opinion
e-governance
LC Singh President and CEO, Nihilent Technologies
Transformation, not tech is the essence Successful e-Governance rollouts are all about discipline, attitudinal changes and massive government process re-engineering
T
he essence of good governance is based on the premise that the laws and procedures are transparent, and clearly defined and understood by those governed and the implementation is both quick and smooth. To this effect, the governance in a developing country is a challenge, because a majority of the governed (citizens) are educationally and socio-economically challenged. To compound the issue, those in the government are also at times not very clear on various rules and procedures. Further, even the rules and procedures sometimes become hindrances in the path of governance due to a lack of transparency and procedural clarity.
Old ways won’t work Public administration, governed by bureaucratic structures built on rational principles, that dominated the twentieth century, has failed to respond to changing requirements of the present times. E-governance, which is a paradigm shift from the traditional approaches in public administration, is about rendering of government services and infor-
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mation to the public using electronic means. This new paradigm has brought about a revolution in the quality of service delivered to the citizens. It has ushered in transparency in the governing process; saving of time due to provision of services through single window; simplification of procedures; better office and record management; reduction in corruption; and improvements in the attitude, behaviour and job handling capacities of dealing personnel. E-Governance, however, is not really about the use of IT in governance but is a tool to ensure equitable and easyto-avail good governance. It does not mean proliferation of computers and technology; it is basically a political decision that calls for discipline, attitudinal change in officers and employees, and massive government process reengineering. Implementers and drivers of e-governance initiatives agree that the biggest challenge of deploying e-governance is not technology but change management encompassing cultural, organisational, process, people and technological challenges.
An e-Gov country in making E-Governance
implementation
has
Traditional approaches of public administration are a thing of the twentieth century; the new paradigm is about transparency and procedural clarity
resulted into major benefits for some countries in the world. Countries like United States, France, and Switzerland have effectively implemented e-Governance modules. However, countries like India are still under the development process and efforts are being made to convert the IT-aware governments into IT-enabled governments. India today has perhaps the most ambitious e-Governance plan. At the highest level in the government, there are dedicated secretary-level officials, there is an approved budget of more than billion dollars at the central government level, and there are secretarylevel officials in the state governments with additional budget. Yet, many e-Governance projects sometimes suffer due to political instability. Having said that, a substantial amount of work is being done which will ultimately help in shaping up a modern and developed India. As an example, you can take one of the real estate projects going on in Uttar Pradesh. This is one of the attempts to provide computerised allotment of properties in the state. In some other places like NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata as well, such concepts have