Session VIII

e-Governance: past, present and future

The panel advised attendees to learn from the past and apply learnings from it for greater success in e-Governance projects.

The Indian e-governance story began with a vision of redefining the scope of the relationship between the citizens of India and its government. It was, is and will continue to be about the use of IT and communication technologies, to deliver public services in a convenient, customer-centric and cost-effective manner. However, it is easier said than done for there exist process related challenges and sociopolitical bottlenecks that are preventing the Indian e-Governance story from realizing its full potential. Therefore, it was fitting that in what was the last session of the Technology Sabha 2009, another panel discussion was held entitled e-Governance: Past, Present and Future.

The panel comprised of Shankar Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of IT and Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar of IIM-Ahmedabad, while Kailash Shirodkar, BPD moderated the discussion.

Prof. Bhatnagar began by outlining some key problems facing the e-governance initiatives in the country. He noted that despite its best intentions a basic flaw exists in the government’s strategy i.e. strategic inclusion of the entire population and not just the masses residing in the metros, smaller towns and semi-rural areas. “They keep talking about extending services to the far corners of the country right down to the last village, but it is not reflected in the kind of applications being rolled out by state and federal governments. For instance hardly anything is being done in the case of health and education, services affect virtually every citizen of this country,” he said.

Limited access to what many in metros and smaller town may now consider basic technologies such as the Internet are not available to the masses in rural areas. Hence, despite having systems for facilitating electronic transactions, people still have to make trips to their local center, which more often than not is plagued with infrastructural issues. He alluded to how a true e-governance system by definition requires the least amount of human intervention where decisions on cases are system-driven rather than by individuals.

Concurring with Bhatnagar, Shankar Aggarwal from the Ministry of IT took the argument a step further and emphasized the fact the going forward the government will pursue services and develop applications that affect the public a lot more. He recommended that state agencies devise applications such as medical healthcare, employment and education. “Services related to such areas will go a long way in ensuring the sustainability of e-Governance initiatives,” Aggarwal said.

Commenting on the issue of lack of political will preventing e-governance initiatives from reaching their full potential, Aggarwal said that imputing the political order would be unfair as there exists greater political will to implement e-governance than ever before and the problem comes back to the issue of services and choosing the ‘right’ applications.

The panelists spent quite a bit of time on the issue of the political order and its impact on e-governance. They even debated on the issue of why some states have done well in terms of offering services and citizen interest and some have not and if it had anything to do with the political order in the respective states.

Around midway, the discussion began digressing towards bureaucratic rigmarole and how IT and e-Governance issues tend to get sidelined as a result. However, pretty soon it was brought back on track and Aggarwal referred to the projects such as DGS&D and MCA-21, one of the largest e-Governance initiatives and how the success of these projects will continue to fuel the interest of the government as well as the bureaucratic machinery.

In conclusion, Prof. Bhatnagar, called upon those in-charge of affairs to continuously learn from successful projects of the past and even the failures and innovate new designs for rolling out future services. He summed up the apt approach for e-Governance in the country through a simple yet apt quote. He said, “We need a good balance between optimism for the future but recognition that not everything is ‘hunky-dory’ in the present.”