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E-Governance – Case
Studies
They say, there is too much government and too little governance. That may or may not change in the short and medium terms, but e-governance has radically changed the way development is perceived by its practitioners. It has promoted economies and efficiencies resulting in good government, equal access to government and transparency and accountability. E-governance has facilitated government-citizen interface by making it not just efficient but transparent too. Hundreds of queue-weary citizens are flocking to Internet kiosks for everything from tax forms to FIRs. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are accessing the net to find out crop prices. Citizen groups web-tracking the way the governments use or misuse the tax-payers’ money. India has inherited many good things from the British rule. But it has also inherited and invented red tapism, excessive bureaucratisation over secrecy etc. E-Governance helps the government to cut red-tapism, minimise corruption and reach citizens directly. With the implementation of e-governance projects, the government is gradually changing its role from an "implementor" to a "facilitator and regulator". For years, public services were provided, if they were at all provided, only in person, by phone or by mail. IT has brought about a change from traditional public administration to public governance. For all practical purposes, ‘public administration’ became ‘public management’. What we had was the classical Weberian model with its emphasis on structure, hierarchy, rule mania. Differentiation of graded authority—which at its best was an obstruction, a mental construct not to be found in reality. E-government has the potential to change all that. It is no more a slogan or a desired goal; it is fast taking the form of a movement. E-governance will encourage public-private partnership in service delivery. The book under review is one of the most comprehensive efforts to analyse the phenomenon. As many as 42 contributions by the knowledgeable people seek to cover as many aspects of the e-governance model as possible. Chapter one titled "Evaluating e-government" by M P Gupta and Jaijit Bhattacharya, senior faculty members of IIT, Delhi and Ashok Agarwal, editor of this volume, provides a broader framework for evaluating e-government in the country. As they contend, "The overall impact of e-government can be felt on many aspects that include saving taxpayers money, government’s time, support for small businesses, dissuading corruption, promoting participation in government and also streamlining government operation." But they also caution that this impact of e-governance cannot be measured adequately by using the traditional cost-benefit analysis and return on investment calculations. There is a long way to go before e-government becomes a reality across the country in major facets of citizen’s life. And yet, the government’s emphasis on bringing about Smart (simple moral accountable responsive transparent) governance is very well conceived. NASSCOM’s appraisal puts a clear perspective on the progress of e-governance in the country. It says, "despite the islands of excellence, e-governance has not been able to make rapid progress due to several operational, economic, personnel, planning and implementation issues." The strength of the book is its sweep of issues covering major ongoing e-governance projects in one volume as well as its various applications. It provides interesting appraisal of major projects like e-Sagu, the next generation cost-effective and personalized agro-advisory system, land records-related projects of various governments like Bhoomi, Dev-bhoomi and Dharitree. Two projects—Khajane of the Karnataka Government and e-Kosh of the Chhattisgarh government deal with treasury computerisation. It also discusses issues like ICT solution for NREGA, national identity scheme, postal life insurance, instant money order etc. The book is a guide for researchers, practitioners and common citizens. The strength of this book is the wealth of information that it contains. What it lacks is a concluding chapter and critical analysis of the major schemes currently under way. All the same, its strength far outweighs its weaknesses.
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