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Follow UsR Jai Krishna
Thanks to e-governance, a combination of offline and online technologies to be implemented by the government of India anytime now.
Why E-governance?
In a diverse country such as India with a one billion plus population, it is a complicated procedure to engage the citizens of the nation to engage in the political process. Hence in making India a participatory democracy e-governance becomes imminent.
Electronic governance or E-governance as it is popularly known, is seen as a measure by the Indian government to reduce time and costs, increase transparency and get closer to the public. It is this, which can take the benefits of ICT to the common man. And indeed it will prove to the only solution for faster delivery of government services.
Since Independence, technology has always been a significant player in the country's economy, and more recently Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has taken a centre-stage. However, ICT, which is a key enabler of development, initially did not benefit the common man.
Hence, the Indian Government decided to harness the benefits of ICT by setting-up the Department of Information Technology on October 15, 1999, from the erstwhile Department of Electronics.
Further, the incumbent Congress-led UPA government has realised the potential of e-governance and making the citizens as the centre of the country's growth, by making it as one of the primary missions in their National Minimum Program, when it assumed power in 2004. All this is backed by the advancement IT in the country and the profound impact on economy, which has also highlighted India's attractiveness as a preferred investment destination too.
National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)
With the National Minimum Program being announced in 2004, the mission-next for the government was to come out with a concrete strategy for implementation of electronic governance. And thus was born the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
The NeGP seeks to take the benefits of IT to the man on the street thereby improving his quality of life. It will also enable the government to become more citizen-centric, transparent, accountable and efficient. The NeGP also provides an opportunity and a trigger for ministries/departments to re-engineer archaic processes in order to deliver services effectively to citizens leveraging the power of modern technology.
At this point one would wonder whether computerisation in the government, which began in late seventies under the aegis of Planning Commission by formation of National Informatics Centre, was the first step. Though we do not have a concrete answer nor a strategy in place, it is very sure that India was moving towards e-Governance.
The NIC then was assisting various departments in their attempt to use ICT as a tool for governance. Further boost to the computerisation program was given with the passing of IT Act in 2000 further facilitated this process.
Recognising the opportunities offered by the ICTs, the Union Cabinet approved the National e Government Plan (NeGP) on May 18, 2006, with a vision to:
"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."
The NeGP presently comprises 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and eight support components to be implemented at the Central, State and Local Government Levels. All the departments, which are closely interlinked to the common man, have been taken as part of the NeGP.
Taking government to the doorsteps
The department of Information technology then set up an initiative in February 2002 for setting up of Community Information Centres (CICs) in the hilly, far flung rural areas of the country to take the government to the doorsteps.
The CIC is seen as a measure to take the benefits of ICT to the people for socio- economic development of these regions and to alleviate the digital divide between urban and rural areas. The initiative which was follow up to the Special Package announced by Prime Minister to the North Eastern States (487 CICs at Block level and subsequently additional 68 CICs in newly created Blocks) which has been further extended to Jammu and Kashmir (135 CICs at Block Level) in February 2004, Andaman & Nicobar Islands (41 CICs in Government Schools) and Lakshadweep Islands (30 CICs in Government Schools) in February 2005. These CICs are citizen interface for IT enabled e-Government services and training.
Approval of "Common Service Centers" (CSCs) scheme by the Government in September 2006 was a step to take the spirit forward and broaden the scope and coverage of e-Government. The Common Services Center Scheme plans to establish 100,000 Web enabled Kiosks covering all 600,000 villages in India in a Public Private Partnership at a total Project cost of Rs 5742 crore, with Rs 1689 crore of Government funding, with the balance to come from the private sector. These CSCs will be providing various Governments, business, educational and other services to citizens by using ICT intervention. The scheme will also act a front face for various government departments and improve the level of service delivery to citizens.
PPP models for growth
The e-Governance plan is to be implemented in the Public Private Partnership mode, with the private sector investing. Almost two thirds of investment in the scheme is being made by Private Sector. The Government issued administrative sanction of Rs. 877 crore for 11 states and released the first instalment of Rs. 109.7 crore as Government of India's share and Additional Central Assistance of 106.76 crore to the states. A further seven proposals state's have been approved by empowered committee till date. 100,000 CSCs are expected to be established by October 2008,.
State-Wide Area Networks
To harness the best of technology, the DIT decided to crate State Wide Area Network, which will facilitate inter and intra-connectivity of various government departments. SWANs will act as a backbone for the e-governance program and hence facilitate delivery of various services to citizens at their convenience. As of now, the government has already approved a scheme for the establishment of SWANs at a total outlay of Rs. 3,334 crore over a period of five years. These SWANs will extend data connectivity of 2 Mega bits per second up to the Block level in the State or Union Territory in the country. Under the Scheme, proposals from 28 States/ UTs have already been sanctioned.
Taking the first step
The government has carried out institutional reforms within many Ministries / departments in terms of decentralization, simplification, transparency, accountability and e-governance.
Several other initiatives are also being implemented for creating an ecosystem for development and growth of e-governance in the country. Some major ones are: e-District Project is aimed at offering services which often terminate at district level to citizen and are not covered by other Mission Mode Projects.
The launch of the India Portal was also aimed at creating a front end for providing all government services to citizens. First version of portal has been launched and National Portal Coordinators have been identified from 66 Central Ministries/ Departments and 32 States/UTs. Content preparation, enhancement and ISO certification for portal is in progress.
Similarly, the National Service Delivery Gateway will provide a number of Core and common services viz. Messaging, Inter Gateway Messaging, Authentication and Payment Gateway Interface, National Services Directory, etc.
Language angle
With India being a multilingual, and multi script country; the government has realized that it needs to talk the language of the common man. And therefore a need to provide user friendly and cost-effective tools, applications and contents that enable access to ICT infrastructure in Indian languages has become essential. As a step in this direction, software tools and fonts for ten Indian languages namely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu Assamese, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi and Urdu languages were released in public domain for free use by the masses. Similar software tools and fonts for other languages are likely to be released soon.
Road Ahead
As the technology is an ever-evolving process for providing efficient and cost effective options, the government is taking a fresh look to the technology driven laws. The new version is expected to provide a legal framework for transactions carried out using computers and the Internet technologies.
There is also an emerging view that IT laws should be technologically neutral in line with the recommendations made by UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronics Signature. Such approach will promote development of alternative technologies for authentication of electronic records and will not warrant legislative changes each time a new and equally effective technology is evolved.
Challenges
E-governance in the first place will surely ensure faster and timely delivery of government services to the common citizen of this country. However, the key challenge would be to make the system work and not only the technology. Technology-enablement without a change in the attitude of the bureaucracy will only prove to be futile. And when e-governance may lead to failure the people at the helm of affairs should keep in mind, it is the tax-payers money, which may be wasted and they are the only one's to be blamed. So far so good, the government it seems is more cautious and careful enough to avoid such a disaster at any means for the greater common good. And for sure, the satisfied citizen will always think of the nation and India will be the next superpower in the making.
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