E-Governance: Some IT Steps for Democracy

Imagine a situation in which all transactions with the government can be done
through one counter without having to wait in long queues. This is one of the
many visions envisaged by the concept of electronic or e-governance. The
objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for all parties–government,
citizens and businesses. In e-governance, IT supports and stimulates good
governance through better public service delivery to individual citizens and
businesses, transparency in information, and easier citizen access to
authorities.

While strides in computing ushered in easier systems for data processing in
government offices, the advent of the Internet took government-citizen
interfaces to hitherto unexplored levels. Those who believe in the power of the
Internet view it as the catalyst of institutional and process leapfrogging, as
it possesses the competence to make governments more accountable to people. The
Internet, they opine, is uniquely suited for public affairs and public interest
communications in a manner unlike any other existing medium, as it keeps
everybody informed at all times; and since governance stands on the edifice of
accountability, the Internet could prove to be a faithful ally, especially in
ending official secrecy about information and in mitigating corruption in public
life. The Internet is considered to be a manageable deployment of e-governance
that allows governments to network heterogeneous processes and technology
environments within a single framework.

E-governance and India

In India the concept of "e-governance" began with National
Informatics Centre’s efforts to connect all district headquarters through
computers in the 1980s. This typically included connectivity, networking,
technology upgradation, selective delivery systems for information and services
and an array of software solutions. Recently, the working group on convergence
and e-governance of the Planning Commission recommended that the government
earmark $587 million in addition to the 3% plan outlay of each ministry for
e-governance and convergence projects during the Tenth Five Year Plan
(2002-2007).

The Planning Commission has proposed that an India portal be set up at a cost
of $21.7 million to serve as a one-stop destination for public access to
information on various aspects of government functioning, as well as a single
window for delivery of government services. The Planning Commission has also
recommended earmarking $130 million to create a citizens’ database through
smart cards and IDs. According to a report of the working group on convergence
and e-government, the smart card could be used as a multi-purpose card, which
will help the citizen interact for utilities and services, make bill payments,
vote electronically, and obtain ration cards, passports and driving licenses.

The US has recently adopted an e-governance act. In India, the legal
framework of information technology is supported by the IT Act, 2000. Experts
however, feel that this act is not sufficient to deal with e-governance. The act
covers all important issues related to information security but it does not have
under its preview the new emerging inter-agency cooperation that will be
required for an information society. Internet-based government services
involving inter-agency cooperation are especially difficult to develop and
promote, in part because of a lack of sufficient funding mechanisms to support
such inter-agency cooperation and the requisite legal framework. Currently, all
e-governance initiatives exist as islands of successes and there is a need to
make such initiatives inter-operable, through a legal framework that will spell
this out.

In urban India, e-governance is being deployed primarily to provide public
services by way of online payment of bills and taxes, and issuance of
certificates, but very few cities and towns have portals that facilitate citizen
to government interfaces. In rural India, however, the concept of e-governance
is being popularised through the tele-centre model, wherein provision of
government information and interface with authorities has become an essential
ingredient for the business viability of the tele-centre. Government records and
income, land, domicile, caste and below poverty line certificates, landholder’s
passbook of land rights and loans, online submission of applications under
various schemes, driving licenses, loan applications, pension applications,
birth and death certificates etc., are being provided by telecenters to the
public in rural areas.

Ongoing e-gov initiatives

Many e-governance initiatives in the country have been spawned by
enthusiastic bureaucrats, who have sought to take IT to people for delivering
better governance. One such experiment comes from Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.
The effort here has been spearheaded by Anuradha Thakur, who used to be deputy
commissioner of Hamirpur. The services offered include information about
vacancies, tenders, market rates, matrimonial services and village e-mail.
People can also file classified complaints. The Lok Mitra Intranet set up at the
district headquarters consists of two Pentium-III-based servers (under WindowsNT),
with 4 Pentium-III-based client systems and a router, set up in a LAN with a hub
in a separate room at the deputy commissioner’s office at Hamirpur. A total of
25 panchayats have been identified for setting up citizen information centres (CIC).
The project will eventualls be extended to cover all the districts of Himachal
Pradesh.

Lok Mitra was set up with an investment of Rs 40 lakh, which was funded by
NABARD. The project offers local youth an opportunity to run an enterprise.
Local youth sign an agreement with the district Lok Mitra society and pay a
security amount.

All services are provided at a rate that is fixed by Lok Mitra society, which
is collected by the youth manning the center from users. Other than this, the
entrepreneur also uses the computer provided for different services such as
typing Internet browsing.

The Madhya Pradesh government is doing some key work in the area of
e-governance. The Gyandoot project in MP was initiated in January 2000 by
members of the Indian Administrative Services in consultation with various gram
panchayats in Dhar district. Under the project, a low cost, self-sustainable,
and community-owned rural Intranet system (Soochnalay) has been installed. It
caters to the specific needs of village communities in the district. Thirty-five
centers have been established since January 2000 and are managed by rural youth
selected and trained from amongst the unemployed educated youth of the village.
Just like the Hamirpur model, the youth in the Dhar experiment also run the
Soochanalays as entrepreneurs and charge for the services that include
agricultural information, market information, health, education, women’s
issues and applications for services delivered by the district administration
related to land ownership, affirmative action and poverty alleviation. Kiosks
are connected to the Intranet through dial-up lines. The dial-up lines being
currently used are to be replaced by wireless connections using CorDECT
technology. The Soochanalays have been equipped with Pentium multimedia color
computers along with dot matrix printers. The user interface is menu-based with
information presented in the local Hindi language. The features of the Gyandoot
software are continuously being updated. The project has now been replicated in
20 districts.

Replication of Gyandoot-type service for urban areas has begun with municipal
bodies in Indore and Bhopal introducing the same.

Headstart, another grassroots initiative in MP, is a programme for
computer-enabled education in rural elementary schools to improve the quality of
learning. R Gopalakrishnan, secretary to the chief minister and mission
coordinator of the programme says, "Headstart is not merely a programme for
computer literacy but uses computers to build multimedia rich lessons to the
push frontiers of learning. It supplements the teacher and does not supplant
her." Started with 648 schools and now with 2,070 more schools added in
June 2003, it is India’s largest programme for computer-enabled learning at
the middle school level. It seeks to bridge the digital divide and takes
computer-based learning to rural schools. Headstart produces its own educational
software. Lessons are based on curriculum mapping and identification of
"hard spots" of learning. Teachers are trained to handle the software
and over 11,000 teachers have been trained so far. Hardware consists of three
computers and a printer per Headstart unit. Headstart has gone in for using open
source software in the second phase of 2,070 schools, the first major user of
the OSS.

Other e-governance works in MP include computerisation of land records;
computerisation of commercial taxes for VAT; computerisation of transport
(issuance of driving licenses and motor vehicles on smart card is being carried
out); and computerisation of treasuries. Web sites have also been created for
various departments/agencies of the government.

Giving his insight into the current e-governance scenario in India and about
the promises that the future holds, Gopalakrishnan says, "The key point is
that it (e-governance) is now a play in the margins. But we only have demos and
showcases that have not gone to scale. There is no comprehensive ICT for
Development framework in policy; no involvement of users at GOI level. The
entire effort is driven by the IT Ministry whose competence is telecom. Without
cheap computers, broadband connectivity and Open Source Software how can India
reach ICT benefits to people? Tremendous opportunities exist in potential, but
there is no comprehensive policy framework to make it happen."

Located in the eastern part of Gujarat, Panch—mahals is a backward district
with a significant tribal populace.  With eleven talukas, six towns and
1212 villages, the district has its headquarters at Godhra.  The total
population of the district as per the 2001 census is 20.24 lakhs. With the basic
goals of Transparency and Right to Information, it was proposed to empanel
STD/PCO (Subscriber Trunk Dialling/ Public Call Office) booths having basic
computer facilities located in different villages /towns of the district to
function as centres for dissemination of information, forms and services (also
known as Mahiti Shakti Kendras).  The Collectorate of Godhra headed by
Jayanthi Ravi, IAS, held discussions with the Concept Centre for Electronic
Governance (CCEG) of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) in
October 2000 to develop a ‘proof of concept’ portal for enabling Citizen to
Government (C-G) and Government to Citizen (G-C) transactions using information
technology as a medium. On October 4, 2001, the proof of concept project was
launched in 14 STD/PCOs of the district.

Down south, the state of Andhra Pradesh accounts for a sizable proportion of
e-governance initiatives in India. Though most of the projects are urban
centric, with every conceivable acronym decorating the state’s e-governance
achievements, there is now increasingly a trend of introducing e-governance
initiatives in rural Andhra.

An Internet portal providing these services has been developed.  Static
data is also provided in a CD facilitating quick, easy and low cost access to
data and information, given the bottlenecks of Internet connectivity and cost of
telephone calls.

In Karnataka, key among the showcased e-governance projects of the state are
the Bhoomi and the Belandur Gram Panchayat initiatives.

The Bhoomi project is based on a computerised database allowing farmers to
access and update land records through kiosks.

Legacy data has been captured by the project, covering 200 lakh records in 1
billion data fields. Bhoomi has successfully placed land records in the public
domain. Currently there are 177 Bhoomi kiosks covering 27,000 villages. Bhoomi
sells 7 lakh records every month and earns Rs 1 crore on these transactions and
is an example of a revenue-earning model.

Bhoomi is faced with certain challenges at this juncture. Given the abolition
of the manual system, which operated out of 10,000 delivery points, farmers now
have to travel great distances to obtain a land record. Upscaling the project
has now become a dire necessity but the government does not have the wherewithal
to expand the project. Also, expansion brings with it the need to provide
adequate support in terms of maintenance and networking. The Bhoomi project is
keen on private sector involvement. The government wants to keep Bhoomi alive
and take it to many more delivery points at sub-district levels, by positioning
the land records database as a "killer-application" which will ensure
kiosk operators a minimum income of Rs 3,000 a month. This advantage, it is
hoped, will see a convergence of interests of both government and private
players in the information kiosk business. The project is already exploring
partnerships with the private sector for "retailing". The franchisee
model is already working in Mandya with the partnership of n-Logue.

Non-government players like the Foundation of Occupational Development in
Tamil Nadu, which is keen on partnering the government in shaping the
e-governance agenda, are trying out new models. FOOD has helped the Tambaram
municipality, close to Chennai city, move in the direction of e-governance.
Information and services are available online on www.snegham.com, the website of
the municipality. FOOD is currently involved in setting up an e-governance
project for the Kanchipuram district authority, based on an enterprise model,
which in many places is being steered by women self-help groups. The RASI
Maiyams are working in 25 locations in the district and connect to the Tamil
website rasikanchi.tn.nic.in for C-G and G-C transactions. Educational CDs
developed by FOOD are being used in two centers. Some centers are teaching basic
computer operations to self-help group members. Some of them are involved in DTP
work and all of them are currently involved in data entry of the BPL (below
poverty line) data from nearby villages, a contract entrusted to them by the
DRDA Kanchipuram.

E-democracy and the role of citizens

The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan in Rajasthan works with labourers and
peasants in the villages of central Rajasthan.

The organization feels that in accessing any right, the poor need to demand
transparency and accountability of systems of governance. By mid-1994, MKSS had
formulated a specific demand for copies of financial records of expenditure
incurred in the panchayats. However, since there was no legal entitlement to
relevant information even within the panchayat for the people, they had to
mostly rely on sympathetic officials for access to relevant documents. Once
these records were secured, the people of the concerned panchayats subjected
them to close scrutiny and organized public hearings (the first public hearing
was held in December 1994), where they came in large numbers and gave individual
and collective testimonies regarding the work done by their panchayat offices.
By this method of social audit (verification by the people), the people of the
area were able to forcefully assert their right to transparency and
accountability from public institutions.

Another citizens’ initiative is the Bangalore-based PROOF (public record of
operations and finance), launched as a 10-month public campaign on July 4, 2002,
by a collective of four organizations–Centre for Budget and Policy Studies,
Publics Affairs Centre, Janaagraha and Voice. Proof envisions transparency and
accountability in the financial operations of the government through
collaborative processes, between the stakeholders of the city and the Bangalore
Mahanagara Palike. Subramaniam Vincent, co-founder and editor at India Together,
an online national pubic interest initiative, says: "Proof has succeeded in
making the city’s accounting system now the most modern in the world, and
allows citizens access to information about city finances. But in the early
stages, information coming out of governments about their own performance and
operations is likely to be muddy. Re-engineered processes and accounting systems
will still carry a legacy of mismanaged and unexplainable information traces.

The MKSS and the Proof experiences highlight the role of information in
enabling transparency, thus enforcing accountability.

IT would be a potent tool to make the "right to information" a
reality and help in enforcing accountability from the rulers.

Governments will be really able to deliver on the promise of transparency
only if information is collated and managed through IT, than through traditional
methods of storing information. Governments should, therefore, aim for a shift
from current models that only address "service provision"
(e-governance) to changing the contours of citizen-government interface in
working out the plans and policies and setting the agenda for the government
(e-democracy).

Emphasising the need for citizens’ struggles to appropriate IT toward a
more accountable government, Dr Gopakumar Krishnan, formerly with Transparency
International, says, "The failure of civil society organisations to
participate in the ongoing technology-led information revolution will enfeeble
them in their socio-political struggles and result in their inevitable
marginalisation in the long-run. ICT-led initiatives ‘cannot replace’
traditional grassroots advocacy. But the potential of technology can blend with
the zeal of the advocate."

E-governance is yet another promise of the IT revolution. In India,
e-governance is still in its infancy, and the efficacy of the model is yet to be
felt by most of India. The critics of e-governance view it as another glorified
panacea offered to cure the tribulations that the developing world faces. India
is not far behind on the road, but these are still early days to judge the
efficacy of the e-governance route in the sphere of public administration. So,
does technology mediated governance have the potential to set free the largest
democracy of the world from the stronghold of vested interests? Time alone will
tell.

RESHMI SARKAR

The author contributed this piece to DATAQUEST and is the program
coordinator of IT for Change, a non-profit organization in Bangalore. ITfC
supports the info-communications needs of other NGOs and undertakes research on
the social dimensions of ICTs.

Interview: Sanjay Jaju, IAS, collector and DM, West Godavari district, Eluru (Andhra Pradesh)

l You’ve
been part of both the Saukaryam and e-seva experiments. What have the projects
achieved for the people?

Both the projects have made the citizens’ lives easier by providing them
fast and user-friendly access to government services.

The
dependence of the citizens on the government system is immense. However, due to
vested interests, they are often denied access and have to shell out time and
money over and above what is due. And government services being monopolistic in
nature leave them with no other chance. Both these projects have tried to
address this situation and brought out the delivery of these services into the
public domain. The projects were successful in inducing the elements of
transparency, accountability and made hapless citizens feel empowered. The
projects could create an environment that enables close monitoring of official
performances and brings to light sub-optimal and immoral performers, thereby
allowing interventions to correct such deviations.

l What are the
key lessons for e-governance that your experiences with Saukaryam and e-seva
have thrown up?

Both these projects very clearly indicate that although technology is not
the only answer for solving governance related problems, it is nonetheless an
indispensable step towards achieving the same. The two projects also show that
any improvement in citizen services meets with immense approval from the
citizens. The agenda for e-governance should prioritize the methods that help
improve the interface between the government and the citizens. The two projects
have been, by and large, developed and implemented through in-house expertise
and, therefore, prove that it is possible to take up such experiments by
harnessing the internal domain knowledge and improving upon it through the use
of technology. The two projects also had a very minimal "drawing board to
implementation time", which underscores the fact that a momentum of popular
acceptability should never be allowed to slacken.

l What is your
perspective of the role of women self-help groups in the rural e-seva venture?

The self-help group strategy has now become a cornerstone of the development
agenda. The strategy not just helps in empowering the impoverished but also
enables rechannelizing individual strengths into collective good. This district
also has a huge presence of women self-help groups and, therefore, this project
thought it fit to use them as information intermediaries to turn them into
information leaders in their respective areas. In the rural areas, where access
to computer technology is not very significant, it was important that this was
not left in selfish hands and, therefore, the e-seva project here has given the
responsibility of running the kiosks to self-help groups run by women. Its quite
an eye opener that these women’s groups, which were hitherto considered unfit
for technological advances, have accepted the opportunity and are running the
show with acumen, confidence and honesty. Although it required and still
requires computer training programmes, it serves the government well to leave
governance issues in local hands.

l What is your
perspective on the current e-governance scenario in India?

Although some concrete steps have been taken by various state and local
governments in utilizing information technology, there is a still a long way to
go. When one talks of e-governance, there are two issues that are germane to
this. One is to improve the delivery of civic services while the other is to
create an environment to usher in a knowledge society so as to reduce the
information gaps between the haves and have-nots. While there has been
significant effort towards the former, the dream to achieve the latter is still
just a dream. It has also clearly come out that in order to realize this dream,
political and administrative will at the top is of utmost importance and this
explains why some states are doing better than the others. It is also important
that the political establishment starts getting the feel that the way to win the
voters’ hearts is by improving governance. Technology offers the most cost
effective and easy solutions to achieve the same.

l Has
e-governance in India even partially achieved what it had set out to do in terms
of mitigating corruption in public life?

Mitigating corruption in public life is a very complex issue and is
interconnected with lots of other issues ranging from electoral malpractices,
compulsions, the overall decline in societal value systems, to the capacity of
the system to offer discretions or largesse to only a few. What information
technology can do is to bring into public domain those issues that are shrouded
in secrecy. It can also help in improving the systemic deficiencies that allowed
wanton elements both within the government and outside to selfishly use them for
narrow objectives. The project in Visakhapatnam could achieve this in a very
short time by providing easy access to citizens to pay their dues or get various
permissions and certificates or in their ability to file their grievances and
get them solved without having to pay in terms of time and money. But it is true
that unless the other threads are picked the whole circle of eliminating
corruption in public life would not be completed.

l What,
according to you, are the guidelines that an e-governance initiative should
follow to be successful?

In order to be successful, an e-governance initiative has got to be citizen
centric. It is also important that e-governance initiatives are not equated with
computerization exercises that we see so often in various government
departments. The accent on the information part of IT has to be understood. The
e-governance initiatives have to reshape the internal organization and recast
the government-citizen interface and it should be understood that technology is
only a catalyst and should not be considered as a reagent. An e-governance
initiative should be sustainable and should attempt to do simple things simply.
Most of the complex problems have simple solutions and the attempt should be
made to keep to that. Before embarking upon an e-governance initiative, it is
important that it is driven by a leader who believes in it and has the patience
to make others believe in that. It would also require some perseverance and
courage as many a times it is going to disturb the existing applecart. The
bottom line is to win the heart of the public through such projects as they can
alone ultimately become the champions of such projects and help ride through the
various challenges.

Interview: Jayanthi Ravi, IAS and former district collector of Godhra, Gujarat

l What is your
perspective on the current e-governance scenario in India?

E-governance is an evolving subject area not just in India but in all
developed and developing countries. Efforts are being made to identify the
issues that need to be addressed as well as the means to address the issues.
Today many things are possible at the click of a mouse or on pressing a few
keys. License are available on the same day of filing an application, people are
able to file IT returns themselves, the budget speech is available almost on
completion of the speech by the finance minister, these are a few examples of
implementation of e-governance. Given the size and varying levels of literacy
and access to infrastructure in our country, taking the benefits of e-governance
to everyone would require quite a bit of effort and resources.

The possibilities are enormous. Take the case of the automobile industry for
example: could you have expected,

a few years back, cars to be affordable and available in such a variety as
today? Similarly, though the current e-governance scenario may not be what it
should be, comparing it with what it was would present a more positive picture.

l Has
e-governance in India even partially achieved what it had set out to accomplish
in terms of mitigating corruption in public life?

Mitigating corruption is just one of the many objectives of e-governance and
definitely not one of the most important ones. Easy accessibility, convenience,
speed of response and transparency in operation are much more important and
relevant objectives for the implementation of e-governance, which in my view are
being accomplished. However, as far as corruption is concerned, we can only
block avenues of corruption.

l What,
according to you, should be the guidelines an e-governance initiative should
follow to be successful, based on your Mahiti Shakti experience?

Following are some of the key issues any successful e-governance initiative
should implement:

n Committed and
dynamic project leader (most likely an IAS officer) who can selflessly drive the
project and take correct and fast decisions for the benefit of the project

n Involvement of all
stakeholders for every aspect of the project

n Private
participation for development, deployment and maintenance

n Readiness for
re-engineering of processes wherever required (eg NOAPS)

n Continuing tenure
and involvement of all relevant government officials

n Institutionalization
of project activities to enable smooth takeover by successors

l What are the
lessons that emerge from the Mahiti Shakti experience?

This project can go a long way in providing easy access to information on
various schemes and programs introduced by the government from time to time.
This will empower the poorest people of the district and lead to their balanced
growth and development. Once the task of providing access to people of all
districts through Mahiti Shakti is in place, then the true value can be derived
by increasing the scope vertically and horizontally; by increasing the scope of
services as well as by performing business process re-engineering to current
procedures and practices. This, in turn, would create a convergence of both G-C
and G-G applications through the project. Also, this project would greatly
enhance the speedy fulfilment of the objectives of the Citizen Empowerment and
Right to Information project, as envisioned by the state government.

l What have
been the key successes of the experiment?

n Electronic/online
form submission, transactions and information exchange

n Immediate access
to information on schemes and subsidies

n Continuous
monitoring and transparent working of government machinery

n Enhanced and
effective citizen-to-government interaction

n Dissemination of
useful citizen-centric information, transaction and services

n Additional revenue
for the Mahiti Shakti operators

l What do you
see as the future of e-governance in India?

There is a lot to be done in terms of achieving e-governance in all its
forms namely G-G, G-C and G-B.

Even if we start with the most critical applications and services like land
records, tax payments, transfer of property, education and health care before
moving towards the less important and sparingly used services like death
certificates, it would make life much simpler for all categories of citizens.
There is tremendous scope for products and services that offer simple, moral,

accountable, responsive and transparent (SMART) solutions for people.