Critical analysis of e-governance in India
E-governance is the method of carrying out the functions and achieving the results of governance through Information and Communications Technology (ICT). “E” in the e-government means electronic or digital. In this century where almost everything has been made electronic like e-commerce, e-service, e-learning, etc. the Indian government is also trying to go with the wave and wants to govern through ICT. E-governance needs the help of ICT services to achieve their objective anytime and anywhere. It eliminates the need of physical travel by citizens to various government offices in order to get their work done. The major objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for all the government agents, citizens and businesses. E-governance also means e-democracy where all forms of communications between the electorate and the electoral happen electronically or digitally.
In India, the sudden push for e-governance came in 1987 with the introduction of National Satellite-based Computer Network (NICET). Then the District Information System of the National Informatics Centre (DISNIC) program was launched which computerized all the district offices in the country for which free hardware and software were given to the State Government. By 1990 NICNET was extended to all the district headquarters from the state capitals. The following years have witnessed massive number of e-governance initiatives which are comprised of computerization, tele-connectivity and internet connectivity, both at State and Union levels.
There are four types of government interactions in e-governance. These are Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Employee (G2E) respectively. Some of the government initiatives in G2G are Khajane project in Karnataka and SmartGov in Andhra Pradesh. MCA 21 and e-Procurement Project in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are examples of G2B initiatives. The maximum numbers of initiatives have been taken for G2C communication projects. Some of them are Computerization of Land Records, Bhoomi Project, Gyandoot, FRIENDS in Kerala, e-Mitra project in Rajasthan, e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh and Admission to Professional Colleges- Common Entrance Test (CET).
In 2006 we have seen the formation of the National e-governance Plan (NeGP) whose main agenda was to make all the government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DIETY) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) jointly have formulated NeGP. Under NeGP, the central government has taken initiatives to make post, banking and pension schemes available through ICT. On the other hand, the state governments have come up with projects like e-Panchayat, e-Districts, e-governance in Municipalities, and Public Distribution system. Integrated mission projects such as e-biz, e-procurement, e-Courts and Common Service Centers are also some prominent initiatives under the NeGP.
In the recent years we have come across major government initiatives in the realm of e-governance. Projects like Direct Cash Transfer, Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), Digital India Program, MyGov Portal and Digital Cloud for Everyone Program have gained high importance.
The Indian government is currently trying to push m-government in order to complement their e-governance. M-governance is an instrument to make e-governance a success. M-governance is the method to improve Government services and information anytime and anywhere by using mobile phone or gadgets like tablets and laptops. Although for mobile application the ICT must have good infrastructure and work processes. M-governance improves the productivity of public services. Also, it helps in the efficient delivery of government information and services. The lower costs of m-governance will eventually lead to higher participation of people. Mobile Seva is the recent initiative to promote m-governance. Mobile Seva aims to provide government services in the tap of mobile phones and tablets. 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.
There are multiple advantages of e-governance which is creating a thrust in India to move towards e-governance. Speed and lower cost of communication are the most important aspects of e-governance which allows hassle free communication. The cost of stationery, printers, etc. saves lot of money of the government. Transparency is another advantage of e-governance. E-governance allows common man to avail all the date from the government portals. Due to high transparency, e-governance brings high levels of accountability as well. E-governance brings government services available at the doorsteps of common man. E-governance also improves the quality of services. In case of any lack in services, customers (public) can always give their feedback which will eventually improve the quality of services from the government’s end. Also the high accessibility of information empowers people with knowledge which in turn empowers public. All these positive features are the reasons for which Indian government is trying to move towards e-governance.
As we know everything comes with some of the negativities as well and so e-governance too has its own flaws. One of the main problems is the lack of human to human connectivity which is a big deal in a country like India. Since e-governance is a technology based service and so it equips government to give the excuse of having technological errors quite often. Being equipped with proper knowledge about using ICT can be a big challenge, especially in the countries having low literacy rates. There is always a resistance to change whenever anything new comes into play. There will be some people who will take time to adopt the new technology and try to resist to it before even trying to learn. The problem of digital divide is again a major issue. The division of society depending upon the accessibility and usability of technology creates a major problem. The presence of digital divide is due to social, economic, infrastructural and ethno-linguistic issues. Economic poverty can be listed as one of the major reason behind digital divide. Privacy and security is another major reason for people not supporting e-governance. In order to make e-governance highly efficient, effective measures have to be taken to protect sensitive personal information. In case of developmental projects that contains sensitive information, a clear set of security standards and protocols need to be developed.
Many countries have adopted e-governance as it reduces the operational costs for the government and also ensures a citizen centric transparent government. Singapore and Australia were the first two countries to adopt e-governance. But Chile was the first country to have successfully implemented e-governance. Singapore, Sweden and Norway ranks higher in being highly comfortable in dealing with the government through online media whereas, countries like Britain, New Zealand and North Korea are such places where people tend to avert the concept of e-governance.
In a developing country like India e-governance is still a big challenge. Our government is fixed, static and hierarchical regulated whereas, the web is dynamic, flat and unregulated. This difference created multiple blockages in the implementation of e-governance. Although e-governance promises to provide speedy, efficient and transparent form of government but it is of no use until and unless the majority of the population gets to utilize this new technology.
India has extremely high population which offers various challenges like generating unique identification number for every citizen, along with keeping the records and database and also update it regularly. India is a multilingual country. The internet mostly uses English as its language which is again a problem for those whose primary language is not English. As per 2011 census, more than 80% of Indian population does not know English. Most of the applications in e-governance is in English and in India English is not accepted by many. Thus, majority of the e-governance projects fails in the country. Also, it’s impossible to come up with a single language other than English in Indian e-governance websites because as per 2011 census there are 29 different languages in the country. E-governance website like vikaspedia.in (NeGP) is available in 21 languages which show the extent at which the government of India is trying to push forward e-governance in India. A low literacy rate is again giving a tough challenge to e-governance in India. According to 2011 census more than 25% Indians don’t even have basic education. Also the problem of IT education is highly needed in order to make e-governance a success. Studies show that many people who can read and write in paper and pen does not know how to use the internet and thus are not being able to use the e-governance initiatives that the government is coming up with. According to the Internet Telecommunications Union (2011), merely 10% of the population uses internet in India. A large portion of the population is not being able to get access to the internet. In order to reach the grass root level, the rural population needs to be given access to computer centers like E-Districts in Madhya Pradesh and Akshaya in Kerala. Once the reach of access to computers and internet can be sorted, the lack of awareness will also go away. Currently due to lack of IT knowledge and access to the machines and the web connections majority of the population are not aware of the various government projects and their advantages. The per capita income in India is quite low which results in lack of infrastructure and thus the usage of e-governance gets limited. Every country provides a share of their GDP to run their e-governance projects. Although India shares a good amount of their GDP to take up new initiatives and run the old ones but still the burden of buying telephones, PC, etc remains quite high on the individual user. Therefore, in a place like India where broadband development is very low ordinary citizens find it to be very difficult to get access to the internet. Other than all of these above mentions challenges India are facing challenge of age and gender differences also. Many elderly people resist strongly adopting new technology and no matter they are educated or not they deny using the internet which is definitely not true to the younger generations. Gender inequality in developing countries is another major hindrance. In India percentage of literate males are quite high than literate females and also in most of the rural areas even if the females are literate they are still not allowed to use the internet due to social stigma.
Indian government is trying hard to push e-governance and also spending a lot in the various e-governance projects but still they are being unsuccessful because of the various challenges mentions above. The government needs to take strict actions to make the people aware about their latest development in the field of e-governance. On the other hand, even the digital educated citizens need to help others to use the internet and take full advantages of the various government initiatives. Also citizens need to be accepting and adapting to the new technology.