Introduction
Electronic Governance can be defined as giving Citizen the choice of when and where they access government information and services. Putting Citizen at the centre of government means taking a delivery channel view. This would mean using more and more of Electronics & Information Technology in many of the government functions.
There is tremendous importance for rules and procedures in the government. Unless the records are kept properly, accessing information and tracing the precedents becomes time consuming and this is one of the reasons for the delays in government administration. Secondly, rules and procedures lead to enormous red tape and delay and this in turn leads to corruption. Today, we find that the present paper based system is very time consuming and inefficient. The rules, procedures can be made transparent to the citizen, information can be made freely available to the citizen, trace precedents faster and in short, improve the pace of effectiveness of governance by using Information Technology.
Importance of Electronic Governance
A 'joined up' government-community-citizen infrastructure has its own significance. A strong and effective information chain, comprising a choice of practical, accessible and manageable channels of communication has a dual benefit. Citizen enjoy a fast and convenient 'service', whilst government not only becomes more integrated into the community itself, but can focus its resources where they are needed most. Moreover, a culture of self-service enables citizens to 'help themselves' wherever possible, saving time and money for all concerned.
In fact, Information Technology and Information Highways are going to dominate the next century. Government therefore has to take this fact into account and create SMART governance (simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent government). Hence the significance of electronics governance.
Maa’s role in identifying e-Governance initiatives:
A close analysis reveals that there are two fundamental issues to be addressed
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Technological Issues
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Management of Change related Issues
However the Electronic Governance initiative would have to address the following Technology Issues:
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Identify functional areas in every Government organization which need to be taken up for EG objectives
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Identify the appropriate hardware platforms and software application packages for cost effective delivery of public services
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Make this knowledge repository widely available through appropriate Demo-Mechanisms
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Offering a Basket of these models to the States, Departments both in the Center and the State, which could be suitably customized as per location and work specific requirements.
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This offer is to be supplemented by incubating and initiating efforts in this direction by various organs of the Government.
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e-Governance demands standards in all areas. Some of the key areas are:
- Data encoding (ISCII or UNICODE)
- Application logic for common horizontal applications User interfaces
- Data dictionaries
- In the National context it is essential to have clear strategy to access local level databases maintained in regional languages as well as to use appropriate interfaces to aggregate such data. Here, a focused effort would have to be made in improving the technologies for transliteration
- Most states have focused on computerization of individual activities per se. This leads to mere automation of theexisting manual work. Even by having computerization of workflows, issue of prompt and regular updation of data needs to be effectively addressed.
Management of Change related Issues
This issue of Management of Change, which would have to be quite rapid at times, is the other most fundamental challenge to be addressed by the practice of Electronic Governance. This would involve:
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Delivery of public services like Utilities, Rural and Urban development schemes through interactive TV, Kiosks, Internet and other IT based technologies would necessitate procedural and legal changes in the decision and delivery making processes as well as institutions.
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Fundamental changes in Government decision management.
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Changes in the decision-making procedures in terms of decision making levels and delegation of authority. This would mean de-layering of the decision-making levels leading to re-engineering and appropriate sizing of the decision-making machinery.
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Mandatory changes in legal provisions to give effect to the technology objectives. IT Bill formulation is one such step taken by the government in this direction.
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Training and acclimatization of the personnel at all levels more so at the lower rung of Government management organizations
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Loss of vested interests and assumed power as well as authority both amongst the legislature and the executive
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Amendment in State laws through study and consultation.
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For a good self-service strategy, government has to initiate good support programs to help the public to effectively use new channels.legal changes in the decision and delivery making processes as well as institutions.
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Fundamental changes in Government decision management.
-
Changes in the decision-making procedures in terms of decision making levels and delegation of authority. This would mean de-layering of the decision-making levels leading to re-engineering and appropriate sizing of the decision-making machinery.
-
Mandatory changes in legal provisions to give effect to the technology objectives. IT Bill formulation is one such step taken by the government in this direction.
-
Training and acclimatization of the personnel at all levels more so at the lower rung of Government management organizations
-
Loss of vested interests and assumed power as well as authority both amongst the legislature and the executive
-
Amendment in State laws through study and consultation.
-
For a good self-service strategy, government has to initiate good support programs to help the public to effectively use new channels.
