Building Capacity

World over, capacity building has been conceptualized and is

understood well with respect to the developmental sector. This is generally in

terms of enablement, technology, manpower, training and human resource

development, etc. Many capacity building initiatives exist under the areas

covered by certain UN agencies, international organizations and NGOs. However,

the conceptualization of capacity building with respect to e-Governance is still

in its nascent stage. Thereby, posing a huge challenge towards identifying

suitable imperatives. Most of the nations have gone far in the area of

e-Governance as they had a reasonable level of readiness.

Indian environment poses considerable challenges because of its

geographic, cultural, social and economic diversity. Implementation experience

shows that it is generally easier to incept new processes and systems rather

than transform the existing systems that have become part of the set-up. India

has had a legacy of processes and systems existing since long before

independence.

The National e-Governance Plan of Government of India is the

greatest ever ICT enabled governance initiative since independence. It is an

ambitious program that has the potential to transform the whole experience of

citizen service delivery. With mission mode projects spreading across states,

UTs and line ministries, the scale and scope of activities planned have thrilled

even the international community and they are immensely impressed and interested

in this whole initiative.

The function of capacity building is about development of

sustainable capacities within a system to align itself towards identified goals

and achieve the same in efficient and effective manner. Indian states have shown

a keen interest in this initiative and have developed their e-Governance

roadmaps.

e-Governance roadmap is a blueprint for the e-Governance vision

of a state and depicts the status of e-Governance in a state, framework for

identifying and prioritizing e-Governance projects, existing and proposed

infrastructure, implementations/applications, institutional structure, capacity

building & resource options, etc. This helps in prioritizing the various

intended initiatives based on factors such as service value analysis, citizen

interface, development priority, revenue generating potential, departmental

e-readiness, etc.

There is a need to dedicate full-time resources to conceptualize

and implement e-Governance programs, develop competencies and keep pace with

technological advancements, and establish mechanism for monitoring and review.

At the apex level, capacities are required for policy formulation and committing

resources. At the program development and program management level, capacities

are required for preparing roadmaps, frameworks guidelines, prioritization,

monitoring, collaboration, etc. Similarly, at the project development and

management, capacities are required for project conceptualization, process

management, monitoring, etc. The capacity building guidelines take cognizance of

this fact, which is duly addressed in these guidelines, as shown in figure. The

institutional structures are envisaged to be created: SeMT-State e-Governance

Mission Team to provide technical support and decision making for driving

e-Governance, and PeMTs-Project e-Governance Mission Teams for the project

implementation.

Capacity building is a prominent precursor towards the

implementation of e-Governance in India. It is about transforming the

rudimentary systems and rejuvenating them through various mechanisms. Primarily,

the capacity building would address the need of technical manpower for

facilitating and driving the e-Governance in states.

Capacity building activities will also endeavor to give suitable

training inputs and content development for various identified areas, such as

e-Governance project evaluation/audit, outsourcing management, vendor

management, e-Governance policy framework, IT Acts, policies and regulations,

government process re-engineering, knowledge management, publicity and

awareness/PR skills, PPP modeling, etc.

Exposure to international best practices is also a very

important component of capacity building as this helps in assimilating the

successful processes and learning into the ongoing e-Governance initiatives.

Therefore, emphasizing the need of a proper knowledge sharing, interaction and

knowledge transfer via various media like specialized workshops, orientation

sessions, multimedia and the Internet.

The greatest challenge of culminating a pool of technically

trained manpower can also be met by incepting certain formal training programs

in academic institutions. There is also a need to evolve e-Governance as a

formal academic discipline, which has a blend of public administration, process

re-engineering, management and technology.

e-Governance initiated across the nation will bring greater

efficiency and effectiveness in the systems, and will have many direct and

indirect benefits to society at large. The e-Governance initiative in India is a

commendable movement that has the potential to enable diverse functions within

and outside the government, taking the stakeholder experience to new heights,

transforming the nation and bringing prosperity.

Dr Dhrupad Mathur,



The author is senior consultant, National e-Governance Plan, India





maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in