Concept of E-Governance

India is one of the largest countries democratically and demographically. So, there are gaps in providing services to a large population. As a result, Government of India has been launching various initiatives in order to overcome these problems with minimum government and maximum governance by enormous use of electronic devices.

Recent Developments

MHRD Launches SPARC, IMPRESS Portals

  • To strengthen the research ecosystem in the country, Minister of Human Resource Development launched the web portal of two schemes IMPRESS and SPARC.
  • IMPRESS: Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences (IMPRESS) is to identify and fund research proposals in social sciences with maximum impact on the governance and society. The projects funded through IMPRESS should focus on all relevant Social Sciences area such asstate and democracy, urban transformation, media culture and society, employment skills and rural transformation, governance innovation and public policy, innovation and , agriculture and rural development, social media and society, politics law and economics.
  • SPARC: Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) aims at improving the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations between Indian and foreign institutions. IIT-Khargapur is the national Coordinating Institute to implement the SPARC programme.

Public Affairs Index 2018

  • Public Affairs Index (PAI) is a data driven platform to rank the 30 States of India from the lens of governance, releasing since 2016 by Public Affairs Centre based at Bengaluru. Indian states which are economically, culturally and socially so diverse, PAI as a unique statistical tool used to evaluate the performance of governance in the States. This year’s index also included a separate index on the children of India, giving a measure about state’s child-friendly attitude.
  • Recently released PAI 2018, covers total of 30 focus subjects and 100 indicators were measured to derive the PAI, relying solely upon government data (not any private data). According to the index-

For Larger States

  • Kerala stands as the best-governed state in the country (for 3rd consecutive year since 2016 among large states) followed by Tamil Nadu, while Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat are ranked third, fourth and fifth among the top five states delivering good governance.
  • Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar ranked the lowest on the PAI-2018, indicating higher social and economic inequalities in the states.

For Smaller States

  • Himachal Pradesh (among smaller states; with population less than two crore) topped the list, followed by Goa, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura which figured among the top five states with good governance.
  • Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya were ranked at the bottom of the index among small states.

e-HRMS

  • The Government, launched the electronic-Human Resource Management System (e-HRMS).
  • The software will give a comprehensive and combined view of the human resource deployed by the Government.
  • With launch of e-HRMS, employees will be able to not only see all their details with respect to service book, leave, GPF, Salary etc., but also apply for different kind of claims/reimbursements, loan/advances, leave, leave encashment, LTC advances, Tour etc. on a single platform.
  • Other Initiatives for Good Governance: Launch of PRAGATI, self-attestation, discontinuation of interviews for lower level posts, ‘Anubhav’ initiative, digital life certificate (JeevanPramaan), abolition of obsolete rules, online RTI portal, etc. among others.

Public Cloud Policy

Maharashtra unveiled a public cloud policy, virtually mandating its departments to shift their data storage onto the cloud, which in‑tends to make them available for free to the general public.

  • This will accelerate e-governance, and open an area for private sector investments, taking new technologies to all the departments as the government is the biggest data creator and consumer.
  • The policy, which is a first by any State, will result in additional private sector investments as government is one of the biggest creators and consumers of data
  • A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as virtual machines (VMs), applications or storage, available to the general public over the internet. Public cloud services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage model.

Concept of E-Governance

Governance refers to that structures and processes that are designed to ensure accountability, transparency, responsiveness, rule of law, stability, equity and inclusiveness, empowerment, and broad-based participation. Especially, e-governance is defined as “the application of ICT to transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of exchange of information and transaction between government, between government agencies, between government and citizens, between government and business. Through e-Governance, government services will be made available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner.

Evolution of e-Governance

  • Evolution of e-governance in India could be traced back to 1970. Before it, initially, e-governance emerged in the field of defense, economic monitoring, planning and the deployment of IT for elections, census, tax administration, etc. meanwhile, govt. of India established the department of electronics, followed by NIC in 1977 in fact, it had made great efforts to link all the district head quarts in the decade of eighties.
  • Throughout, the late 1980s a significant number of govt. officials used computers, but their applications were restricted to word processing only in 1987, with launch of the national satellite based computer network (NICNET), the e-Governance agenda in India gained momentum.
  • Furthermore, since beginning of 1990s, IT technologies were enhanced by ICT to expand its use for wider sartorial applications with policy emphasis on reaching out to rural areas and taking in greater participations from NGOs and private sectors.
  • Among developing countries, India has been an early adopter of e-Governance. After 1970s, there has been several initiatives with projects regarding governance namely Gyandoot, e-Seva, N-Logue, Union Ministry of IT, smart Govt., National e-Governance Plan, e-Kranti, Digital Locker, Digital India, etc.

Significance of E-Governance

According to the World Bank E-Governance has the following benefits:

  • It greatly simplifies the process of information accumulation for citizens and businesses.
  • It empowers people to gather information regarding any department of government and get involved in the process of decision making.
  • E-Governance strengthens the very fabric of democracy by ensuring greater citizen participation at all levels of governance.
  • E-Governance leads to automation of services, ensuring that information regarding every work of public welfare is easily available to all citizens, eliminating corruption.
  • This revolutionizes the way governments function, ensuring much more transparency in the functioning, thereby eliminating corruption.
  • Since the information regarding every activity of government is easily available, it would make every government department responsible as they know that every action of theirs is closely monitored.
  • Proper implementation of e-Governance practices make it possible for people to get their work done online thereby sparing themselves of unnecessary hassles of traveling to the respective offices.
  • Successful implementation of e-Governance practices offer better delivery of services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, better management, greater convenience, revenue growth, cost reductions etc.
  • Furthermore, introduction of e-Governance brings governments closer to citizens.

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