Assessment of e-Governance Projects: an Integrated

Framework and its Validation

Harjit Singh Arpan Kumar Kar P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan
Doctoral Scholar Assistant Professor Associate Professor
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
New Delhi, India, PIN - 110016 New Delhi, India, PIN - 110016 New Delhi, India, PIN - 110016
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION
This study presents an integrated framework for assessing the Government operations involve interaction and communication
performance of e-governance projects. The integrated framework with public, back office processes and inter as well as intra
has been developed based on review of literature exercise as, a total governmental interactions. Governments worldwide are
of 922 studies were initially obtained from SCOPUS of which 64 developing various capabilities to deliver public services using ICT
studies were selected using focused exclusion and inclusion to their stakeholders. ICT has a valuable potential to help
criteria. The review highlighted that citizens were the dominant governments to deliver good governance to their stakeholders.
user groups being studied while other stakeholders (like However, this potential has largely remained unexploited in the
government, firms) were rarely covered in such studies. The review developing countries. In every research of the e- governance, at
identified a total of 126 constructs which were further clubbed in to least some literature referenced is always an information systems
groups like people, technology, policy, institution and economic. or e-Business idea modified in a little way to fit the public
An integrated framework for assessment of e-governance projects administration context [5]. In literature many different definitions
is developed. This integrated framework had identified dominant of e-governance are available. However, there is a commonality
constructs. For people group, these are ease of use, usefulness, user across these definitions as use of information and communication
awareness & satisfaction, adoption and social benefits & influence. technology (ICT), especially the Internet, to for electronic delivery
For technology group, these are accessibility, infrastructure, of public services to citizens, businesses, and other government
reliability and website maturity. For policy group, these are laws & agencies [19]. We can also say that e-governance is about
policies, privacy & security, transparency & user trust and Efficiency, Effectiveness, Economization and Environment. When
effectiveness & empowerment. For economic group, these are the roadmap or the blueprint is being drawn for any e-governance
affordability & cost of service and funding sustainability. For initiative in any organization, there are no readymade and common
institution group, these are availability & performance, (one fit for all) solution available for success [20]. The Unified
management support, quality (system, service and information) and Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model
operational efficiency. Validation of the relevance of this [11] is an integration of predictability capabilities from different
framework was done through qualitative case studies. One such existing models of technology acceptance. The factors of adoption
study is the Passport Project of Ministry of External Affairs (a are very important part to understand for any information system.
central government initiative, for citizens). Another such study is System quality, information quality, usage, user satisfaction,
the Excise Supply Chain Information Management Systems for individual impact, and organizational impact [2] are important
Liquor distribution in Delhi (a state government initiative for variables for success of an information system initiative. Along
businesses). The relevance of the conceptual framework is explored with other factors, it is important to study of inherent characteristics
using these case studies. of e‐service delivery and factors which differentiate two e-services
from each other [21]. With learnings and experience the model was
CCS Concepts further updated with insertion of “service quality” as an additional
• Applied computing~E-government characteristic of IS success [3]. It is further established that the
quality aspects of any e-governance project is important for its
• Applied computing~Computing in government
success [10]. Governments use different technologies and channels
• Applied computing~Computers in other domains to interact with stakeholders of the e-governance initiatives. The
stakeholders of e-governance are citizens, businesses, employees
Keywords and other government agencies [9]. For the success of an e-
Assessment; e-Governance; Framework; Service delivery model; governance, the engagement of all participating stakeholders is
Stakeholders required. Governments worldwide are developing various
capabilities to deliver public services using Information and
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for Communication Technologies (ICT) to their stakeholders. The
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies
department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for conducts a survey [8] on e-government every two years and rank
components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. the country based on different parameters including E-Government
Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to Development Index (EGDI). Importance of factors related to
post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission information security management (ISM) like security risks, access
and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. control, privacy and transparency has also focus of many recent
studies. “International Organization for Standardization”
ICEGOV '17 SCII, March 07-09, 2017, New Delhi, AA, India published ISO27001 standard “to guide for establishing,
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implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining, and stakeholder. Figure 1 shows the focused stakeholders in research
improving an Information Security Management System” [12]. literature.
As the percentage of failures of e-governance projects is increasing
[23] and the resources to be allocated are limited, especially in
developing countries. Hence the need for assessment of e-
governance projects has increased. The e-governance is not to be
seen as one time implementation. It has evolutionary character [17]
and contains multiple stages of development. E-governance
development may not follow each other directly in a sequential
way, especially in developing countries, as these countries get
opportunity to learn from mistakes and successes of the developed
countries [22]. The successful implementation of public private
partnership (PPP) in e- governance requires the adoption of some
key best practices, and adoption of the learning from previous
experiences [24]. PPP has emerged as a viable business model for
e-governance, especially for sustainability point of view.
Figure 1. Stakeholders focused in research literature
This paper is an outcome of review of the present literature. The The result shows that most of the studies have focused on citizens
literature review is to learn the current discussions in the research (94%). It interprets the importance of citizens for any e-governance
world on the subject [1,6]. This study used the process of assessment. The focus on other stakeholders is negligible, although
identifying the relevant literature and summarizing it in a more those are also important for assessing and e-governance project.
informative manner. The measuring and evaluating electronic
government are complex and multidimensional tasks [7]. The 3.2 Countries in focus
validation of our findings has been done from the qualitative Certain countries are not in focus in terms of quantum of e-
investigation through Indian cases of central level and state level e- governance research. On the other hand some countries are
governance projects. The objectives of this research are to examine repeatedly in the scope of researchers. In terms of country category
the existing frameworks and models which are being used or grouped in UN-EGDI. Most of the studies have been done in
referred for assessment of performance of e-governance projects context of very high or high EGDI (table1), which are mostly the
and identify the various components, dimensions & constructs and developed economies.
to construct integrated and comprehensive framework to assess the
performance of e-governance projects Table 1. Preference to countries for scope of researchers
Percentage of countries grouped by EGDI
2. REVIEW METHOD Very high EGDI (> 0.75) 22%
We derived key terminologies from the research question like
High EGDI (0.5–0.75) 39%
framework, e-government, e-governance and assessment. To
Middle EGDI (0.25–0.5) 20%
include alternatives terminologies, we used Boolean OR operator
Low EGDI (< 0.25) 2%
and for linking these terminologies Boolean AND operator was
used. As per the scope, the search was restricted to publications of Multiple/mix across groups 17%
last ten years (year 2005 to 2016) and we included different type of
publications like article, book, book chapter, conference paper & There is a lot of scope for doing e-governance research in context
review. Using the above search criteria, SCOPUS database was of the developing countries (middle and low EGDI). The
searched during 19-26 March 2016. The search string was validated governments and policymakers of the developing countries can
by its ability to detect the relevant studies in the field. We examined adapt and build on the learnings and best practices of developed
a random sample of 15 publications and then studied the countries who have already succeeded in e-governance adoption.
publication after downloading it. A total of 922 studies were
included for the next stage of review. A more detailed review was 3.3 Analysis and Findings: Theoretical
then conducted on the remaining publications by applying the Background
inclusion exclusion criteria based as the studies that focus on
In detailed study of 64 research publications, we come across 126
performance of e-governance projects, studies published only in
different constructs. Table 2 shows the constructs with high
English and in last ten years. In the light of the process, 64 studies
frequency (4 and reviewed literature, above), and has been denoted
were filtered out finally.
as Ci ᵾ i = 01 to 41.
3. DISCUSSION
This review yields several key findings and has been covered in
sub-sections here.

3.1 Stakeholder
Beside citizens, the list includes government, businesses,
employees, intermediaries and the service providers. Each of these
stakeholders plays an important and unique role in the execution of
any e-governance project and impact its performance. Research
categorisation based on stakeholder is an important analysis. It tells
the focus and importance given to each of the e-governance

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 Table 2. Constructs with high frequency of occurrence excluding Attitude Towards Use
Construct Id Construct Item Frequency (A)
C01 Service quality 25 Theory of Reasoned Behavioral Beliefs, Attitude
C02 User trust 21 Action (TRA) by Fishbein Towards Behavior, Normative
C03 User satisfaction 20 and Ajzen in 1977 Beliefs, Subjective Norm,
C04 Information quality 16 Behavioral Intention and Actual
C05 Efficiency 15 Behavior
C06 Ease of use 14 Theory of Planned Extension of TRA, by including a
C07 Empowerment 13 Behavior (TPB) by Ajzen relationship of Control Beliefs,
C08 Transparency 12 (1991) Perceived Behavioral Control and
C09 Security 11 Behavioral Intention
C10 Usefulness 11 Unified Theory of Performance Expectancy (PE),
C11 Infrastructure 10 Acceptance and Use of Effort Expectancy (EE), Social
C12 Website maturity 10 Technology (UTAUT) - Influence (SI) and Facilitating
C13 Accessibility 8 Venkatesh in 2003 Conditions (FC)
C14 Effectiveness 8 Diffusion of Innovations Relative Advantage, Compatibility,
C15 Cost saving 7 (DOI) theory by Rogers in Complexity, 'Triability’ and
C16 Coverage 7 2003 ‘Observability’
C17 Privacy 7
C18 Technical quality 7
C19 Cost of project 6 To analyse the extracted data and interpreting it into meaningful
C20 Cost of Service 6 findings, these constructs were clubbed in to meaningful groups.
C21 Interactivity 6 Clubbing of these constructs was done based on having the similar
characteristics and dimensions. The high-level construct groups
C22 Reliability 6
emerged were People, Technology, Policy, Institution and
C23 Affordability 5
Economic. Each has been detailed in the subsequent sub-sections.
C24 Availability 5
C25 Design 5 3.3.1 People
C26 Funding sustainability 5 Non-technology factors and perception driven constructs (generally
C27 Navigation 5 behaviour related constructs of user groups) were extracted from
C28 Perceived usefulness 5 the final pool of constructs. These were individual as well as social
C29 Performance 5 constructs like use satisfaction, social influence and usefulness.
C30 Performance expectancy 5 Also in this group, we included the awareness related constructs
C31 Technological risks 5 like change management and training. The dominance of constructs
C32 Adoption 4 like ease of use, usefulness, user satisfaction and user awareness
C33 Communication channels 4 constructs across studies indicates their high focus and importance.
C34 Laws and policies 4 This is based on the perceived behaviour instead of actual.
C35 Perceived ease of use 4
3.3.2 Technology
C36 Service delivery 4
All technical scope and system environment related aspects
C37 Service support 4 covered in this group. Important constructs like system scalability,
C38 Social benefits 4 accessibility, technology risks, e-service maturity and system
C39 Social influence 4 development related constructs are clubbed into this construct
C40 Usability 4 group. Among them few constructs are being referenced in high
C41 User Awareness 4 numbers in different publications. The popularity of these
constructs across studies highlights the dominance of usability of
A closer look at these constructs emphasize that they have been technology as system maturity, system architecture and system
adopted from among major technology adoption theories existing infrastructure as being a key concerns for most studies.
in information systems literature. A summary of these has been For accessing the performance of e-governance projects, one has to
illustrated in table 3. ensure that these constructs are part of the scope in context of the
Table 3. Overview of the prominent models of adoption technology factor. For practice the stakeholders in decision making
of the technology have to ensure that for running system for an
Model Key Constructs efficient accessibility, one should ensure that optimized
infrastructure and appropriate technology is provisioned.
Technology Acceptance Perceived usefulness (PU),
Model (TAM) by Davis in perceived ease of use (PEU), 3.3.3 Policy
1989 Attitude Towards Use (A), Aspects related to legislations, law enforcement, regulations,
Behavioral Intention of Use (BI) guidelines, empowerment of stakeholders and system strategy
and Actual Use (Usage) became member of this group. Constructs related to policies
TAM2 by Venkatesh & Extension of TAM, by including including those from information governance at different levels as
Davis in 2000 cognitive instrumental processes trust, security, effectiveness, transparency and privacy were
and social influence processes and clubbed to construct the group. For practitioners working on e-
governance projects, for success of any e-service, a lot of thrust is

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required to be given on the aspects related to trust. For measuring assess the performance of e-governance projects from the
the outcome as performance assessment, effectiveness is an perspective of multiple stakeholders, validated by empirical study,
important parameter and empowerment is a critical especially for the projects from developing countries. The
framework has been conceptualized using the constructs identified
3.3.4 Institution from the results of our literature review exercise. Beside the
This is a broad group comprising of constructs related to perspective of citizens, this framework also focuses on the context
organization, management, operational and quality aspects of e- of other stakeholders of the e-governance project, which is not
governance project. Constructs related to processes and operations much part of the literature. This framework highlights the dominant
namely quality of deliveries, services desk, organizational culture, constructs which impact e-governance project performance from a
management support to initiative, system efficiencies and support unified and integrated perspective. This integrated framework as
activities are clubbed into this construct group. Few constructs like per the applicability, may need to be customized as per the scope
efficiency, information quality and service support are referred of the e-governance initiative and the relevance of the stakeholders
with high frequency in literature. The popularity of these constructs for that initiative.
across studies highlights the dominance of overall quality and
system performance being a key focus for most studies. For This framework can also be used as a template for evaluation by
practitioners working on e-governance projects quality aspects are policy makers before, during, and after the completion of these
very important and a lot of weightage is to be given to them while projects. The framework takes into consideration the capabilities of
assessing the e-governance projects. the stakeholders like citizens, service providers, implementing
government department and other government agencies, as well as
3.3.5 Economic the actual impact on these stakeholders. Identifying the key
Aspects related to different types of costs of the initiative in context stakeholders provides a basis for identifying scope of assessment
of different stakeholders including users of e-services, service since a project will be targeted toward a subset of stakeholders. This
providers and government are covered in this group. Economic framework will focus on measuring the total value delivered by a
constructs like affordability of e-service, sustainability of funds, project to different stakeholders and also identifying multiple
financial risks and overall benefits as well as economic value across components/constructs of the value that would need to be measured
stakeholders are clubbed in a construct group as “Economic”. The in different ways, reflecting a variety of outcomes experienced by
analysis of data showed that constructs namely affordability, cost each stakeholder group. The significance of each of these
of service and cost saving are dominating across research in dimensions is to be identified in context of the project being
literature. The popularity of these constructs across studies studied. At the stakeholder level, some or all the construct
highlight the dominance of overall saving for the users for using the presented can be relevant and significant. For each stakeholder,
e-service being a key focus for the e-governance studies. value of each identified applicable construct is to be measured for
Researchers may find a lot of scope to explore more relevant consolidated performance assessment.
constructs in this group, since decisions are driven in practice based
on economic and financial viability of the initiative, especially in 4.1 Method
developing countries like India. Case study based qualitative research methods have been used in
this research. It was decided that information be collected from a
The emerged constructs have been summered as figure 2. set of stakeholders of the project as semi-structured interviews. The
stakeholders we studies were, the users of the projects (citizens and
businesses respectively) and the key members of the team deployed
by the service provider (like project head, technical architect lead
and operations lead of the project). These candidates were part of
the study through use of snowball sampling method of selection.
The snowball sampling method of selection was used because of
our data collection method as semi-structured interviews. The
respondents were domain experts who otherwise were less
approachable for collection of data due to the sensitiveness of the
domain. It was also very difficult to convince the subject to give
sufficient time and also provide the information required as data
collection, especially when the time is also a constraint for data
collection. We needed maximum success in responses.
From the perspective of the organization where the projects were
implanted, we interviewed the head of the project. We prepared
open ended questionnaires for guiding the interview of stakeholder
and ensured that across projects there is not much difference in the
pattern of questions for the same stakeholder. We classified the
expected information into different themes, based on the
Figure 2. Construct groups and prominent constructs characteristics of the variables to be captured during the study for
4. THE INTEGRATED PERFORMANCE each stakeholder. We adopted this method because of our
requirement to study deep into the system and to capture maximum
ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK possible details within small sample. During the interview
Evaluating e-governance projects is an important issue [4] and the discussion, there is flexibility to adjust the flow of the discussion
lack of formal methods for assessing comprehensive e-governance and distribution of the time on each of the theme covered based on
project has led to a significant slowdown of e-governance the progress of the interview to extract the optimum information in
development. There is need for a comprehensive framework to the minimum duration. The data was then formatted according to

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the themes. We considered the frequencies of event is measure of about 30 days. The process has three options of police verification.
the significance of the themes for the respondents. The outcome of Police verification before issue of the passport, police verification
this analysis became the basis for findings of this study. after issue of the passport and no police verification required. The
passport granting officer based on the applicant category and other
4.2 Case studies from India conditions (confidential) decides the applicability. In cases of
Case-1: Passport Seva Project (PSP) by Ministry of External police verification after issue and no verification required, the
Affairs (MEA) passport is issued (end to end process) in 3 to 5 days.
The passport management by all stakeholders in India is mandatory Citizens use the system for up-to date information on passport
to be through e-services [25], a national government citizen centric services, online application filing, making online payments in a
(G2C) initiative. This e-governance initiative is based on public safe and secure manner, appointment booking and real-time status
private partnership (PPP), Service delivery model. It is end to end tracking. It has been observed that with the implementation of this
integration of passport processes using ICT. In the earlier system, new system, there is noticeable improvement for the services being
most of the processes were manual. For getting a passport delivered to the citizens. For applying the passport, time taken from
application form, citizens have to visit the passport office. The getting the application form from the passport office to filling the
completely filled (handwritten) form was to be deposited in the application to submission of the application at the passport office
passport office as first come first serve bases (in a single queue at use to take about 2 to 3 days. In new system this process just takes
the entrance of the office), along with attested photocopies of all couple of hours.
relevant document and originals were to be seen by the passport
officers at the counter for verification. Grievance redressal mechanism is part of the system as a
centralised call centre and through portal. The printing and dispatch
With the implementation of new end to end ICT system, manual of passport process earlier use to take around 12 to 15 days. In the
and handwritten submission of passport application is not allowed. new system now it takes about 2-3 days for this process of printing
Filling of form, submission of application form, payment of and dispatch of passport.
passport fee to booking of appointment to visit passport office is
being handled by e-Service for the citizens. Figure 3 explains the There are 37 reginal passport offices (RPOs) all over India. Earlier
sequence of processes and flow of information for issuance of these passport centres also to handle the load of passport
passport to Indian citizens. preparation. With implementation of this system, 91 new passport
centres (Passport Seva Kendras - PSKs) have been added across
India. These centres caters for application and granting processes.
The printing, dispatch and other functions are being handled by 37
RPOs. This has led to distribution of load. Table 4 shows the
growth in the year wise number of passports being issued by the
department.
Table 4. Year wise number of passports issued in India
Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Number
5.1 6.1 6.6 6.7 7.3 8.7 10.4
(million)
(Source: MEA published annual reports)
Certain functionalities are also available on mobile plate from
through mPassport Seva mobile app (Figure 4) on platforms like
Android, Windows and Apple iOS.

Figure 3. Process for issuance of passport to Indian citizen

The functionality also includes broader reach, usefulness, ease of
use, and greater transparency with availability of the information
on passport services including real time tracking of status. The
system also serves as an interface with the key stakeholders like
citizens, internal users of MEA, Indian missions & immigration
check points.
The Passport system provides an online real time digital interface
for verification of an applicant’s personal particulars. This is very
critical and has brought in transparency in the process, brought in
greater accountability on the part of the police and significantly
reduced the time taken for police verification. The police
verification before implementation of this system use to take
between 90 days to 180 days to reach back to the concerned
passport centre. In new system, this process on an average takes Figure 4. Passport Seva Mobile Application Screenshot

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This system also has interface with IT systems other government
agencies like e-Migrate System of Ministry of Overseas Indian
Affairs for real-time verification about the passports submitted by
prospective workers seeking employment abroad, resulted in
increased security and reduction of risk of Passport misuse and
identity theft.
Case-2: Excise Supply Chain Information Management System
(ESCIMS) by Department of Excise, Govt. of Delhi
This is a track and trace system of Delhi Excise department for
supply and distribution of liquor in national capital territory (NCT)
of Delhi [26]. This is the pioneer track and trace system
implemented by any state excise department in India. This e-
governance initiative is also based on public private partnership
(PPP), Service delivery model. Earlier in the system a lot of
functionalities were manual processes, which was responsible for a
huge footfall at department office for issuance of Licenses &
Permits, different types of payments and a lot of trivial temporary
& permanent permissions from the department. There was no
unique identifier on bottle to track whether Excise duty was paid or
not. Reconciliation of revenue of the department was done
manually, which use to take days to complete. Now the end to end
process has been automated with real-time tacking of units of liquor
through ICT system. The system also has the facility of online
payments and automatic end of the day reconciliation of revenue.
Figure 5 explains the track and trace system of ESCIMS.
Figure 6. 1D and 2D barcodes for track and trace

Figure 5. Flow of information in ESCIMS

The system is based on the concept of unique barcode based
tracking (Figure 6) of each sealed unit which contains liquor (2D
barcode for each unit and 1D barcode for container of group of
these units), the carton containing those group of unit barcodes.
Figure 7. Year on year growth in revenue
With use of scanning technology on these barcodes at each step in
the supply-chain. Each, unit of liquor supplied for sale in Delhi is The key stakeholders of this of this system are employees at
being tracked in real time bases in the system. These points in different levels of department of excise Delhi (as per the role of
supply-chain are distillery to bonded warehouse in Delhi, employee in the system – including search teams equipped with
intermediaries (authorized distributors) and in the end the point of GPS based hand held devices), liquor distilleries and warehouses,
sale (POS) for that unit. The POS application is capable to continue the liquor vends, defence canteens, embassies & consulates, hotels,
working even in if the connectivity to the central servers is not restaurants (with valid licence), clubs and the other agencies who
available (off-line mode). As soon as the connectivity to the central are authorised to sell liquor in Delhi. Handheld terminals are
servers is available, the POS application exchange the information available with all stakeholders to ensure the real-time track and
to synchronise both systems. This is a government to business trace of each unit at any stage in the process. An android based app
system. The main users of this system are those businesses, who are ‘mLiquorSaleCheck’ is available for public to scan the 2D barcode
directly or indirectly part of the supply-chain or sale of liquor Delhi. on the unit being sold in Delhi to provide the details. This image
fetch the data from the system and confirms the authenticity of the
This system went live in December 2013 as pilot and become fully unit purchased (figure 8).
functional in middle of FY 2014-15. The increase in revenue till
then was around 10%, however for FY 2015-16, there was sudden
jump of around 25% in revenue. The results were immediately
evident and are shown in Figure 7.

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 stay of a person (published based on the system data) in these
centres for the one time visit for end to end process is less than 30
minutes (C38). At the last phase of this process, there is feedback
process to capture the experience of the users about the service
provided by the system and it captures the variables like user
satisfaction, ease of use, usefulness and user awareness (C03, C06,
C10, C41).
Figure 9 explains how the executors of these initiatives capture
implement the system changes in a collaborative way with the
stakeholders.

Figure 8. Snapshot of the free mobile app

There is an upper threshold limit of permitted inventory at each
level whereby forcing the scanning at each level (especially at the
point of sale) as non-scanning will lead to artificial increase in
inventory and more chances to hit the upper limit.
Before the implementation of this system, issuance of different
types of permits use to take anywhere between 4 to 6 days, now
through the system these are being issued within a day. The
issuance of P-10 licence (permission of serving liquor in a private
party) is now a state-through process (generated instantly on
success of online payment). The issuance of licences for new retail
vends, for warehouses for storage of liquor, for import of liquor
(foreign liquor) and for duty free liquor shop at international
airports, earlier use to take around 4 to 6 weeks, which with Figure 9. Process of capturing variables of people constructs
implementation of this system has come down to average 3 to 4
days. Now there is ease of tax rate changes or regulatory changes It is an iterative process and lead to continues improvement. The
being put in force immediately. This was very difficult and time main factors emerged important from these studies are user
consuming in the earlier system. satisfaction, ease of use and usefulness. The social factors (C38, C39)
and user awareness has not emerged as important factors in this
Taking the inspiration from this system, many other state studies. It is a mandatory e-service (no manual alternative
governments have started the planning to implement the similar available), so the study of adoption was less relevant. Figure 5
system for their excise department. explains how the executors of these initiatives capture implement
the system changes in a collaborative way with the stakeholders. It
5. RESULTS AND FINDINGS is an iterative process and lead to continues improvement. The main
We collected and analysed the data (information) with perspective factors emerged important from these studies are user satisfaction,
of users (citizens and businesses), service providers (the IT partner) ease of use and usefulness. The social factors (C38, C39) and user
and government agency where the project is being implemented. awareness has not emerged as important factors in this studies. It is
The outcome of the analysis of the data collected with respect to a mandatory e-service (no manual alternative available), so the
the integrated framework is detailed in the subsequent sub-sections. study of adoption was less relevant.
The emergence of the constructs (IDs) from the observation is also
mentioned as Ci (reference from Table 2). Case-2: In this case also, the users compared their experience of
new system with the older system which was completely manual
5.1 People and most of the information available on the system today was not
Case-1: The users while comparing their experience of the new even possible earlier (C40). Users are comfortable in using the
system with the older, mentioned about elimination of manual system (C06, C03). After initial pilot of two months, extensive
processes to a great extent (C32, C41). They were comfortable & training was conducted for users (C41) and the complete system
satisfied with new system (C06, C03). The system provides user became IT enabled in next two months (C32). The system provides
friendly interface to avail the services online. The facility online user friendly interface to avail the services online. The facility of
payments of fees and other charges is available on the system online payments of fees and other charges is available on the system
(C06,C10). These services are available on the same portal (C40). (C10). Most of these services are available on the same portal.
Except only in case of regulatory compulsions and the exceptional Except only in case of regulatory compulsions and the exceptional
cases the users have to visit the government office like visit to cases the users have to visit the government office (verification of
passport office for recording of biometrics of individual and original documents for applying new licences and search & seizure
verification of original documents (C38,C03). Passport department cases). Dashboards available on systems are very important for
has their centres in most of the cities in India. The average time of monitoring real-time tracking and of inventory (C38, C40, C10).

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5.2 Technology user trust. For government and service providers, the regulation, act
Case-1: The internet terminals are provisioned at the passport and law is the bases for the functionalities provided in the system
centres for use of citizens (C13). Within data centres the (C34). The relevance of other factors observed is not much.
infrastructure is available in high availability cluster mode with no
single point of failure (C25, C11), to ensure high availability and high
5.4 Institution
reliability of the system. For data centre level redundancy, Disaster Case1- The system is available on internet based on anywhere-
Recovery (DR) sites in different seismic zone are available (C22). It anytime e-service (C24). Users use this system according to their on
is ensured that sufficient infrastructure is provisioned to ensure the convenience. Sufficient redundancy of infrastructure is provisioned
reliability, availability and advance capabilities features (maturity) to ensure the high availability of the system for the users (C24, C18).
of the system (C25, C12). Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are Response time of the system for end users is part of the SLAs. The
predefined to ensure these. The main factors emerged important time taken to complete the processes (like police verification) has
from these studies are accessibility, infrastructure, design, drastically came down (C05). System is delivering these SLAs, as
reliability and web maturity. The relevance of other factors like asked by the concerned organisations (C05). 24x7 service desk in
coverage and personalization are not very relevant to stakeholders. 17 languages is available (C01) to support the system. For all
stakeholders, it has been ensured and these systems are providing,
Case-2: Based on the role of the user, the system is accessible from the right information, in the right form, at right time, to the right
mix of networks internet and MPLs cloud. For point of sale person and in the right quantity (C04). This is priority for users,
terminals, it also works in off-line mode to ensure continues service providers & government and one of the main objective of
accessibility (C13, C25, C22). Within data centres the infrastructure this system. The quality factors (information, system and service)
is available in high availability cluster mode with no single point of have emerged as the most important factors. The factors like
failure to ensure high availability and high reliability of the system availability and performance of the system has also emerged as
(C25, C11). For data centre level redundancy, disaster recovery sites important factors.
in different seismic zone are available (C22). It is ensured that
sufficient infrastructure is provisioned to ensure the reliability, Case2- The system is available on internet based on anywhere-
availability and advance capabilities features (maturity) of the anytime and also in off-line mode for POS users (C24). Users use
system (C25, C12). This is end-to-end track and trace system (C16). this system according to their on convenience. Sufficient
The main factors emerged important from these studies are redundancy of infrastructure is provisioned to ensure the high
accessibility, infrastructure, reliability and web maturity. availability of the system for the users, including two separate and
Personalization are not very relevant to stakeholders. parallel vendors for MPLS (C24, C18). The system manage to
withstand the peak usage without impacting the performance and
5.3 Policy throughput of the system (C05). Service desk is available (C01) to
Case-1: The access to system is for all users is through login-id and support the system. For all stakeholders, the information access is
password to ensure the secure access and privacy of information role based. It has been ensured and the system is providing, the right
(C17,C09). The access to users are through 128 bit encryption information, in the right form, at right time, to the right person and
through secure socket layer (SSL) connection (C02). Officers to in the right quantity (C04).
give sensitive approvals to attach their digital signature with these
approvals (C02). System is hosted in level-3 capability certified data
5.5 Economic
centres, this includes high level of information security of the Case-1: It is observed from the responses of all covered
servers (C34). These systems are real-time queue based workflow stakeholders that economic factors are part of the primary
and approval systems to ensure the transparency in the functionality objectives while conceiving and e- governance project. No change
and empowerment in decision making (C07, C08). The new police in the fee structure and other charges due to computerisation of the
verification process has brought in transparency in the system (C08). service, when the services of the concerned passport department
The increasing trend of the final output of the system, the overall shifted to e-services (C23). Time saving of users is very important,
effectiveness of the system (C14). The main factors emerged time is money (C15). Each stakeholder mentioned that there is a lot
important from the above studies are privacy, security, of time saving using these e-services as compare to the getting these
empowerment effectiveness, transparency and the most important services through manual system. For users, the total cost of service
the user trust. For government and service providers, the regulation, is much less than the manual service (C20).
act and law is the bases for the functionalities provided in the Case-2: The e-service is very cost effective (negligible charge) and
system (C34). part of the MRP of the unit (C23, C20). Each stakeholder is sensitive
Case-2: Based on the role of the user, the access to system is for all about these factors and mentioned that there is a lot of time saving
users is through login-id and password to ensure the secure access using these e-services as compare to the getting these services
and privacy of information (C17, C09). The access to users are through manual system. Most of the functionary part (like real time
through 128 bit encryption through secure socket layer (SSL) dash boards) was not feasible for manual system. For users, the
connection (C02). System is hosted in level-4 capability certified visits to the office are negligible and hence cost and time saving
data centres, this includes high level of information security of the (C15). For users, the total cost of service is much less than the
servers (C34). These systems are real-time queue based workflow manual service (C20).
and approval systems to ensure the transparency in the functionality It was found that all stakeholders have different economic
and decision making (C08). Stakeholders’ empowerment is an objectives for execution of any e-governance project. Most of these
important factor (C07). The system manage to withstand the peak factors are quantifiable. Figure 10 shows the process of identifying
usage without impacting the performance and throughput of the the achievement of these objectives for each stakeholder.
system leading of overall effectiveness of the system (C14). The
main factors emerged important from the above studies are privacy,
security, effectiveness, transparency and the most important the

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 In this study, from the analysis of final 64 publications, a total of
126 different constructs have emerged. Out of this list, there are
certain dominant constructs which have been used in the whole
spectrum of studies of e-governance performance assessment
frameworks. We have grouped these constructs into dominant
groups like people, technology, policy, institution and economic
factors. Applicability of construct and the stakeholder is only with
respect to the scope and business functionality of the concerned e-
governance project. An integrated framework has been
conceptualized especially with perspective of key stakeholders of
the e-governance initiative, the relevance and validation of which
has been explored through two qualitative case studies, one from
central government and one from state government level in India.
In these studies we found that there are certain dominant constructs
within each of the above constructed groups. The exploration of
these case studies have highlighted the relevance of over thirty
constructs in the outcome of the projects. This contributes to
existing literature in bringing a more holistic view of relevance of
a variety of constructs. Such a holistic and detailed assessment
becomes challenging through an empirical survey due to the length
of such a questionnaire, if attempted.
While initial exploratory study has been conducted through
qualitative case studies, this expanded framework is to be filtered,
and validated empirically across spectrum of e-governance projects
and is to be refined further based on the findings of those studies.
In academic research, we need to see the prospects to best use of
mixed research methods [18] to validate these conceptual e-
governance frameworks.
Figure 10. Process of finding the economic factors
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