reporting
components.

 Immigration, Visa and Foreigner’s Registration & Tracking (IVFRT)

India has emerged as a key tourist destination, besides being a major business
and service hub. Immigration Check Post is the first point of contact that
generates public and popular perception about the country, thus necessitating
a state of the art system for prompt and user-friendly services.

 UID

The unique identification project was conceived as an initiative that would

provide identification for each resident across the country and would be used
primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. It would also act
as a tool for effective monitoring of various programs and schemes of the
government.

 Pensions

The pensions MMP is primarily aimed at making the pension/ retirement

related information, services and grievances handling mechanism accessible
online to the needy pensioners, through a combination of interactive and non-
interactive components, and thus, help bridge the gap between the pensioners
and the government.

 Banking

The Banking MMP is yet another step towards improving operational

efficiency and reducing the delays and efforts involved in handling and settling
transactions. The MMP which is being implemented by the banking industry
aims at streamlining various e-services initiatives undertaken by individual
banks. Implementation is being done by the banks concerned, with the
banking Department providing a broad framework and guidance.

 Posts

Modernization of Postal Services has been undertaken by the Department of

Posts through computerization and networking of all post offices using a
central server-based system, and setting up of computerized registration
centers (CRCs).

State Mission Mode projects

 e-Governance in Municipalities

It is a unique initiative of the Government of India conceptualized under the umbrella of the
overall National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal
Mission (Jnnurm) aimed at improving operational efficiencies within Urban Local Bodies
(ULBs).
 Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems

Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) MMP aims at
creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency
and effective policing at all levels and especially at the Police Station level
through adoption of principles of e-Governance, and creation of a nationwide
networked infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking
system.

 Public Distribution System

Computerization of the PDS is envisaged as an end-to-end project covering

key functional areas such as supply chain management including allocation
and utilization reporting, storage and movement of food grains, grievance
redressal and transparency portal, digitization of beneficiary database, Fair
Price Shop automation, etc.

 Health

ICT for programme management has been undertaken by the Ministry of

Health & Family Welfare in the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS)
programme and the Ministry envisages a more comprehensive use of ICT
including for Hospital Information Systems, supply chain management for
drugs and vaccines, providing ICT tools to ASHA and ANM workers,
programme management of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), etc
through this MMP.

 e-panchayat
The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) are saddled with the problems of
inadequate physical and financial resources, technical capabilities and
extremely limited computerization. As a result, the potential of PRIs as the
preferred delivery channel for the schemes of State and Centre as well as for
citizen services has not been fully realized. While some computerization
efforts for PRIs have been made by NIC over the years, the e-Governance
revolution sweeping the country has not touched the PRIs yet in significant
measure. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India has therefore
decided to take up the computerization of PRIs on a mission mode basis.

 e-District

e-District is one of the 31 Mission Mode Projects under National e Governance

Plan (NeGP) with the DIT, GoI being the nodal ministry. This project aims at
providing support to the basic administrative unit i.e. District Administration
by undertaking backend computerization to enable electronic delivery of high
volume citizen centric government services which would optimally leverage
and utilize the three infrastructure pillars of State Wide Area Networks
(SWAN), State Data Centers (SDC) and Common Service Centers (CSCs) to
deliver services to the citizen at his doorsteps.

 National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP)

A Project for Computerization of Land Records (CLR) was launched in 1988-

89 with the intention to remove the inherent flaws in the manual system of
maintenance and updation of Land Records. In 1997-98, the scheme was
extended to tehsils to start distribution of Records of Rights to landowners on
demand. The focus of the entire operation has always been to employ state of
the art information technology (IT) to galvanize and transform the existing
land records system of the country.

Integrated Mission Mode Projects

 e-procurement

Ministry of Commerce & Industry (Department of Commerce) has been

nominated as the Nodal Ministry for implementation of e-Government
Procurement (e-GP) Mission Mode Projects (MMP). The vision of the e-
Procurement MMP is “To create a national initiative to implement procurement
reforms, through the use of electronic Government procurement, so as to make
public procurement in all sectors more transparent and efficient”.

 e-Courts

The e-Court Mission Mode Project (MMP) was conceptualized with a vision to
transform the Indian judiciary by making use of technology. The project had
been developed, following the report submitted by the e-Committee under
Supreme Court on national policy & action plan on implementation of
information communication tools in Indian judiciary.

A clear objective – to re-engineer processes and enhance judicial productivity

both qualitatively and quantitatively to make the justice delivery system
affordable, accessible, cost effective, transparent and accountable.

 e-Biz

The e-Biz Mission Mode Project, being executed by Department of Industrial

Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India, was conceptualized with the vision. Its vision is “To
transform the business environment in the country by providing efficient,
convenient, transparent and integrated electronic services to investors, industries
and business throughout the business life cycle”.

 Common Services Centres

The CSCs would provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data
content and services, in the areas of e-governance, education, health,
telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services. A highlight of
the CSCs is that it will offer web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas,
including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as
electricity, telephone and water bills.

Recent Initiatives

 Direct Cash transfer

To facilitate disbursements of Government entitlements like NREGA, Social

Security pension, Handicapped Old Age Pension etc. of any Central or State
Government bodies, using Aadhaar and authentication thereof as supported
by UIDAI.
 Aadhar Enabled Payment system (AEPS) :

AEPS is a bank led model which allows online interoperable financial

inclusion transaction through the Business correspondent of any bank using
the Aadhaar authentication. This has helped in financial inclusion. The four
Aadhaar enabled basic types of banking transactions are as follows:-

 Balance Enquiry

 Cash Withdrawal

 Cash Deposit

 Aadhaar to Aadhaar Funds Transfer

 Digital India program

This programme has been envisaged by Department of Electronics and

Information Technology (DeitY). The vision of Digital India aims to transform
the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The
programme will be implemented in phases from the current year till 2018.

The Digital India is transformational in nature and would ensure that

Government services are available to citizens electronically. It would also
bring in public accountability through mandated delivery of government’s
services electronically, a Unique ID and e-Pramaan based on authentic and
standard based interoperable and integrated government applications and
data basis.
The program aims at providing digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen as
well as high-speed internet as a core utility in all gram panchayats. The overall scope
of this program is “to prepare India for a knowledge future”, “to make technology
central to enabling change” and “to become an umbrella program covering many
departments”

 MyGov citizen portal

Prime Minister launched an online platform mygov.nic.in to engage citizens in the task of “good
governance” ( surajya ) as he completed 60 days in office on Saturday. MyGov is a technology-driven
platform that would provide people with the opportunity to contribute towards good governance.

 E-Kranti scheme

This is project for linking the internet with remote villages in the country. This
scheme will broaden the reach of internet services to the rural areas in the country.
The fundamental features of this scheme will be making the records handy to the
government with ease. It also includes Expansion of internet and commencement of
IT-based jobs in rural areas. It will also boost the use of mobile phones and computers
in rural areas. It will also expand the use of IT in agriculture and retail trade too.

 Digital Cloud for every Indian

Certificates issued by the government — education, residential, medical

records, birth certificates, etc. — are to be stored in individual ‘digital lockers’
and a communication protocol established for government departments to
access them without physically having to see the hard copy. The purpose of
government is that copies of certificates issued by the government itself not to
be carried around by people to government offices for various services.

M-governance

M-Governance is not a replacement for e-Governance, rather it complements

e- Governance. M-Governance, is the use of mobile or wireless to improve
Governance service and information “anytime, anywhere”. Mobile
applications also rely on good back office ICT infrastructure and work
processes. It has potential of using mobile phones as input devices in certain
areas where last mile connectivity becomes issues for simple data inputs of
critical importance for decision making in government departments.

M-Governance is not a new concept. The private sector has been greatly
leveraging these of mobile phones for delivery of value added services for the
following which however are mostly SMS based: Banking, Media, Airlines,
Telecom, Entertainment, News, Sports, Astrology, and Movie Tickets Etc.

M-governance has increased the productivity of public service personnel,

improving the delivery of government information and services, increasing
channels for public interactions and Lower costs leading to higher
participation of people.

Recent thrust to m-governance is being provided through USSD

ServicesUnstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) is a session based
service unlike sms which is store and forward service. It can be used by the
user to send command to an application in text format. USSD acts as a trigger
for the application

Government initiatives for m-governance

 Mobile Seva

It aims to provide government services to the people through mobile phones

and tablets. It has been developed as the core infrastructure for enabling the
availability of public services through mobile devices.

Mobile Seva enables the integration of the mobile platform with the common
e-Governance infrastructure consisting of State Data Centers (SDCs), State
Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State and National Service Delivery Gateways
(SSDGs/NSDG).

It enables a government department to integrate both web and mobile based

services seamlessly and enhances the access to electronic services
tremendously leveraging the very high penetration of mobile phones,
especially in rural areas

A Mobile Applications Store (m-App Store) has also been developed by DeitY as
part of Mobile Seva. The Mobile Governance Portal and the m-App Store can
be accessed at http://mgov.gov.in/. The m-Appstore currently hosts over 240
live mobile applications. The live applications can be downloaded and
installed free of cost on a mobile phone by any person.

The project, “mobile seva” has won the second prize at the prestigious United
Nations’ Public Services Awards in the category “Promoting Whole of
Government Approaches in the Information Age” for Asia Pacific.

 A few years ago, Kerala launched ‘Dr. SMS,’ an m-health information

system, for providing information on medical facilities available in the
locality of the resident.

 Goa followed, with a mobile governance initiative for issuing alerts for
receipt of government applications and complaints and status tracking.

 Next came Maharashtra. It adopted a similar traffic management system

through mobile alerts.

 A laudable initiative launched by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal

Corporation in September tries to use technology in a mobile phone-based
Intelligent Garbage Monitoring System enables sanitary supervisors to
report the status of cleaning of garbage bins through their GPS-enabled
mobile phones. Centralised reports as well as those of individual bins can
be generated with the system.

Advantages of e-governance
Following are the advantages of E-Governance
Speed: Technology makes communication speedier. Internet, Phones, Cell Phones
have reduced the time taken in normal communication.

Cost Reduction: Most of the Government expenditure is appropriated towards

the cost of stationary. Paper-based communication needs lots of stationary,
printers, computers, etc. which calls for continuous heavy expenditure.
Internet and Phones makes communication cheaper saving valuable money
for the Government.

Transparency: Use of ICT makes governing profess transparent. All the

information of the Government would be made available on the internet. The
citizens can see the information whenever they want to see. But this is only
possible when every piece of information of the Government is uploaded on
the internet and is available for the public to peruse. Current governing
process leaves many ways to conceal the information from all the people. ICT
helps make the information available online eliminating all the possibilities of
concealing of information.

Accountability: Once the governing process is made transparent the

Government is automatically made accountable. Accountability is
answerability of the Government to the people. It is the answerability for the
deeds of the Government. An accountable Government is a responsible
Government.

Convenience: E-Government brings public services to citizens on their schedule and

their venue.

Improved Customer Service: E-Government allows to redeploy resources from back-

end processing to the front line of customer service.

Increased access to information: E-Government improves the accessibility of

government information to citizens allowing it become an important resource in the
making the decisions that affect daily life and so it helps in empowerment of citizens

Disadvantages of e-governance
Electronic governments also consist on certain disadvantage. The main
disadvantage of an electronic government is to move the government services
into an electronic based system. This system loses the person to person
interaction which is valued by a lot of people.
In addition, the implementation of an e-government service is that, with many
technology based services, it is often easy to make the excuse (e.g. the
server has gone down) that problems with the service provided are because
of the technology.
The implementation of an e government does have certain constraints.
Literacy of the users and the ability to use the computer, users who do not
know how to read and write would need assistance. An example would be the
senior citizens. In general, senior citizens do not have much computer
education and they would have to approach a customer service officer for
assistance. And also in case of rural people, it gives scope for middle man,
who distort the information.
Studies have shown that there is potential for a reduction in the usability of
government online due to factors such as the access to Internet technology
and usability of services and the ability to access to computers
Even though the level of confidence in the security offered by government
web sites are high, the public are still concerned over security, fear of spam
from providing email addresses, and government retention of transaction or
interaction history. There has been growing concern about the privacy of data
being collected as part of UID project. The security of cyber space and misuse
of data is still holding back the citizens to full adaptation of Aadhar card.

Challenges in e-governance

There are large numbers of potential barriers in the implementation of e-

Governance. Some hindrance in the path of implementation, like security,
unequal access to the computer technology by the citizen, high initial cost
for setting up the e government solutions and resistance to change. Challenges
identified as trust, resistance to change, digital divide, cost and privacy and
security concerns.

Trust

Trust can be defined along two dimensions: as an assessment of a current

situation, or as an innate personality traitor predisposition. The
implementation of public administration functions via e-government requires
the presence of two levels of trust. The first is that the user must be confident,
comfortable and trusting of the tool or technology with which they will
interact. The second dimension of trust pertains to trust of the government].

There has to be a balance between ensuring that a system prevents fraudulent

transactions and the burden that extensive checks can take place on people
who are honest.

Recently, confidential information on military veterans was compromised

when a computer containing their personal information was lost. This type
of incident can erode trust and user confidence in government systems. Trust,
along with financial security, are two critical factors limiting the adoption of e-
government services.

Resistance to change

The innovation diffusion theory states that over time an innovation will diffuse
through a population, and the rate of adoption will vary between those
who adopt early, referred to as early adopters and to those who adopt the
innovation much later, referred to as ―laggards.

The resistant to change phenomenon can explain much of the hesitation that
occurs on the part of constituents in moving from a paper based to a Web-
based system for interacting with government.

Citizens, employees and businesses can all have their biases with respect to
how transactions should be processed. However, government entities
and public policy administrators cannot ignore the changes that occur as a
result of the implementation of information and communication technology
(ICT

Education about the value of the new systems is one step toward reducing
some of the existing resistance. It can also be particularly useful for a leader or
manager, to buy into the new system at an early stage in the adoption process

Digital Divide

The digital divide refers to the separation that exists between individuals,
communities, and businesses that have access to information technology and
those that do not have such access.

Social, economic, infrastructural and ethno-linguistic indicators provide

explanations for the presence of the digital divide.

Economic poverty is closely related to limited information technology

resources
An individual living below poverty line does not afford a computer for himself
to harness the benefits of e-government and other online services. As the
digital divide narrows, broader adoption of e-government in the public
domain becomes possible. Economic poverty is not the only cause of digital
divide. It can also be caused by the lack of awareness among the people. Even
some of the economic stable people don’t know about the scope of e -
governance.

Awareness can only help to bring users to that service delivery channel once. It
cannot guarantee sustained use of the system unless the system is also
designed in such a way as to deliver satisfactory outcome. Procedures need to
be simplified to deliver concrete benefits and clear guidelines provided to
encourage their use by the actual end users and reduce user’s dependence
on middlemen/intermediaries

Cost

Cost is one of the most important prohibiting factor that comes in the path
of e-governance implementation particularly in the developing countries like
India where most of the people living below the poverty line. Elected officers
and politician don’t seem to be interested in implementing e-governance

Privacy and Security

There will be three basic levels of access exists for e-government stakeholders:
no access to a Web service; limited access to a Web-service or full-access to
a Web service, however when personal sensitive data exists the formation of
the security access policy is a much more complex process with legal
consideration. With the implementation of e-government projects, effective
measures must be taken to protect sensitive personal information. A lack of
clear security standards and protocols can limit the development of projects
that contain sensitive information such as income, medical history.

Conclusion

We have seen how the concept of e-governance and m-governance has evolved
in Indian scenario and how much it is required for transparency and
accountability on the part of government and at the same time it is also a toll
to increase the participation of people in policy making by empowering them
with the right information at right time. The penetration of internet,
telecommunication services in India has increased in the last decade and this
gives a ray of hope to the citizens of India to fight with the long persisting
problems of poverty, corruption, regional disparity and unemployment. But at
the same time, due to slow pace of project completion, red-tape and resistance
from the side of government employees and citizens too has not given the
desired result.