The study was carried out by strategy and management consulting firm - Skoch Consultancy and was conducted to mark 5 years since the National e-Governance Plan was first formulated and two years after it was given effect
Another key finding of the study was that e-inclusion was a necessary precursor for achieving good e-governance and to ensure this, the following are essential:
- Capacity building
- Financial inclusion
- Linking participatory democracy and services delivery
Pointing out that the scale of e-governance in a country like India is vastly different from something being attempted in Europe or the US, the study notes that wherever the services have reached the citizens, corruption has declined, service delivery has improved, time overruns have been reduced, and citizen-government interface had improved.
According to Skoch, a critical issue that the e-governance movement in India today faces is the need to ensure collaboration among various government agencies, both at the central and the state levels, using technology as a key enabler for "the electronic delivery of government services (that are actually received) to citizens, businesses and other external consumers of such services in a reliable, timely and transparent manner."
The study also highlights the dilemma that e-governance proponents in India face: should the government first invest in infrastructure and accept the consequence of a longer gestation period for delivery of projects, or should it implement e-government initiatives in areas comparatively better equipped in terms of connectivity infrastructure or should it invest in both simultaneously?
More importantly, the study reveals that perceptions about the progress of e-governance in India are vast and as fragmented as our politics. The wide stakeholder groups consisted of citizens, the vendor industry (consultants, hardware, software vendors, systems integrators, etc.), the user industry, and the government itself.
Sameer Kochhar, CEO of Skoch said, "The vendor industry's perception seems to be indirectly impacted by the gains it has got from the resultant business, which has determined the role that they are playing." Within the government, the perceptions differ based on whether one looks at it from the viewpoint of the Department of Information Technology, or the National Informatics Centre or the domain ministries.
The only place where there is consistency in response to the various e-governance initiatives is in the positive response from citizens as well as business users, whether urban or rural. A majority of them feel that e-governance has resulted in an improvement in governance in general and their own interface with the government in particular.
The Skoch study shows that there has been a three-track effort to introduce e-governance in the country. The first track was largely driven by the National Informatics Centre, which took up the major task of automating projects, battling mind-set changes, and attempting gradual government process re-engineering. Track two saw forward looking state governments and central ministries taking the initiative to deliver services to citizens more effectively. Successes on this front the railways, income tax, central board of excise and customs, election commission, etc. Under track three, the government conceptualized the NeGP, which comprises of 29 mission mode projects, with common infrastructure, centralized planning and decentralized implementation, and public-private partnership as its guiding principal.
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Quelle/Source: CXOToday, 22.01.2009
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