When we hear the term government services, a picture of piles of
paper, long queues and procrastinating officials automatically
crops up in our minds. It is true that as compared to the other
countries, India is quite late in getting into the e-governance
ecosystem. But, one must not forget that India is a huge country
and we are talking about serving a population of more than 1
billion and other entities involving multiple agencies,
stakeholders/entities catering to over 35 languages and 150
dialects. Thus, implementing e-governance projects in India poses a
greater challenge, but we are catching up.
In accordance with the e-governance plans, the Indian government in
2006 initiated a National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) that takes a
holistic view of e-governance initiatives across the country and
helps improve public service delivery. The NeGP outlines 27 Mission
Mode Programs (MMPs) driven by the central and state governments,
with some programs involving joint execution of the central and
state governments.
Citizen-centric approach
On its journey to improve the services for citizens, the government
has undertaken several successful e-governance initiatives such as
MCA21 (to improve the speed and certainty in the delivery of the
services of Ministry of Company Affairs), online submission of
income tax returns, Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) etc.
These e-governance projects have drastically improved the
quality of citizen services. Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research Director
at Gartner shares his experience. He recently renewed his passport
and was surprised to see a drastic improvement in the
services.“Nowadays, to get a passport, the citizens do not
have to wait in long queues. The process can be done online, which
has reduced the time of getting a passport from months to
days,” Mahapatra observes.
I recently renewed my passport and was surprised to see a
drastic improvement in the service
Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research Director at Gartner
The government aims to further streamline the process of
distribution and renewal of passports. Golok Kumar Simli, Principal
Consultant & Head Technology, PMU, Passport Seva Project,
Ministry of External Affairs at Government of India informs,
“Under the Passport Seva project, by the end of this
financial year, 77 Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) will be opened all
over the country in a phased manner.Till date, 18 PSKs have already
been rolled out. The rise in demand from the citizens has fostered
the government to focus on e-governance initiatives and provide
efficient services to the citizens.”
Apart from this, the government is on the road to implement
projects like Immigration, Visa and Foreigner Registration and
Tracking (IVFRT), e-Biz and the much talked about Unique
Identification Number (UID). IVFRT project aims to keep a strict
record of the immigrants coming to India on a regular basis. The
mission of e-Biz initiative (piloted) is to strengthen and
streamline the Government-to- Business (G2B) services.
Also, to roll out all the planned 1,100 e-governance services by
2014, the government is making huge investment — up to `
40,000 crore. This investment will cover the cost of all kinds of
hardware and software that will be required for capacity
building.
E-governance projects should be citizen centric and not
technology centric
Neel Ratan, Executive Director, PwC
However, many feel that the government has done a lot on the
infrastructure side, and now they must focus on services. Neel
Ratan, Executive Director, PwC says, “E-governance projects
should be citizen centric and not technology centric. To improve
citizen services the government needs to collaborate. As the major
challenge is that each department works in silos with its own
infrastructure — data centers, network etc.”
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Some e-governance projects
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Status
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MCA21
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Project implemented in 2006
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Income Tax
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Project implemented in 2008
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Passport Seva Kendra
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Project implemented in 2010
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IVFRT
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Project to get completed by 2014
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e-Biz
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Project to get completed by 2012
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UID
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600 million Indians to be enrolled by 2014
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