WHAT IS E-GOVERNANCE? CRITICALLY ANALYSE THE STEPS TAKEN BY GOVERNMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAMME ?

E-GOVERNANCE IN INDIA

The term ‘Governance’ is wider than ‘Government’. Governance may be an activity of governing/controlling a country by its Government, controlling of an organisation or a company by its CEO or Board of Directors or controlling of a house hold by the head of the house, Accordingly E-governance may also involve governing of a country, organisation, company or a household, however with the help of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

But when we talk of E-Governance in the popular parlance we only refer to the governing of a Country/State using ICT. E-governance therefore means the application of ICT to transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of exchange of information and transaction:

between Governments,

between Government agencies,

between Government and Citizens

between Government and businesses

E-governance also aims to empower people through giving them access to information.

STEPS TOWARDS E-GOVERNANCE BY GOVERNMENT

1. Established the Department of Electronics in 1970.
2.   Establishment of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in 1977 was the first major step towards e-Governance in India as it brought ‘information’ and its communication in focus.
3. Launching of NICNET in 1987 – the national satellite-based computer network.
4. 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.
5. In 1999, the Union Ministry of Information Technology was created.
6. Tax administration departments both at the Union and State levels were among the first to use ICT to improve their internal working. ICT was used to have better reporting systems, preventing leakages and faster processing of returns.
7. Government to Citizen (G2C) Initiatives: The e-Governance scenario in India has come a long way since computers were first introduced. The focus now is on extending the reach of governance to have a major impact on the people at large.

                                      As stated earlier, e-Governance is an important tool to enhance the quality of government services to citizens, to bring in more transparency, to reduce corruption and subjectivity, to reduce costs for citizens and to make government more accessible. A large number of initiatives have been taken in this category by the Union and the State Governments; Computerisation of Land Records, landowners get computerized copies of ownership, crop and tenancy and updated copies of Records of Rights (RoRs) on demand, Caste certificate, and Domicile certificate. It ensured accuracy, transparency and speedy dispute resolution.

8. Government to Business (G2B) Initiatives

G2B initiatives encompass all activities of government which impinge upon business organizations. These include registrations under different statutes, licenses under different laws and exchange of information between government and business. The objective of bringing these activities under e-Governance is to provide a congenial legal environment to business, expedite various processes and provide relevant information to business. Ex. e-Procurement system; earlier procurement in Government departments was done through a manual tendering process. It reduces the time and cost of doing business for both vendors and government; standardize procurement processes across government departments/provide a single-stop shop for all procurements.

Government to Government (G2G) Initiatives

Within the government system there is large scale processing of information and decision making. G2G initiatives help in making the internal government processes more efficient. Many a time G2C and G2B processes necessitate the improvements in G2G processes.

Smart Gov replaces the paper file with an e-file. Smart Gov provides the features of creation, movement, tracking and closure of e-files, automation of repetitive tasks, decision support system through knowledge management, prioritization of work, easy access to files through an efficient document management system and collaboration between departments.

GREY AREAS

Political support at the highest level is a sine qua non for successful implementation of e-Governance initiatives;  Major e-Governance projects bear fruit only when application of IT is preceded by process re-engineering;  Successful projects require an empowered leader with a dedicated team who can conceptualise and implement e-Governance projects with the help of officials at all levels and technological solution providers;  Initiatives which save the citizens’ time, money and effort are able to succeed even when back-end computerization is not done. However, these successes are generally limited to cases where payment of bills for public/private utilities is involved but for complete transformation of governance there has to be an end-to-end ICT enablement coupled with process re-engineering; Scaling up should be attempted only after the success of pilot projects. Systems should have the flexibility to incorporate changes mid-way; in rural areas, issues of connectivity and electricity supply are of paramount importance;  In case of complex projects, all components need to be identified and analysed at the outset, followed by meticulous planning and project implementation; user charges; limited use to illiterates; e-payments could not be made in rural areas.

Supporting infrastructure is a pre-requisite for e-Governance projects; The interface with the users should be simple and citizen-friendly ;Technology should be tailored to the environment.;Long-term sustainability of e-Governance projects depends on financial viability, especially if they are to be implemented in the PPP mode; Public Private-Partnership,Existing cyber cafes/ computer training institutes given license to function as centres and Hardware and software to be  provided by NIC free of cost.

                           advantages of ICT;      Transaction time and travelling time reduced; Agriculture related information to rural people; Records computerized, transparent dealing with requests for records, scope for use in planning; One point integration of services.

E-GOVERNANCE POLICY INITIATIVES UNDER DIGITAL INDIA

 The e-Kranti Framework

e-Kranti is an integral part of the Digital India programme with the vision of “Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance”; To ensure a Government wide transformation by delivering all Government services electronically to the citizens through integrated and interoperable systems via multiple modes while ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs.” The e-Kranti framework addresses the electronic delivery of services through a portfolio of mission mode projects that cut across several Government Department. It also covers essential requirements of Core ICT Infrastructure that include, inter-alia, GI Cloud, Data Centre, network connectivity, common platforms like Aadhaar, Mobile Seva, Payment Gateway, etc. e-Kranti programme aims towards easy governance, effective governance, good governance and mobile governance. It provides the key principles for revamping the existing projects and also for new and ongoing e-Governance projects.

 Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India. Government of India endeavours to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations as a preferred option. The e-Governance projects involve development of applications and databases for the delivery of citizen centric services through web or mobile platforms. Such applications are developed through various technologies, which could be open source software or closed source software. The source code of open source software is available to the developer community, which can make the necessary changes in the software as per any changes in requirements; Government will encourage the formal adoption and use of Open Source Software (OSS) in Government organizations. The compliance to this policy will ensure that strategic control of e-Governance assets would remain with the Government and would also ensure business continuity for the projects in future from technical perspective.

 Framework for Adoption of Open Source Software in eGovernance

This framework suggests a set of recommendations and procedures for promoting, managing and enhancing the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) in e-Governance Systems in India. The Framework suggests neutral guidelines to select software and the process for induction of an OSS solution.Adoption of Open Source Software is easier said than done. The Government departments face difficulties in selecting the right kind of technologies commensurate to their needs. This framework would assist the Government departments in identifying and selecting the open source software as per their requirements. This framework would be helpful for e-Governance experts and practitioners, who are interested in the implementation of various open source software for different functional and technical domains

Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for GOI

As a part of Digital India, G2C, G2B and G2G services are to be delivered and made accessible through multiple channels like web, mobile and common service delivery outlets. Interoperability among various e-Governance applications and databases is vital for integrated service delivery. The world-wide initiatives on “Open Government” also focus on open APIs to easily access the information collected by Government organizations. use of Open APIs to promote software interoperability for all e-Governance applications & systems and provide access to data & services for promoting participation of all stakeholders including citizens. Though there are a number of e-Governance applications, each one delivering some services, citizens are usually required to contact individual departments whenever they need services concerning multiple departments. This is because the departmental applications/ databases are not inter-connected and do not have data exchange facility amongst themselves. This creates hassles for common persons as they are not able to get end-to-end service through a single window mechanism. With the adoption of open APIs and integration amongst applications through open APIs, citizens would be able to get various services by filling a single application form, even when such an integrated service might need processing from multiple Government departments and agencies. In the background, systems would talk to each other and would facilitate data and information exchange leading to service delivery at the end. This would provide convenience to both citizens and businesses in availing various Government services ; A procedural approach in which the Government and the citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders are able to transact all or part of their activities using Information and Communication Technology tools

 E-mail Policy of Government of India

Lays down the guidelines with respect to use of e-mail services by the Government departments and organizations. The policy initiative aims to ensure secure access and usage of Government of India e-mail services by its users and ispplicable to all employees of Government of India (GoI) and employees of those State/UT Governments that use the e-mail services of GoI. This policy provides guidelines with respect to secure access and usage of the e-mail services provided by the Implementing Agency of the Government of India for official communications by all organizations except those that are granted exemption. This provides an assurance that official communication and data are safe and secure. The optimum use of ICT resources are helping Government departments in increasing their productivity by automating their internal processes as well as the delivery of citizen centric services.

  Policy on Use of IT Resources of Government of India

It provides the guidelines to ensure proper access to and usage of Government’s IT resources and prevent their misuse by the users. The policy initiative covers all IT resources including desktop devices, portable and mobile devices, networks including wireless networks, Internet connectivity, external storage devices and peripherals like printers and scanners and the software associated therewith.

Policy on Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications

Most of the e-Governance solutions face long gestation periods in application development leading to unwanted delays in their implementation. This is a cause of concern as this leads to implementation of sub-optimal solution since the time by which the solutions are implemented, many technologies and processes undergo changes. Collaborative application development by opening the source code of Government applications aims to transform the way application development is being done in the country. Since the source code of Government application would be made available, developers can improve such applications by best coding practices, leveraging latest technologies and improving user’s interface. The policy aims to reduce the time for application development substantially so that e Governance solutions could be implemented and rolled out on a fast track basis. Once the ecosystem of collaborative application development gets established and starts delivering results, the common citizens would be able to avail their services commensurate with the schemes announced by the Government in a time bound manner. The Government of India wants to promote re-use of existing developed applications. By opening the source code, the Government wants successful, scalable, high quality e-governance applications to be developed in a collaborative manner. It also wants new applications to be developed to encourage creativity both inside and outside the Government by encouraging collaborative development between Government departments/agencies and private organizations, citizens and developers to create innovative e-Governance applications and solutions

Application Development & Re-Engineering Guidelines for Cloud Ready Applications

Aims to leveraging  process reengineering and the latest emerging technology i.e. Cloud; The maturity level of e-Governance in the country varies from States to State. Some States are advanced in implementation of their e-Governance projects while other states are facing difficulties and are still to make the optimum use of IT in their processes and citizen centric service delivery. As an outcome of the revamping exercise of mission mode projects / e-Governance initiatives like Road Transport, PDS, e-Courts, e-Prison, Treasury, CCTNS etc, it has been notified that there are many cases, wherein, multiple versions of the same solution are running in various States, each with suboptimal performance. This is a genuine concern as it causes cost overrun, unwanted delays and duplication in efforts. These guidelines aim to address the aforesaid issue through development of Common Application Software (CAS) which can be configured as per different state’s / department’s requirements without the need for modifying the core source code of the application. This would facilitate faster deployment and would also save time, efforts and costs. It is therefore imperative that applications are developed in conformity to guidelines that makes them standardized and compatible for hosting and running across states.