The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India launched the ‘Digital India’ programme with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge-based economy by ensuring digital access, digital inclusion, digital empowerment and bridging the digital divide. In summary, our mission is to ensure that digital technologies improve the life of every citizen; expand India’s digital economy, create investment & employment opportunities and global digital technological capabilities in the country (E-Governance, 2022). Electronic governance or E-governance can be defined as the accurate use of information and technology by the government in order to accelerate communication transactions and also integration of various standalone systems and services. The vision of Digital India Programme is to transform India into an empowered society and educated economy. The Digital infrastructure programme is centered A) Digital Infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen, B) Governance and Services on Demand and C) Digital Empowerment Of citizens.
Why do Citizens value E-Governance and Digital India?
E-Governance projects are involved as an critical outcome of analyzing the developmental outputa, whereas in the present circumstances E- Governance have aligned towards Digital India. Technology is a facilitator in order to deliver the centric E-Governance services in a coherent manner. The center’s Digital India programme has not only uplifted the digital technology but amplified adoption of digital technology all over the country in coordination with the machineries of the government to the brink of citizens.
As technology has been associated with government enterprise is to scale up technological interference for better security as well as to provide integrated services for better performances (particularly providing seamless Data privacy). Since the launching of the Digital India programme in the year 2015, both central and state governments have illuminated the process of digitization of records as well as infrastructure for profitability of each and every citizen. The specialized perpendiculars is E- Governance which is a merger of Technoscientific technology with well trained individuals to front end services. Odisha have launched various methodologies for Citizen – centric online services particularly for the State Transport Department on 10-February-2021. The digital initiative would allow freedom to the vehicle owners to choose any of the transport offices of Odisha for services. Odisha is the first state in India to introduce document upload and digital signature through platform services. They also have ushered 9 new online services. Tech oriented partners (global level), government and citizens, have unblemished stature gauging in the domains of E-Visa, Biometric and attestation.
According to a research report 13, in the United States of America, 90% of the citizens use websites as the primary method of interacting with the government and 75% prefer to complete government transactions online. E-governance is also seen as a mark of trust and transparency– 67% of people are more likely to trust the government when they are able to interact with it on the internet. Research 14 also suggests that digitizing and changing government service delivery mechanisms to a digital form could help governments across the world save U.S.$1trillion annually (cumulative). (E-Governance and Digital India | Deloitte India | TMT | Articles, 2015)
eGovernance tends to provide efficient dissemination regarding information and they also empower people in order to engage in the decision making process of government by channelising response. There is a vibrant distinction between the E- government and E- Governance Is to be considered. While concept brings four major domains:
- E-Administration: would refer to any number of mechanisms which would help in transforming the organizational paper processing to electronic processing. Every process needs to be done through the use of ICT.
- E-Democracy: would provide benefits by providing numerous benefits by contributing towards the public sphere. They also encourage public participation by providing platforms for citizens to express their opinion and also to take part in decision making processes.
E-Governance widely uses the ICT technology in government agencies where E-Governance is a wider concept. The primary example of E-governance are:
- Common Services Mission: The common service center have been offering government as well as Business services through digital Platforms in Rural area for upcoming entrepreneurs
- DigiLocker: They tend to facilitate paperless availability of Public Documents. There are nearly 532 crore documents which are available in Digilocker.
E-Hospital is a health information management system which is designed in coherency with cloud infrastructure in order to manage multiple hospitals. They provide an end to end solution software which would help in covering the treatment cycle integrating clinical, administration as well as insurance activities.
E- governance acts as a means for efficiency. E-governance tends to act as a means where there is efficient service delivery in order to achieve the concept of good governance with accountability and transparency. Even the Electronic voting machines have also transformed the current system and they also have added to manipulation of votes, it has definitely helped in the process and is considered to be cutting down the paper cost in the old traditional box system. They also have brought in the “ Reinventing Government” by Osborne and Gaebler who have called for the restructuring of the public sector and reducing the monopolistic nature in bureaucracy. (Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. 1992. Reinventing Government. New York, NY: Journal of Leisure Research: Vol 27, No 3, n.d.)
Bangalore urban district also provides services in connection to Farming. As part of the online services, the state government has introduced SAMRAKSHANE – online facility for Crop insurance. They cover schemes like Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (Central schemes). The other primary E-Governance platform is Seva Sindhu which is integrated with various other service delivery channels like Gram One, Janasevaka, Karnataka One and Bangalore One, they also aim to provide all departmental services under one public platform. BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike), Government to Citizens services are being ensured to online Birth and Death certificate request forms, online road cutting permission system, automatic building plan application and Online khata transfer.
Specifically, regarding construction in urban districts, the process has been simplified by the BBMP. Bengaluru also commonly known as Silicon City of India is an IT hub where start up’s have been increasing over the years. The building construction permit reforms have made sure to bring varied departments into one segment which would improve the service in the possible way. Bhoomi is also a flagship project, which helps in the land records management system. The data entry has turned to be digitized and is made available to the citizens through the Kiosk centers.
The concept of public service delivery can be considered as a primary mechanism through which the government initiatives work towards their duties towards their citizens. The public services are being provided through the various departments that means from electricity to the maintenance of law and order. It has been believed that governance is being associated with government and is limited only to leaders and the bureaucratic environment. The word governance has taken up multiple meanings like corporate governance, minimalistic state and prominent role played by the private sector cannot be neglected. Privatization and the public private partnership have also played a major role in the public service delivery.
REFERENCES.
E-governance. (2023, August 3). [Government Document]. https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1847837
E-governance and Digital India | Deloitte India | TMT | Articles. (2015). Deloitte India. https://www2.deloitte.com/in/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/e-governance-and-digital-india.html
Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. 1992. Reinventing Government. New York, NY: Journal of Leisure Research: Vol 27, No 3. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00222216.1995.11949751
