E- GOVERNANCE IN ADMINISTRATION

SUBJECT CODE : 18MPA41C

PREPARED BY : Dr.S. SUNDARARAJAN Asst professor

DEPARTMENT : PG and Research Department Of Public Administration

CONTACT NO : 9952337047

EMAIL ID : [email protected]

Material prepared according to textbook and reference books given in the syllabus.

SYLLABUS
 E-Governance
What is E-Governance or Electronic Governance?

 A new paradigm shift has been developed in the field of governance by the application of ICT in
the processes of governing called Electronic-Governance or E-Governance.

e-governance

 E-governance raises the transparency, accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness and

inclusiveness in the governing process in terms of reliable access to the information within
government, between government, national, state, municipal, and local level governments,
citizens, and businesses and empowers business through access and use of information
 The main focus of the E-Governance or electronic governance is to provide transparent,
equitable, and accountable service delivery to the citizens. The aim of the e-governance
facilitates and improves the quality of governance and ensures people’s participation in the
governing process through electronic means like e-mail, websites, SMS connectivity, and others.
 E-governance is not just about government websites or e-mail or financial transactions. “It will
change how citizens relate to government as much as it changes how citizens relate to each
other” . It also refers to the utilization of IT in the country’s democratic processes itself such as
the election.
 E-governance is about the use of ICT for steering the citizens and promoting the public service. It
includes a pragmatic application and usage of ICT for delivering efficient and cost effective
services and information and knowledge to the citizens being governed, thereby realizing the
vast potential of the government to serve the citizens. It made correlations between state and
society, government and people, people to people, governance and society.

ICT and Governance

 Access of information is the key factor for making democracy successful. Due to the invention of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the new global information had been
mobilizing the institutional transformation in the sphere of mechanical and organic structure of
society.
 It has rapidly been changing the way of life of people. In the phase of Liberalization, Privatization
and Globalization (LPG), the digital revolution, information and communication technology, a
new paradigm has been developed as New Public Management (NPM) in the theories and
practices of the public administration. The aims of NPM are economic capacity, efficiency, and
effectiveness.
 In this context, the study of governance and its relation with ICT becomes more relevant.

What is Governance?

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  Governance refers to the processes of governing in which policies are made and implemented.
In this process of governing the role of civil society, state and market is very important.

 All these three important aspects of governance take a very crucial role in the decision making
or policy making process and its implementation process as well. It has several types such as
participatory governance, corporate governance,environmental governance, good governance,
e-governance etc.

What is the Relation Between ICT and Governance?

 Through the application of ICT in public administrations, the governing processes are more
effective and more efficient and also ensure sustainable development.
 Through ICT a “new forms of dialogue and collaboration among public, private and civil society
organizations enhance transparency and accountability that can create conditions of fair and
open while expanding access so that everyone can participate and benefit from today’s
knowledge-based economy” .
 Use of ICT in all aspects of governance can remove irrelevant human involvement in the
processes of service delivery from the government to the citizens.
 Hence, ICT has been promoting good governance by increasing transparency, accountability in
public sectors. It helps to foster the process of decision making, public participation, and
reinforcing fare delivery of goods and services to the people.
 In this context the ICT developed the process of the assurance of the citizen’s right to
information and functions. Government sectors/institutions had been providing the information
related to their accomplishments, achievements, programs, and plans through their websites or
e-platform to the citizens.
 Citizens also can send feedback or query on any plans, programs which are mostly affected to
them from their home using the ICT tools. Through the online process, people can easily upload
and download forms, filing taxes, doing financial transactions through e-banking services,
getting jobs through different online job portals, etc.
 All the countries are interested in fostering the application of ICT in their public administrations
for sustainable economic development and transparency.

World summit on Information society focused on-

 An information society for all by improving access to information and communication

infrastructure and technologies as well as to information and knowledge;
 Capacity building
 Increase confidence and security in the use of ICTs;
 Create an enabling environment at all levels;
 Develop and widen ICT applications; foster and respect cultural diversity; recognize the role of
the media;

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  Address the ethical dimensions of the Information Society, and encourage international and
regional cooperation.

The objectives of e governance are as follows-

 One of the basic objectives of e-governance is to make every information of the government
available to all in the public interest.
 One of its goals is to create a cooperative structure between the government and the people
and to seek help and advice from the people, to make the government aware of the problems of
the people.
 To increase and encourage people’s participation in the governance process.
 e-Governance improves the country’s information and communication technology and
electronic media, with the aim of strengthening the country’s economy by keeping
governments, people and businesses in tune with the modern world.
 One of its main objectives is to establish transparency and accountability in the governance
process.
 To reduce government spending on information and services.

Features of E Governance

It has been proven from the concept of e-governance that it is a powerful means of public service in the
present era. Some of its features can be found by observing the functioning of e-governance.

 De bureaucratization: Due to e-governance, the gap between the people and the government in
all the services of the government is narrowing and the dependence of the people on the
bureaucracy is also greatly reduced.
 E-Services: Its main feature is the provision of services through the Internet. As a result, we get
G2C, G2B, G2E, etc. services. This is already discussed in the section of ‘types of governance’.
 International Services: through e-governance, all the essential services can be delivered to the
citizens who are living outside of their country for job purposes or any other reasons.
 It enhances the right to express to the citizens. Using the means of e-governance anyone can
share their views with the government on any bill or act or decision taken by the government.
 Economic Development: With the introduction of e-governance, various information like
import-export, registration of companies, investment situations, etc. are available through the
internet. As a result, time is saved, procrastination decreases, and economic dynamism
increases.
 Reduce inequality: using e-governance tools everyone can gather information and empower
themselves. In this globalized world, knowledge is power, and means of e-governance empower
us by providing relevant information at minimal cost, effort, and time.

Types of E Governance

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  E-Governance can be considered as the social inclusive policy for development of transparency
and accountability of both people in society and administration. This policy involves providing
the services to the people with collection of information through the institutional and
communicational development.

Types of E-Governance

It provides quality services in several ways. Those ways are also called as types of e-governance. These
are mentioned below-

 G2C (Government to Citizen)

 G2G (Government to Government)
 G2B (Government to Business)
 G2E (Government to Employee)

1. G2C (Government to Citizen)

 As people are the key concept of politics and government as well as governance, the
government is compelled to connect with citizens through the transparent and accountable
order. In this connection the government is responsible for promoting the social opportunities
and public services in the field of-
 Transportation (Registration of motor vehicles, Issue of driving licenses, Issue of plying
permissions, Tax and fee collection through cash and bank challans and control of pollution
etc.),
 hospitals (linking of various hospitals in different parts of the country to ensures better medical
services to citizens),
 education ( availability of the e-learning modules to the citizens, right to education),
 online job portal and various customer services.
 It also ensures services such as issue of certificates, job cards, passport, ration cards, payments
of bills and filing the taxes from the door step through e-governance platform. The main
objectives of the G2C services are to ensure equitable distribution of information for all,
acceptance of citizen’s feedback, and improving welfare services.

2. G2G (Government to Government)

 G2G has been referring to raising the quality of the government process by cost cutting,
managing performance, and making strategic connections within government.
 It enables government institutions to be more efficient and more effective by the use of IT tools
such as-
 Live fingerprints scanning and verification,
 Electronic entry of reports and paperwork etc.
 The major key areas in this type of e-governance are

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  E-Secretariat (all the valuable information regarding the function of the government are
interlinking throughout the various departments),
 E-Police (police personnel records, criminal records etc), and
 E-Court (creating a database of all the previous cases, pending and ongoing cases) and Statewide
Networks.

3. G2B (Government to Business)

 G2B is mainly concerned with these things-

 E-taxation,
 Getting a license from the government etc.
 Secure Electronics Transactions.

It has included the policy of government with business. According to S.P Kumar, ‘the essentials for
achievement of G2B services for secure and authentic transactions include: Standards for electronic
transactions, a secure payment mechanism and Public key infrastructure’ (Kumar: 2011).

4. G2E (Government to Employee)

 The G2E model refers to providing information and services from government to employee and
employee to government as well. It involves training through-
 e-learning methods;
 Consolidating the employee and
 Share of knowledge among the employees.

It has also facilitated the employee to access information regarding pay and benefit policies and manage
their profits through online.

Conclusion

 From the above discussion on E-Governance: Meaning, Objectives, Features, and Types, it can
be stated that In this era of globalization, the role of E governance is significant. This is a
blessing, especially to third world countries. As a result of the implementation of e-governance,
all these countries have been able to maintain their development trend on par with the
developed countries. Knowledge is power. E-governance empowers ourselves by providing
relevant information at minimal time, cost and price.

Advantages of e-Governance

 Improves delivery and efficiency of government services

 Improved government interactions with business and industry
 Citizen empowerment through access to information
 More efficient government management
 Less corruption in the administration

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  Increased transparency in administration
 Greater convenience to citizens and businesses
 Cost reductions and revenue growth
 Increased legitimacy of government
 Flattens organisational structure (less hierarchic)
 Reduces paperwork and red-tapism in the administrative process which results in better
planning and coordination between different levels of government
 Improved relations between the public authorities and civil society
 Re-structuring of administrative processes

Challenges in e-governance

 There are large numbers of potential barriers in the implementation of e-Governance. Some
hindrance 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 solutions and
resistance to change. Challenges identified as trust, resistance to change, digital divide, cost and
privacy and security concerns.

Trust

 Trust can be defined along two dimensions: as an assessment of a current situation, or as an

innate personality traitor predisposition. The implementation of public administration functions
via e-government requires the presence of two levels of trust. The first is that the user 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].
 There has to be a balance between ensuring that a system prevents fraudulent transactions and
the burden that extensive checks can take place on people who are honest.
 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 systems. Trust, along with financial security, are two critical factors
limiting the adoption of e-government services.

Resistance to change

 The innovation diffusion theory states that over time an innovation will diffuse through a
population, and the rate of adoption will vary between those who adopt early, referred to as
early adopters and to those who adopt the innovation much later, referred to as ―laggards.
 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.
 Citizens, employees and businesses can all have their biases with respect to how transactions
should be processed. However, government entities and public policy administrators cannot

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 ignore the changes that occur as a result of the 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 buy into the new system
at an early stage in the adoption process

Digital Divide

 The digital divide refers to the separation that exists between individuals, communities, and
businesses that have access to information technology and those that do not have such access.
 Social, economic, infrastructural and ethno-linguistic indicators provide explanations for the
presence of the digital divide.
 Economic poverty is closely related to limited information technology resources
 An individual living below poverty line does not afford a computer for himself to harness the
benefits of e-government and other online services. 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. It can also be caused by the lack of awareness among the people.
Even some of the economic stable people don’t know about the scope of e -governance.
 Awareness can only help to bring users to that service delivery channel once. It cannot
guarantee sustained use of the system unless the system is also designed in such a way as to
deliver satisfactory outcome. Procedures need to be simplified to deliver concrete benefits and
clear guidelines provided to encourage their use by the actual end users and reduce user’s
dependence on middlemen/intermediaries

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
living below the poverty line. Elected officers and politician don’t seem to be interested in
implementing e-governance

Privacy and Security

 There will be three basic levels of access exists for e-government stakeholders: no access to a
Web service; limited access to a Web-service or full-access to a Web service, however when
personal sensitive data exists the formation of the security access policy is a much more
complex process with legal consideration. With the implementation of e-government projects,
effective measures must be taken to protect sensitive personal information. A lack of clear
security standards and protocols can limit the development of projects that contain sensitive
information such as income, medical history.

E-Governance a change management tool

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  E-Governance Concepts Developments in the information and communication technology (ICT)
have been taking place at a rapid pace. India with its e-literate resources is fast emerging as a
major initiator in e- governance adoption. This is despite the challenges arising out of conditions
related to awareness, literacy, and basic infrastructure, bandwidth issues and multilingual and
cultural issues. Added to this is the issue of enabling members of the public service make the
transition from the traditional approaches to a new and evolving environment that is defined by
ICT development. To keep pace with the surrounding development, governments will need
mechanisms to respond to these changes. The disciplines of knowledge management and
change management provide important tools for public administrators.
 With ‘e’ gaining significance, other core aspects are often neglected. It is necessary to always
remember that ‘e’ is only a prefix. Similarly, the terms ‘government’ and ‘governance’ are also
used interchangeably. Though they are related. They are not the same. Further, the process of
e-governance is just not about digitalizing government information. It is bringing about change
in the stakeholders in their processes.
 E-government is the application of ICT to improve the efficiency and accountability of
government, whereas, e-governance depends on the use of ICT by mobilizing government
resources, and utilizing the internal information resources by the government employees with
the help of citizens acceptability to the changes taking place to provide better service to them.
E-governance can also be defined as the application of electronic means in the: --- Interaction
between government and citizens and government and businesses, and --- Internal government
operations to simplify and improve democratic, government and business aspects of the
governance.
 In developing countries, governments are beginning to use e-government applications to
improve their interactions with citizens and businesses and also automate their internal
operations
 To make the system more efficient, more effective, and improve government process. E-
governance is much more than just a government website in internet.

Approach to e-governance

 Introduction
It was defined as any usage of government online at all levels (federal, state, local). But I doubt if
this survey bring clear message about state of art in the field of e-government in analysed
countries. The interpretation of e-Government is quite broad and divergent. General definition
describes e-government as the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to
transform government by making it more. Usually we identify four or five stages of e-
government development accessible, effective and accountable described as:

• information available on-line

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• one way interaction

• two - way interaction

• full online transaction, including delivery and payment

 In more detailed view, realisation of ICT projects may refer to narrow and broad areas of e-
government. In first case, “e-Government in small” is associated with implementation of
administrative processes, within domain of e-Administration. Broadly defined, electronic
government can include all information and communication technology (ICT) to support
government operations, engage citizens, and provide government services. Therby, broader
approach embrace the whole range of governance and administrative projects including e-
services, e-democracy, e-voting, e-justice and in some way even e-education or e-healthcare.
Clearly, e-government is much more than gathering the information, downloading files or
making online transaction.Furthermore, the set of concepts related to the use of ICT has been
enriched with the notion of e-governance as a result of new approach of public problem solving.
We are witnessing the transition from a consolidated model of ‘big government” – centralised,
hierarchical and operating in close networks to new model of governance based in self-
organising inter-organisational networks exchanging local and global knowledge in the digital
economy. In today’s world neither politicians nor civil servants and administration staff are
exclusively responsible for shaping strategies and policies of a given country or local community.
Narrow approach to e-government may lead to technocratic government or transforming
bureaucracy into infocracy. On contrary, e-governance assumes online engagement of many
stakeholders in the process of shaping, debating and implementing public policies.

Within this broad definition we can identify four dimensions of e-governance :

E-services

 This term describes the use of electronic delivery for government information, programs,
strategies and services. These are available on-line “24h/7days”. It also refers to Electronic
Service Delivery (ESD) and such expression as ‘one-stop service centers”. The latter describes
situation in which citizen needs are met through a single contact with the government. In many
cases it assumes a modernised front-office but not necessarily redesigned back office capacity.
At the same time, e-services emphasise innovative forms of citizen involvement and offer
services that demonstrate serious valuation of citizens as customer of administration. The
strategic challenge is to deliver services to members of public along with dimensions such as
quality, convenience and cost.

3. E-management

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  While e-Services focus on extra-organisational relations, e-management (e-administration)
refers to the behind-the-scene information systems supporting the management and
administrative functions of public institutions, including data and information management,
electronic records maintenance and cross-departmental flow of information. E-governance
initiatives within this domain deal particularly with improving management of government, from
streamlining business processes to improving cross-departmental flow of information. Effective
usage of ICT requires a new organisational culture in addition to new staff teams focused on
performance, customer services and response to citizen input. The solutions to problem of e-
management lie in the implementation of services designed around possible life events or life-
episode” approach and the adaptation and integration of back-office processes

. E-democracy

 This is the most difficult to generate and sustain feature of e-Governance. In framework of e-
democracy ICT is used as an instrument to help set agendas, establish priorities, make important
policies and participate in their implementation in a deliberative way. It refers to activities that
increase citizen involvement including virtual town meeting, open meeting, cyber campaigns,
feedback polls, public surveys and community forums (such as through e-consultation, e-voting).
In short, if egov is successfully implemented new empowered citizens may emerge. They are
able to form the Internet biased alliance to respond to various issues and achieve economic and
social objectives.

E-commerce

 This concept is linked to business side of government interaction. In e-commerce the exchange
of money for goods and services is conducted over the Internet. For example, citizens paying
taxes and utility bills, renewing vehicle registrations, and paying for recreation programs, or
government buying offices supplies, and auctioning surplus equipment (through on-line
purchasing, e-procurement). Measuring the e-Government, examination of various frameworks

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