E-GOVERNANCE
E-governance refers to the use of ICT by government agencies to transform the relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of the government.
Need for e-Governance
- For Government
- Cost-saving: It saves costs of physical monitoring and administration.
- Efficient usage of public funds: Public funds are less prone to wasteful expenses and neglect with e-governance.
- Better governance: It pervades barriers and makes governments better at administration.
- Better scheme outcomes: It increases data collection and oversight and thus welfare schemes are more effective.
- Improves Public trust: With the gap reduced, public faith in state institutions improves.
- Better policy outcomes: Public policy outcomes are better with e-governance.
- Better Policing: Improves accessibility of police stations and also increases case reporting.
- Avoidance of duplication: Online resources are easier to find and thus issues of loss and duplication are removed.
- Reducing Transaction cost: It reduces the costs for the government as well as for citizens in terms of time and material resources.
- Simplifying Bureaucratic Procedure: It improves access through simplification and bypassing the need to physically be present for numerous needs.
- Greater Coordination & Communication: Effective file transfers and delegation of work without hassle.
- Security of information management: E-governance also ensures management of records for perpetuity without risk of damage, theft, or loss.
- For Citizens:
- Empowered citizenry: E-governance increases transparency and it also empowers the citizens to hold governments accountable.
- Inclusivity: As digital services go beyond geographical barriers, it increases the scope and extent of governance.
- Grievance Redressal: E-governance helps in speedy justice delivery and resolves grievances faster
- Accessibility: It bridges the gap between the state and the public, especially for those who have historically lacked access to state apparatus like women, dalits, and tribals.
- Women Empowerment: Women-centric schemes are better implemented, and the data on women upliftment, crimes are better gathered through e-governance.
- For Business:
- Ease of doing business: It makes compliances and performances better.
- Economic Growth: Assists a government’s economic policy objectives by promoting productivity gains inherent in ICT and e-commerce.
- Reduced delays: With less paper and less physical requirements, the process of setting up and also maintaining a business is faster.
- Expanse: With digital resources, businesses can expand their market and client base beyond geographical barriers.
Challenges:
- High Setup Cost: Specifically, the setup cost is very high and the machines have to be regularly maintained. Often, computers and the internet can also break down and result in delays in governmental work and services.
- Cybercrime: There is always the risk of private data of citizens stored in government services being stolen.
- Impersonal: The main disadvantage of e-governance is the loss of interpersonal communication, which many people consider vital.
- Digital Divide: Rural and remote areas still lack digital infrastructure. Just 14.9% of rural households having access to the internet against 42% in urban areas.
- Demographic Gap: Only 29% of women have access to the internet, and 10% of India’s elderly population also do not have proper access or understanding of digital media.
- Resistance to Change: E-governance means a complete revamp of age-old administrative systems, and thus many sections will be reluctant to its usage.
- Lack of universalization: E-governance methods differ from state to state, resulting in a lack of uniformity at the national level.
- No oversight: There is a lack of oversight authority dealing with various e-governance initiatives.
- Lack of Policy Focus: Not all state governments assert equal policy focus on digitization, nor are they able to maintain proper channels to engage digitally with stakeholders.
- Language Barrier: E-governance websites and applications are based mostly in English or Hindi, which is not understood by all.
- Legal Issues: To ensure security and privacy measures, particularly empowering ones, it is important to enforce legal measures, which is currently missing.
- Low IT Literacy Issues: India has a low literacy rate, and even among the literate population, not many have knowledge of Information Technology. Only 10% is digitally literate in India.
Government Initiatives – Government to Citizen (G2C)
- Digitisation Related
- Digital India: Aims to empower the country digitally, focusing on developing secure and stable digital infrastructure, delivering government services digitally, and achieving universal digital literacy.
- Aadhar: Used for multiple benefits to society, such as DBT and e-signing documents.
- Digi Locker: Helps citizens digitally store important documents like mark sheets, PAN, Aadhar, and degree certificates, reducing the need for physical documents and facilitating easy sharing and verification.
- PM WANI: Enabler for Digital India.
- Government Services and Monitoring Related
- Mygov.in: A national citizen engagement platform for sharing ideas and participating in policy and governance.
- UMANG App: Provides access to central and state government services, including Aadhar, Digital Locker, PAN, and Employee Provident Fund services.
- PRAGATI: A platform aimed at addressing common grievances and monitoring/reviewing important programs and projects of the Government of India and state projects.
- FRIENDS (Kerala): A single-window facility for paying taxes and other financial dues to the state government.
- Lokvani Project (Uttar Pradesh): A single-window solution for handling grievances, land record maintenance, and essential services.
- e-KRANTI: Promotes e-governance by delivering all government services electronically to citizens through integrated, interoperable systems.
- Women Related
- SHE-BOX: It is an online complaint management system for registering complaints related to sexual harassment at the workplace.
- HIMMAT APP: For women safety by Delhi Police.
- Mahila e-HAAT: It provides information about Mahila E-Haat, an online marketing platform for women.
- NARI Portal: This portal endows women with the power of information to build their life skills and facilitates them in taking full advantage of the services provided by the Government for them.
- Health
- Sugamya Bharat App: For the disabled.
- Aarogya Seva App: It is a mobile application developed by the Government of India to connect essential health services with the people of India.
- Electronic Health Record: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has notified the Electronic Health Record (HER) with an intent to bring standardisation and homogeneity across various Health IT systems.
- Mera Aspataal: GoI initiative to capture patient feedback for the services received at the hospital.
- Swasth Bharat App: Android-based mobile application that provides reliable information related to disease conditions, symptoms, and available treatment options.
- Vaccine Tracker: GoI android-based mobile application to help parents register and track immunisations of their children under 16 years of age.
- Education
- MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses available for anyone to enrol. They provide an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills.
- Swayam Prabha: A group of 34 DTH channels devoted to telecasting high-quality educational programmes on a 24×7 basis.
- DIKSHA Portal: Offers training courses, worksheets, lesson videos, curriculum, and assessment tests for teachers.
- SWAYAM: Provides free printable and downloadable study materials, video lectures, discussion forums, and online tests from over 1600 courses.
- National Digital Library of India: A virtual repository consisting of academic contents in multiple disciplines from school to post-graduation level.
- Agriculture
- Agriculture Mission Mode Project: Focuses on providing informational services to farmers on a variety of farm-related issues including seeds, soil-test-based information, fertilizers, pests, government schemes, and weather.
- Kisan Call Centres: To solve farmers’ queries over a telephone call.
- AGMARKNET: Facilitates web-based information flow, providing daily arrivals and prices of commodities in agricultural produce markets spread across the country.
- I-khedut Portal: The Gujarat Government has started a portal for the application of agricultural subsidies to make the process more transparent and efficient.
Government Initiatives – Government to Government (G2G)
- Smart Gov (AP): The Smart Gov App has been developed to streamline operations, enhance efficiency through workflow automation, and knowledge management in the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat.
- Khajane Project (Karnataka): It has digitized the treasury system of the state departments.
- Government e-Marketplace (GeM): It is a bold step of the Government aimed at making the procurement of goods and services by the Government Ministries and Departments digital.
- e-Office: Aims at significantly improving the operational efficiency of the Government by transitioning to a “Less Paper Office”.
- DARPAN: Facilitates the presentation of real-time data on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of selected schemes/projects to senior functionaries of the State Government as well as district administration.
Government Initiatives – Government to Business (G2B)
- e-NAM: Facilitates farmers, traders, and buyers with online trading in agri-commodities, making it easier to carry on trade.
- MCA21: Provides electronic services to the companies registered under the Companies Act.
- PARIVESH Portal: A single-window portal for clearances related to the environment, forests, wildlife, and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances.
- MSME Samadhan: An initiative for filing online applications by the supplier MSE unit against the buyer of goods/services before the concerned MSEFC of his/her State/UT.
- MSME Credit: Enables in-principle approval for MSME loans up to Rs. 1 crore within 59 minutes from SIDBI and 5 Public Sector Banks (PSBs).
- GST Portal: E-way bill is electronically generated, and the common portal helps with registration and viewing the application status.
Way Forward
- Initiation Phase
- Investment: There is a need to seek investment in India’s e-governance sector from outside sources rather than relying solely on government funds.
- Reduce disparities: E-governance can only be credible when it is accessible to all sections and regions.
- Hybrid Approach: For enhancing interoperability among e-governance applications, which will encompass a centralized approach for document management, knowledge management, file management, and grievance management.
- Integration: All citizen-related services should be managed under the same platform while business-related services are handled under a different one, making processes more streamlined.
- Implementation
- Domestic Industry: “Make in India” should be promoted to ensure hardware component demand is met within India to reduce reliance on imports.
- Cloud Computing: Meghraj – GI Cloud is a step in the right direction, aiming to accelerate the delivery of e-services while optimizing ICT spending by the Government.
- Private Sector: There is a need for more private sector involvement in innovation and management, especially the tech giants.
- Role of Civil Society: Integration of civil society is necessary as they contribute extensively and can have a vast impact as well as maintain databases.
- Human Resource Development: Capacity building and technical training can ensure better e-governance products that are user-friendly and resilient.
- Infrastructure: Schemes like the infrastructure pipeline must also focus on digital infrastructure.
- Recommendations of 2nd ARC Committee
- Conducive Environment: Suggests that the state should create suitable opportunities for e-governance initiatives and also incentivize their use.
- Re-engineering: Recommends that government mechanisms and frameworks be reengineered to be easily digitized.
- Skill Development: Emphasizes the necessity for skills in creating, maintaining, and operating e-governance systems, urging efforts to create or upgrade such skill sets.
- Public-Private Partnership (PPP): States that private sector expertise and public sector monitoring can ensure the best outcomes in terms of success and prolonged use.
- Legal Framework for e-Governance: Proposes that goals should be outlined by the Government to transform citizen-government interaction at all levels to e-Governance mode by 2020.
Best Practices
- Bahrain: The national portal provides features such as open forums, blogs, live chats, online polls, and e-newsletters to involve citizens in government decision-making.
- Ethiopia: The Cyber Ethiopia initiative has adapted the Amharic script to be Web-friendly, facilitating the digital use of the local script.
- Barbados: Offers single-sign-on services that provide citizens with greater ease and flexibility in performing necessary online tasks with the government.
- Malaysia: The MySMS system enables users to receive information and documents on demand, and broadcasts information from government agencies.
- Austria: Hosts a website that supports gender equality and provides information on current government initiatives related to gender equality.
- India: The AarogyaSeva app aids in COVID-19 contact tracing and helps spread awareness about COVID-19, connecting essential health services to the people.