Academic year 2012-13 F.y.

mms Sub:MIS Topic: E-Governance

"Reaching the Unreached"

SUBMITTED TO:

SUBMITTED Name

BY: Roll no: 39 Roll no: 40

: DINESH MUDALIAr : jyoti Naidu

Name

INDEX

Sr.No.

Topic

1.

What is E-Governance?

2.

E-Governance vs. E-Government

3.

E-Governance Challenges

4.

E-Governance and ICT

Measures for e- governance

Conclusion

What is E-Governance?
It is the use of a range of modern Information and Communication Technologies such as Internet, Local Area Networks, mobiles etc. by Government to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, service delivery and to promote democracy

Governance: An Information perspective

Representative democracy relies on supposition that best way to make a decision is wider participation for all its citizens having access to relevant information. Government is by nature an information intensive organization. Information is power and information management is political .

Governance: In IT framework

Expansion of Internet and electronic commerce, is redefining relationships among various stake holders in the process of Governance. A new model of governance would be based upon the transactions in virtual space, digital economy and dealing with knowledge oriented societies. Electronic Governance is an emerging trend to re-invent the way the Government works.

E-Governance: Focus

Greater attention to improve service delivery mechanism Enhancing the efficiency of production Emphasis upon the wider access of information

E-Governance vs. E-Government

"Government's foremost job is to focus society on achieving the public interest."

"Governance is a way of describing the links between government and its broader environment - political, social and administrative." GOVERNMENT GOVERNANCE

superstructure

functionality

decisions

processes

rules

goals

rules

performance

implementation

coordination

outputs

outcomes

e-Government

e-Governance

electronic service delivery electronic consultation

electronic workflow

electronic controllership

electronic voting

electronic engagement

electronic productivity

networked societal guidance

E-Governance Challenges

"e-governance, however, is not really the use of IT in governance but as a tool to ensure good governance. e-governance does not mean proliferation of computers and accessories; it is basically a political decision which calls for discipline, attitudinal change in officers and employees, and massive government process reengineering, Ravi Kant (Special Secretary, IT, Govt. of West Bengal) explains.
All implementers and drivers of e-governance initiatives agree that the biggest challenge of deploying e-governance is not technology but change management. Change management is important not only in terms of cultural change but also in terms of changing operations and processes workflow that the automated environment will introduce.

"It's important to educate people at all levels about the benefits of technology. The various benefits and advantages of e-enabling the system should be communicated clearly right at the beginning to ensure popular support which will lead to greater chances of success," explains Dr G D Gautama, Secretary, IT, Government of West Bengal.

It is important to explain to people that the introduction of IT will not take away existing jobs but will make them easier, and if less manpower is required for operations the staff can be re-deployed elsewhere with no threat to their career growth path.

The key challenges with electronic governance are not technology or internet issues but organizational issues like

Redefining rules and procedures Information transparency Legal issues Infrastructure, Skill and awareness Access to right information Interdepartmental collaboration Tendency to resist the change in work culture

Other obstacles are geographical distances, lack of trained human resources, and lack of ICT penetration in remote areas. For instance, a good e-governance application will not benefit anybody in remote areas if there is no supporting infrastructure such as electricity, computers and connectivity. Many pilots have been successfully implemented in almost all areas of e-governance, but, says Ravi Kant, "Rather than having an obsession to undertake pilot projects, we should capitalise on the existing successful examples in the country and customise them for our use."

The challenges of connectivity have also reduced over the years with the falling prices of bandwidth and increased reach of connectivity service providers. Major VSAT service providers already have established large footprints in India, and telecom service providers have stepped up their leased line offerings even in previously unrepresented territories. Many state governments have developed state wide area networks (SWANs), customised applications, and data banks. But the interconnectivity of the servers is an issue which calls for the establishment of state data centres. The NIC, which is promoting e-governance in the country, has established VSAT connectivity in all the districts of the country. There remain however issues such as standardisation, inter-operability, security, and propriety vs. open source.

The other set of challenges lie in extending the reach of e-Governance services to 70% of Indian population that lives in villages. These include:

Assessment of local needs and customizing e-Governance solutions to meet those needs Connectivity Content (local content based on local language) Building Human Capacities e-Commerce Sustainability

E-Governance Challenges Specific to India

We list down some of the challenges which are specific to India - (Some of the inputs are taken from an officer from NIC).

Lack of Integrated Services: Most of the egovernance Services being offered by state or central governments are not integrated. This can mainly be attributed to Lack of Communication between different Departments. So the information that resides with one department has no or very little meaning to some other department of Government. Lack of Key Persons: eGovernance projects lack key persons, not only from technological aspect, but from other aspects as well. Population: This is probably the biggest challenge. Apart from being an asset to the country it offers some unique issues, an important one being Establishing Person Identities. There is no unique identity of a person in India. Apart from this, measuring the population, keeping the database of all Indian nationals (& keeping it updated) are some other related challenges. Different Languages: A challenge due to the diversity of the country. It enforces need to do governance (up to certain level), in local languages. Ensuring eGovernance in local language is a big task to achieve. According to an officer from NIC, success factors of e-Gov projects -

o o o o

10% Technology 60% Process 20% Change Management Rest is luck

E-Governance and ICT

"ICTs (Information and Communication Technology ) are effectively showing new dimensions to old institutional setups. There is a reinforced thrust for an informed and participatory citizenry for efficient egovernance. It goes without saying that impact of ICT on institutional changes is fast spreading across the boundaries of social and political arrangements of societies."
e-Governance is the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering Government Services, exchange of information, communication transactions, integration various stand-alone systems and services between Government and Citizens (G2C), Government and Business (G2B) as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire Government frame work. Through the e-Governance, the Government services will be made available to the citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. The Government being the service provider, it is important to motivate the employees for delivering the services through ICT. To achieve this, the Government employees are being trained on technology and started realising the advantage of ICT. The aim is to make them thorough with eGovernance applications and responsive to the technology driven administration.

What does E-Governance seek to achieve

Efficiency Transparency Citizen's participation

Enabling e-governance through ICT contributes to

Good governance Trust and Accountability Citizen's awareness and empowerment Citizen's welfare Democracy Nation's economic growth

ICT is the biggest enabler of change and process reforms with minimum resistance. Decades of attempts for government and process reforms fade in face of what ICT has achieved in few years. People would not so readily accept process change but in the name of ICT they do.

Measures for e- governance:

Enhancing citizen awareness Citizen awareness about the potential of ICT should be enhanced. Citizen access to government information/services must increased rather than further divide the digital divide. Upgrading Skills Need to upgrade the IT skills of government employees. Employees must be effectively trained before introducing desired changes in work process in government departments. Common Standards All states/ union territories must be adopt common standards to ensure creation and optimum utilization of government databases for nationwide citizen-related services. Technology evaluation Common evaluation methodology must be evolved for hardware and software selection to derive maximum benefit from investment. Technological obsolescene must be factored in while planning and implementing ICT applications. Experience sharing Continuous experience sharing between state and union territory governments on projects so as to avoid reinventing the wheel. Security Transactional security must ne given priority to ensure that internet use is safe, seamless and crisis free. Reliable infrastructures Sufficient resources must be allocated to build a reliable ICT infrastructure to avoid breakdown of services. Cementing public-private partnerships to supplement government efforts must be considered

Conclusion:
With the rapid explosion of internet technology in the world in the last few years there is need to think where we will be and we want to be in the future. With the time grows new technology will come and develop at a rapid pace.

The countries that are faster in adopting the technology have started reaping the benefits already. The government managers should quickly learn to use technology-fueled management tools for administrative efficiency and use them for a more value added service to the citizen. Several hindrances like delay in project implementation, spiraling cost, financial feasibility and financial sustainability along with technical bottlenecks and Integration with Government departments and states