IMPACT OF E-GOVERNANCE IN INDIA: CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES
Poonam & Sukhmanpreet Kaur & Dr. Rooppal Kaur
Post Graduate Department of Commerce
Dev Samaj College For Women, Ferozepur City.

Abstract

E-governance has become the key to good Governance in a developing country like India. The
Government of India had made out a plan to use information technology in its operations to
make them more efficient and effective and also to bring accountability and transparency. But
the actual target is still far behind what is actually needed by the customers like citizens,
businessman etc. E-Governance mainly focuses on the research tools and models that can help
its customers for more efficient knowledge and decision making process. E-Governance can
remove poverty, safety basic human needs and reduce inequality. The technology and the
methods used in E-Governance project provide a road map for efficient delivery of services at
the doorstep. In today’s time the development of any country depends on the uses of E-
Governance and also their penetration. Development of any country can be judge by the spoke of
E-governance in that country. This paper deals with the opportunities and challenges of e-
governance.

Keywords- E-Governance, ICT, Government, Accountability, Transparency, E-Governance

Opportunities & E-Governance Challenges.

INTRODUCTION

The term E-Governance came into existence with the arrival of Government websites in late
1990s. E-Governance or electronic Governance implies the usage of information and
communication technology (ICTs) to provide customers and businessman with more useful
access to the Government’s services and information. It is a step toward SMART Governance
involves ICT, especially the internet with the object to empower information and service delivery
and make Government more transparent, responsive and accountable. It is not only confined to
the public sector but also consists the management and administration of procedures and policies
in private sector as well. E-Governance is all about the use of information and communication
technology in the system of Governance or say using ICT to involve multi-stockholders in
decision making and in making Governments more open and accountable. The rapid pace in the
area of ICT have benefited the reinvention of government and prepared them to serve the needs
of diverse society. It is with the concern that the concept of E-Governance becomes conspicuous.
Democracies in the world share a vision of the day when E-Governance becomes a way of life.

HISTORICAL EVALUATION OF E-GOVERNANCE

With the technical development of internet technology in the nineties, there were global shifts
towards increased deployment of IT by governments. The technology as well as e-governance
initiatives emerged a long way since that time. World Wide Web offered good opportunities to
global population to exploit their new mode of access in wide ranging ways. People have great
expectation to get information and services online from governments and corporate organizations
to further their civic, professional and personal lives, thus creating plentiful evidence that the
new "e-citizenship" is taking hold. In India, the notion of e-governance during the seventies with
a focus on development of in-house government applications in the areas of defence, economic
monitoring, planning and the deployment of IT to manage data intensive functions related to
elections, census, and tax administration. The National Informatics Center made great efforts to
link all the district headquarters in the decade of eighties. Since the beginning of nineties, IT
technologies were enhanced by information and communication technology to expand its use for
wider sectorial applications with policy emphasis on reaching out to rural areas and taking in
greater participations from NGOs and private sectors.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNANCE

The difference between government and governance is often raised. Governance, according to
the New Oxford English dictionary (1991), is defined as “the action or manner of governing”.
It is the process by which we collectively solve our problems and meet our society’s needs.
Government is the instrument we use.” e-Government and e-governance can be defined as two
very distinct terms. E-Governance is a broader topic that deals with the whole spectrum of the
relationship and networks within government regarding the usage and application of ICTs. It is a
group of norms, processes and behaviors that have an influence on the exercise of power,
especially from the point of view of openness, participation, responsibility, effectiveness and
consistency. E-Government is actually a narrower discipline dealing with the development of
online services to the citizen, more the e on any particular government service - such as e-tax, e-
transportation or e-health. E-Governance is a wider concept that defines and assesses the impacts
technologies are having on the practice and administration of governments and the relationships
between public servants and the wider society, such as dealings with the elected bodies or
outside groups such as not for profits organizations, Ngo’s or private sector corporate entities. It
encompasses a series of necessary steps for government agencies to develop and administer to
ensure successful implementation of e-government services to the public at large. E-democracy
refers to the processes and structures that encompass all forms of electronic interaction between
the Government (elected) and the citizen (electorate). E-government is a form of e-business in
governance and refers to the processes and structures needed to deliver electronic services to the
public (citizens and businesses), collaborate with business partners and to conduct electronic
transactions within an organizational entity.

E-Governance means SMART Governance

Simple- The use of ICT bring simplicity in governance through electronic documentation, online
submission, online service delivery etc.

Moralistic- It brings morality to governance as immoralities like bribing, red-tapism etc. are
eliminated.

Accountable- it makes the Government accountable as all the data and information of
Government is available online for consideration of every citizen, the NGOs and the media.

Responsive- Due to reduced paperwork and increased communication speeds and decreased
communication time, the Government agencies become more responsive.

Transparent- With increased morality, online availability of information and reduced red-
tapism the process of governance becomes transparent leaving no room for the Government to
conceal any information from the citizens.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Prior to the limited literature review it shall be logic to belief to mention that departments from
where the maximum information source was available and that too without any copyrights or
otherwise.

Singh Shruti and Singh Rubee (2018) in the paper “Impact of E-Governance in India”
explores that E-Governance is the modernization of processes and function of Government is
using the tools of ICT so as to transform the way it serve its components.

Suri Pardeep (2017) highlights that Government organizations are increasingly being expected
to be performance oriented with the use of E-Governance. With the help of E-Governance
expected to improve with the application of relevant lessons.

Misra, D.C. has compiled the maximum number of papers. He is referred extensively in this
research. His maiden contribution was defining the E-Governance.

Kalsi, N.S., Kiran, Ravi and Vaidyain, S.C. (2008) explore the Effective E-Governance for
good Governance in India. This paper specifically addresses the E-Governance initiatives that
have a direct impact on the citizens and in which the citizens get benefit through direct
transactions with the Governmental services.

OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

Following are the objectives/aims of the research on E-Governance:-

 To build an informed society for providing access to citizens.

 To encourage citizens participation by improvement in the governing process.
 To bring transparency in the governing process by making all the government data
available to the people for access.
 To reduce the reaction time of the Government to the people and problems.
EMERGING E-GOVERNANCE MODELS

The various types of E-Governance models can be classified into following categories

 Government to citizens:- The goal of Government-to-citizens (G2C) E-Governance is to

offer a variety of ICT services to citizens in a efficient and economical manners and to
strengthen the relationship between the citizens and the government using technology.
There are several methods of government-to-citizens E-governance. Two-Way
communication allows citizens to instant message directly with public administrators, and
cast remote electronic votes (electronic voting) and instant opinion voting. Mundane
services such as name or address changes, apply for services and grant, or transferring
existing services are more convenient and no longer have to be completed face to face.
 Government to business: - Government-to-business (G2B) is the online non-
commercial interaction between central and local government with the purpose of
providing businesses information and advice on E-business best practices. G2B refers to
the conduction through the internet between government agencies and trading companies.
It is usually include recommendations to complete the measurement and evaluation of
books and contracts. The objective of G2B is to reduce difficulties for business, provide
immediate information and enable digital communication by e-business.
 Government to employees:- E-governance to Employee partnership (G2E) is one of
main primary interaction in the delivery model of E-governance. E-governance
relationship with employees allows new to learning technology in one simple place as the
computer. It is the relationship between online tools, articles and sources that help
employees to maintain the communication with the government and their own
companies. G2E Services also includes software for maintaining personal information
and records of employees.
 Government to government:- Since 1990s e-commerce and e-product, there has
rampant integration of e-forms of government process. Governments have now try to use
the efficiencies of their techniques to cut down on waste. E-government is fairly broad
subject matter, but all relate to how the services and representation are now delivered and
how they are being implemented.
  Government to non-profit:- Government provides information and communication non-
profit organization, social organization and political parties, Legislature, etc.

CHALLENGES IN E-GOVERNANCE

There is large number of barriers in the implementation of E-governance. Some

bottlenecks in the path of implementation, like security, unequal access to the computer
technology by the citizen, high initial cost for setting up the e-government solution and
resistance to change.The various challenges are explained as below-

1. Resistance to change
 Citizens, employees and businesses can all have their biases with respect
to how transactions should be processed. However, government entities
and public policies administrators cannot ignore the changes that occur as
a result of implementation of information and communication technology
(ICT)
 Education about the value of the new systems is one step toward reducing
some of the existing resistance. It can also be particularly useful for a
leader or manager, to by into the new system at an early stage in the
adoption process.
 The resistant to change phenomenon can explain much of the hesitation
that occurs on the part of constituents in moving from a paper based to a
web based system for interacting with government.

2. Cost
 Cost is one of the most important prohibiting factor that comes in the path
of E-Governance implementation particularly in the developing countries
like India where most of the people leaving below the poverty line.
 Elected officer and politician don’t seem to be interested in implementing
e-governance.
3. Privacy and security
 There will be three basic levels of exist for e-government stakeholders: no
access to web service; limited access to a web service or full access to web
service, however when personal sensitive data exist the formation the
security policy is a much more complex process with the consideration.
 With a implementation of e-government projects, effective measures must
be taken to protect sensitive information. A lack of clear security
standards and protocols can limit the development of projects that contain
sensitive information such as income, medical history.
4. Trust
 Trust can be defined along with two dimensions: as an assessment of
current situation of as an innate personality traitor predisposition.
 There has to be a balance between ensuring that a system prevents
fraudulent transactions and the burden that extensive checks can take on
people who are honest.
 The implementation of public administration functions via e-government
requires the presence of two levels of trust. The first is that the users must
be confident, comfortable and trusting of the tool or technology with
which they will interact. The second dimension of trust pertains to trust of
the government.
 Recently, confidential information on military veterans was compromised
when a computer containing their personal information was lost. This type
of incident can erode trust and user confidence in government system.
Trust, along with financial security, are two critical factors limiting the
adoption of e-government services.
5. Digital divide
 The digital divide refers to the separation that exist between individuals,
communities, and businesses that have access to information technology
and those that do not have such access.
 An individual living below poverty line does not afford a computer for
him to harness the benefit of e-government and other online services.
  Social, economic, infrastructural and ethno-linguistic indicators provide
explanations for the presence of the digital divide..
 As the digital divide narrows, broader adoption of e-government in the
public domain becomes possible. Economic poverty is not the only cause
of digital divide.
 Economic poverty is closely related to limited information technology
resources.
 It can also be caused by the lack of awareness among the people. Even
some of the economic stable people don’t know about scope of e-
government
 Awareness can only help to bring users to that service delivery channels
once.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR E-GOVERNANCE IN INDIA

There are many great inventions; every one of them important for its time, but the
internet is the greatest inventions of our time. The internet is not only providing
an enormous amount of information, but deeply impacting our day to day
activities and without internet life is unimaginable. So after testing benefits of IT
in personal uses now citizens are looking for similar on line efficient services
from a Government department. So with increasing demand from citizens for
transparent services in administration, the government do not have any other
choice except to improve their delivery process and organization efficiencies by
adopting E-Governance tools. All over the Globe, Federal Governments are
taking big initiatives for E-governance.
These organizations are also understanding the advantages of E-Governance like
improved access to services, reduced operational cost enhanced knowledge and
improving co-ordination between various government agencies single window
clearance is one of the outcome of these initiatives. Later or sooner E-Governance
 will become a performance barometer of each government in economic, political
and administrative functioning.
But where exactly India stand today in terms of adopting E-Governance?
Digital India campaign launched by the government of India is the right step to
ensure that government services are made available to citizens electronically or by
making the country digitally empowered in the field of delivery of services
digitally. Government of India is focused and taken the various E-Governance
initiatives like e-education, digital locker, e-sign, e-hospital, national health
portal, national scholarship portal, e-sampark and many more.
DIPP is also encouraging and guiding state government(s) to improve ease of
doing business ranking based on the IT enabled services offers to investors. but if
we go to any State Government department specially responsible for various
services to the citizens, business or industry, we can see tremendous opportunities
to induct E-Governance tools for transparent, accountable and efficient services
on delivery front and efficient in – house working as well.
So opportunities are huge in India that i.e. hundreds of billions of dollars but
challenges are still too many!

CONCLUSION

Fate of E-Governance in any country is depend on its technological

advancement, infrastructure, making citizen aware and makes their trust in
services. In India E-Governance came into existence few years back .The
early life of E-Governance initiatives has already seen a shift in
understanding from the view that increasing access to services by putting
them on web was all that was needed, to a more sophisticated notion of a
transformed public. ICTs of course only enable this transformation, they do
not create it and hence the social and political norms in any areas will
determine the outcome of the ‘e-governance’ systems. We are now starting to
see change in governmental institutions: a greater emphasis on ‘partnership
working’, both with citizens, businesses and third sector organizations;
decentralization and changes in working processes; more knowledge
 intensive and personalized services and in some cases, greater openness and
transparency of political processes. All of these trends have a long way to go
and many could be stopped in their tracks, by issue of uneven access to
technology and contend which alienates or patronizes users. There are certain
issues which are touched in the paper, for better implementation of E-
Governance. To overcome certain limitations India should take lessons from
different E-Governance portals like Korea, Singapore, and U.S.A etc.

We need to develop far more sophisticated systems for capturing and

measuring the impact of E-Governance, so that we can judge crude,
‘availability’ terms. And new need to be able to judge the real impact on
citizens, not by just changes in production or distribution of public services.
About all, E-Governance needs to be seen as part of governance, not as an
add-on. Decisions about technology- from use of open source to the treatment
of personal data- are more and more in the political realm and this is to be
watched .Because only when we can drop the ‘e’ and return to talking about
Governance, can E- Governance be said to have succeeded or not.

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