e governance: models and evolution

The first principle

Putting a government office on a computer does not change how it treats the citizen; changing what the citizen can know, do and demand does. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is therefore only the means, and the test of e governance is whether information reaches people in a form they can act on, and whether the state can be questioned through the same channel it uses to deliver.

The core

e government and e governance

• e government is the use of ICT inside the government machine, such as digitised files, online payments and computerised records, so that the same work is done faster and cheaper.
• e governance is wider, because it uses ICT to change the relationship between the state, citizens, businesses and civil society. It adds information, feedback, grievance redress and participation to delivery, so its user is the citizen.
• Use value of information. Information has value only when a citizen can use it to claim a service, compare performance or hold an official to account. That requires three things: it must be timely (a land record updated after the sale, not a year later), relevant (the entitlement of this household, not a general circular) and accessible (in the local language, on a phone or at a nearby counter).

Stages and relationships

• Four stages. A widely used model, associated with the research firm Gartner, describes e governance as growing through information (a website with static content), interaction (downloadable forms, email, queries), transaction (filing, payment and certificates entirely online) and transformation (services redesigned around the citizen across departments, so the citizen no longer needs to know which office does what).
• Four relationships. Government to Citizen (G2C) covers services such as certificates, pensions and grievances; Government to Business (G2B) covers licences, taxes and procurement; Government to Government (G2G) covers data sharing between ministries and between the Centre and states; and Government to Employee (G2E) covers payroll, training and service records.

The five models

• Broadcasting or wider dissemination model. Information already in the government's possession, such as laws, rules, budgets and judgements, is put in the public domain through websites and apps, so that people know their rights and the government's decisions.
• Critical flow model. Information of critical value is sent deliberately to the audience that needs it, such as vigilance reports placed online or cyclone warnings sent to people in its path.
• Comparative analysis model. Performance is compared across places and time, so that bad practice is exposed and good practice copied, as in district rankings, school report cards and dashboards.
• e advocacy, mobilisation and lobbying model. Civil society uses ICT to build networks, gather evidence and press the state, so that voices which were scattered become organised and heard in policy.
• Interactive service model. Citizens and the government talk to each other through the same channel, and this is the model that makes e governance more than digital delivery.

The interactive service model in detail

• Two way interaction. The citizen can apply, track and complain, and the government must answer within a time limit. The Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), run by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) since 2007, lets any citizen lodge a grievance against any central ministry and follow it to disposal.
• Participation in decision making. MyGov, launched in July 2014, invites comments on draft policies, ideas for schemes and entries for public tasks, so that citizens take part before a decision is made and not only after it.
• One window for services. The Unified Mobile Application for New age Governance (UMANG), launched in November 2017, brings central and state services onto one app, so the citizen need not know which department owns a service.
• Why it serves accountability. Every application, delay and complaint leaves a digital trail, so performance becomes measurable and the official who sits on a file becomes visible.

Dimensions

• Administrative. e governance cuts discretion and counter visits, and lets supervisors see delays across a state at once.
• Economic. Online procurement, tax filing and company registration lower the cost of doing business; the Government e Marketplace (GeM), launched in August 2016 under the Ministry of Commerce, moved public purchase onto an open online platform.
• Political and democratic. Feedback channels strengthen the citizen, in line with the duty of proactive disclosure in Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005.
• Social. Benefits reach people who cannot travel to offices only if access and skills exist; the digital divide is covered in the note on digital public infrastructure.
• Legal. The Information Technology Act, 2000 gave legal recognition to electronic records and digital signatures, which made online filing valid. Data protection now rests on the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, covered in its own note.
• Technological. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a term popularised by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum in 2016, describes the fusion of digital, physical and biological systems. Once governments hold data at scale, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), drones and blockchain become ordinary tools, so e governance becomes integral to government. The Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), launched by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in April 2020, uses drones to map inhabited rural land and issue property cards, and some states have piloted blockchain to keep land records tamper evident.

In practice

How India built it

• Early state projects. Bhoomi in Karnataka (from 2000) computerised land records so that a farmer could get a record of rights at a kiosk instead of from the village accountant. FRIENDS in Kerala (Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services, 2000) and e Seva in Andhra Pradesh (2001) let citizens pay bills and taxes at one counter. Gyandoot in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh (2000) set up rural information kiosks run by local operators. They worked where a process was simplified, not merely computerised, and where a champion stayed with them.
• National e Governance Plan (NeGP), 2006. It organised work into Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) with defined service levels, such as MCA21 for company filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Passport Seva (from 2010) with the Ministry of External Affairs, income tax and land records. It also built common infrastructure: the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDCs) and Common Services Centres (CSCs), which are assisted access points in villages.
• Digital India and e Kranti, 2015. Digital India, launched on 1 July 2015 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), set three vision areas: digital infrastructure as a utility, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. e Kranti, approved in 2015 as NeGP 2.0, expanded the list to 44 MMPs and stressed integrated services and cloud and mobile first design.
• e Courts. The e Courts Mission Mode Project, run with the Supreme Court's e Committee, put case status, cause lists and orders online through the National Judicial Data Grid; its third phase, approved in 2023, aims at paperless courts.

The Second ARC on e governance

• The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), in its eleventh report, "Promoting e Governance: The SMART Way Forward" (2008), described the goal as government that is Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent. It recommended that every project begin with government process reengineering, that projects be chosen by their value to citizens, that there be support at the highest political level, and that projects be evaluated independently against outcomes rather than spending.

Issues and way forward

Why ICT projects fail

• Design reality gaps. Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester argued that projects fail when the assumptions in their design differ from the reality of the place they are used in, on information, technology, processes, objectives, staff skills, management and resources. His 2003 estimate for developing countries was that about 35 per cent of e government projects failed totally and about half failed partly.
• Computerising the old process. When process reengineering is skipped, a bad procedure is only made faster, and citizens still need the same affidavits and visits.
• Technology bias. Projects are often judged by servers installed and back end databases integrated, not by whether the citizen's experience improved. Integration matters, but without user research and testing with real users a well integrated system can still be unusable.
• Weak capacity. Projects run by consultants collapse when the contract ends, and frequent transfers break continuity.
• Connectivity, language and access. Patchy networks, English only interfaces and low digital skills exclude exactly the people the service is meant for.
• Procurement and upkeep. Tenders reward the lowest bid, budgets fund launch but not maintenance, and vendor lock in makes change expensive.

Inadequacies that limit effectiveness, transparency and accountability

• Grievance systems often close complaints without resolving them, so the trail exists but accountability does not; mismatched offline and online records create new disputes; and data are rarely published in a form outsiders can analyse.

Measures

• Process first. Reengineer the process, removing steps and documents, before writing code, as the Second ARC advised.
• Design with users. Do user research, test in local languages and measure success by completion rates and time taken.
• Assisted access. Keep CSCs and counter staff so that the citizen can be helped, and keep an offline route where failure would deny a right.
• Open standards. Use open standards so that systems talk to each other and no vendor owns the state's data.
• Protect data and close the loop. Follow the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, publish service level data, and audit grievance disposal by sample checks with citizens.

Common confusions

• e government and e governance. e government digitises the work of the state; e governance changes the relationship between the state and the citizen. A computerised office can be e government without being good e governance.
• Transaction and transformation. Paying a fee online is a transaction; transformation means the citizen no longer deals with separate departments at all.
• Broadcasting and critical flow models. Broadcasting puts general information out to everyone; critical flow sends specific, high value information to the people who need it to act.
• NeGP and Digital India. NeGP (2006) was a plan of projects and infrastructure; Digital India (2015) is a wider programme that adds digital infrastructure as a public utility and digital empowerment.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: e governance, use value of information, interactive service model, G2C, stages of e governance, National e Governance Plan, Mission Mode Projects, Common Services Centres, e Kranti, government process reengineering, design reality gap, SMART government, user centric design, Fourth Industrial Revolution, SVAMITVA.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "Richard Heeks estimated in 2003 that about 35 per cent of e government projects in developing countries failed totally and about half failed partly, which shows that technology alone does not make governance better."
  • Introduction with a report: "The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008) defined the aim of e governance as SMART government, Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent, which places the citizen, not the computer, at the centre."
  • Conclusion: "e governance succeeds when information has use value for the citizen and when every digital service also carries a digital channel for complaint, so that the state can be answered as easily as it can deliver."
  • Conclusion: "The next stage for India is transformation, not more portals: processes reengineered around life events, assisted access for those left out, and open standards that keep public data public."