UNIT-2

Models of
E-Governance
OVERVIEW

• Online working of a government or providing its services online to its

citizens at their door step is known as E-Governance.
• The technology and the methods used in E-Governance project provide
a roadmap for efficient delivery of services at the door step.
• E-governance models, are essential for a right perspective on e-
governance implementation.
 MODELS
DISCUSS ABOUT HOW TO IMPLEMENT E GOVERNANCE
INTRODUCTION TO MODELS OF
DIGITAL GOVERNANCE

• Models of Digital Governance are continuously evolving and improvising to

tackle the potential offered by the ICT and deal with new realities in the
area of governance.
• There are no rigid and finite models of Digital Governance.
• In fact several developing countries are putting into practice innovative e-
Governance models that may technologically simple but are changing the
way information is distributed in the society.
• Based on primary experimentation and secondary research, a few generic
models which have emerged and are being practiced have been
identified.
• All these models share in common, the inherent
characteristics of the new technologies which are:
- Providing equal access to information to
anyone who is a linked to the digital network, and
-Providing information across the entire digital
network.
The five generic models of digital governance in
developing countries are:
1. Broadcasting/Wider Dissemination Model
2. Critical Flow Model
3. Comparative Analysis Model
4. Mobilisation and Lobbying Model
5. Interactive-Service Model
 Broadcasting/Wider
Dissemination Model
Principle

⮚ Broadcasting model is based on:

• mass dissemination of governance-related information
• which is already available in the public domain into the wider
public domain using ICTs.
⮚ This raises awareness among the citizens about:
• ongoing governance processes and government services that
are available to them and
• how they can benefit from them.
⮚ It allows citizens to form an opinion of the government
and its administration based on :
• services delivered to them - whether the government
services were available to them,
• and the quality of service received.
⮚ Equipped with this information, the citizens can feel more
empowered to voice their concerns and influence governance
processes to make them more efficient.
⮚ The application of this model using appropriate technologies,
could reduce the "information failure situations" where citizens
are unaware of new and existing services being provided by
the government.
⮚ It can also provide as alternative channel to people to stay
updated of governance related information and to validate
information received from other sources.
Applications

⮚ Putting government laws and legislation online.

⮚ Making available the names, contact addresses, emails, and
fax no’s of local government officials online.
⮚ Making available key information pertaining to
governmental plans, budgets, expenditures, and
performances online.
⮚ Putting key quote judgement/judicial statement that are of
value to common citizens .
Some Organizations / Projects
based on such models

⮚ India: Directory of Official Websites of Government of India

• National Informatics Centre (India) is the official website of the Government
of India which makes available Ministerial Information, Indian Laws and
Legislations Online, Contact Details etc. online for public access.
• http://goidirectory.nic.in/exe.htm#min (Parent Website : http://www.nic.in)
⮚ Brazil: Official government website
• The website provides comprehensive information on Brazilian government as
well as links to integrated citizen services.
• http://www.brazil.gov.br
⮚ South Africa: The PIMS Monitor
• Idasa's Political Information and Monitoring Service (PIMS) providing an easy-to-use reference
and record (with plain-language summaries) of all bills, acts and policy documents that
pass through parliament. The Monitor aims to help audience engage with democracy,
intervene in the legislative process and make submissions to parliament in South Africa.
• http://www.pims.org.za/monitor/
⮚ Global: Earth Negotiations Bulletin
• A reporting service which keeps informed citizens worldwide about global environmental
negotiations, processes and decisions. It has a great value for citizens and even
government officials in developing countries to keep track of global negotiations taking place
in the West and be more informed about them.
• http://www.iisd.ca/voltoc.html (Parent Website : http://www.iisd.ca)
Evaluation

⮚ The Broadcasting Model is a stepping stone to more

complex Digital Governance models.
⮚ It is also the most fundamental model as it enhances
'access' and 'flow' of information to all segments of
the society, which is essential to bringing good
governance.
⮚ In several developing countries, even the basic
governance-related information is unavailable, for
instance, the opening and closing times of
government offices, or information government
department and units which deal with specific issues
such as agricultural subsidies or getting license for
opening a business.
⮚ Central and state governments in developing countries need to
aggressively adopt this model to provide greater
governance services to their constituencies, and to enhance the
participation of citizens in governance processes.
⮚ Simultaneously, the civil society groups should demand for such
models to enable access to governance information which can
improve the quality of lives of people.
⮚ The model can lose its effectiveness in societies, where the free-
flow of information is not possible.
⮚ This can happen in countries where freedom of speech and
expression, or political freedom is restricted, or there are tight
governmental controls to censor information.
⮚ The model also loses its effectiveness in situation of optimal
ignorance.
⮚ This happens when citizens are indifferent / not motivated to act
upon information available to them, or when governments and
decision-makers take wrong decisions, not because of absence
of information, but complete disregard of available information.
Critical Flow
Model
Principle

• The model is based on broadcasting information of

'critical' value (which by its very nature will not be
disclosed by those involved with bad governance
practices) to targeted audience using ICTs and other
tools.
• Targeted audience : may include media, affected
parties, opposition parties, judicial bench, independent
investigators or the general public.
• Those who would disclose such information could include
upright officials and workers, affected parties and those
who were themselves involved in bad governance
practices but have now changed their minds or may wish
to trade such information for forgiving punishments.
• This reduces the cases of exploitative governance
possible earlier due to time lag between availability of
information to different users.
Applications:

• · Making available corruption related data about a particular Ministry /

Division/ Officials online to the concerned regulatory body.
• · Making available Research studies, Enquiry reports, Impact studies
commissioned by the Government or Independent commissions to the
affected parties.
• · Making Human Rights Violations cases freely available to Judiciary,
NGOs and concerned citizens.
• · Making available information that is usually suppressed, for instance,
Environmental Information on radioactivity spills, effluents discharge,
information on green ratings of the company to concerned community.
Examples

• Global: Wikileaks
• www.wikileaks.org
• WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. It brings important news and information to the
public. It publishes secret information, news leaks and classified media from anonymous sources
to keep the public informed, amongst others on cases of corruption, whistleblowing, and crimes.
•
• Global: Transparency International -Daily Corruption News
• http://www.transparency.org/feed/dcn
• A service is being run by Transparency International called the "The Daily Corruption News" which
reports on corruption from around the world. The daily corruption news has been coming out since
May 2000.
•
• Bangladesh: Human Rights Portal
• http://www.banglarights.net
• The portal actively promotes human rights reforms both within Bangladesh
and across geographical and political boundaries, and will support women,
children, and marginalized communities in resisting social oppression. It look
at attempts by global forces (powerful governments, TNCs, international
organizations) through surveillance, covert mechanisms and military and
economic superiority to exploit and control smaller nations and communities.

• India: Central Vigilance Committee

• http://cvc.nic.in
• The website provides free-access information to citizens about government
officials who have been indicted on judicial charges relating to corruption and
have been advised penalty. People can also file complaints against any
public servant who fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission.
Evaluation

• This model is more directed and evolved in comparison to

the Broadcasting / Wider - Dissemination Model.
• Different organizations can use it differently depending on the
aspect of governance they situation they want to address.
• By focusing on the critical aspect of information and
locating its likeable users, the model corrects information
failure, raising awareness about the bad governance practices,
and acts as a hindrance to bad governance practices.
• Critical Flow Model is more focused in terms of its
information content and its intended users.
• Due to critical aspect of information, the model
exposes the weakest aspects of governance and
decision-making mechanisms and informs people
about specific cases of state failure and bad
governance to build up a case for concerted action.
• At the same time, by fueling public unrest, the model
exerts pressure on the concerned government institutions
and individuals to take into notice the interest and opinion
of the masses in decision making processes.
• The responsibility of creating such models may lie more
with the civil society organizations to emerge as an
effective watch guard to government policies and actions.
Failure of Model

• The model will not work in cases where government

mechanisms do not encourage public debates and
disapprove all information of critical nature.
• It will also fail where the government maintains a tight
control over all information.
• There it remains restricted to top few levels of the
government. Inherently the Internet is an open medium.
 Comparative
Analysis Model
Principle

• Comparative Analysis Model is one of the least-used but a high

potential e-governance model for developing countries.
• The model can be used to empower people by comparing cases
of bad governance with those of good governance and
identifying specific aspects of bad governance, the reasons and
people behind them, and how the situation can be improved.
• The model is based on using immense capacity of ICT and social
media tools to explore given information sets with comparable
information available in the public or private domain.
• For instance, if a given amount of money can build 5 primary
schools in District 'A' in a country, then why does the same
amount of money build only 2 schools in District 'B'?
Could this be because of corruption of officials and contractors
involved, or siphoning of money for other things?
• The outcomes are strategic learnings and empowerment, and
can lay the basis for possible action, eg: filing of right to
information (RTI) to find where the money went.
• Essentially, the model continuously understand “best practices”
in different areas of governance and uses them as benchmark
to evaluate other governance practices.
• It then uses the result to influence 'public' opinion on existing
governance practices.
• The comparison could be made over a time scale to get a
snapshot of the past and the present situation or could be used
to compare the effectiveness of an intervention by comparing
two similar situations.
• The strength of this model lies in the infinite capacity
of digital networks to store varied information and
retrieve and transmit it instantly across all
geographical and hierarchical barriers.
Applications

• · To learn from past policies and actions and derive learning

lessons for future policy-making.
• · To evaluate the effectiveness of the current policies and identify
key learnings in terms of strengths and flaws in the policies.
• · To enable informed decision-making at all levels by enhancing
the background knowledge and also providing a theory for action.
• · To evaluate the performance and track-record of a particular
decision-maker/ decision-making body.
Examples

• Global: Human Development Indicators

• http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
• The Human Development Report of UNDP makes use of archived Statistical information pertaining to
literacy, health, national income etc. as a benchmark to assess the progress made by different countries
with regards to their Human Development Index and suggests policy recommendations based on that.
• Many countries now also prepare national level indicators to compare progress made in different states
in a country.
• India: Comparative Learning from Disasters
• http://www.cddc.vt.edu/digitalgov/Latur-Gujarat.htm
• In the wake of earthquake in Kutch in India (January 2001), there was a lot of comparative learning
relating to disaster management drawn from a high intensity earthquake which shook Latur in India in
1993. The extensive information available on internet on both these earthquakes open up vast scope of
comparison by all segments of the society.
Evaluation

• Developing countries can effectively use this model to

their advantage as ICT opens access to global and
local knowledge product at a relatively low cost.
• Watch guard organizations and monitor groups could
use the model to track the performance record of
electoral candidates and share them in their
constituency.
• The model is, however, dependent on the availability
of comparative information sets and the ability of the
users to analyze and bring out strong arguments
from the analysis.
• The model however becomes ineffective in the
absence of a strong civil society interests and short
public memory.
Mobilisation and Lobbying
Model
• Virtual: not physically existing as such but made by software to appear
to do so.
• A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect
through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and
political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.
• Virtual networking is a technology that facilitates data
communication between two or more virtual machines (VM). It is
similar to traditional computer networking but provides
interconnection between VMs, virtual servers and other related
components in a virtualized computing environment.
Principle

• This model mobilize(organize) and leverage(support) opinions

and concerns expressed by common public beyond all type of
barriers such as geographical, governmental, institutional etc.
• It is used for coordinated action
• The strength of this model is it accumulates or mobilize
opinions , ideas or expertise of virtual community
through virtual networking.
• Hence called mobilyzing/ lobbying model
• E Advocacy/Mobilisation and Lobbying Model is one of the most
frequently used digital governance models and has often come to the
aid of civil society organizations in developing countries to impact
international decision making processes.
• The model is based on planned, directed, strategic flow of
information to strengthen action in the real world.
• It takes up the energetic approach of forming virtual communities which
share similar values and concerns, promoting active sharing of
information between these communities, and linking them with real
world activities.
• It also provides a strong virtual arm to several
activities such as directing campaigns against a
particular individuals or decision making body.
Applications

• 1. Encouraging public debates on global issues, themes of

upcoming conferences, treaties, etc.
• 2. Formation of pressure groups to pressurize decision makers
to take their common concerns into their knowledge.
• 3. Amplifying the voices of marginalised groups such as
backward classes or minorities who are traditionally marginalised
from the decision making process.
• 4. Encouraging wider participation in decision making
processes.
Examples

• Global: Greenpeace Cyber-activist Community - an effort towards creation of virtual communities to

mobilise global support against some of the disputable environmental policies/ actions of the Government.
Since the cyberactivist system began in June 2000, there are now 116794.0 registered cyberactivists, who
participated in 357003 action alerts and sent 160597 e-cards to individuals and organizations.
• http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org/t/s/community_articles
• Global: Drop the Debt Campaign - the campaign spreads awareness of their activities through emails and
mobilises support of concerned individuals, and encourages them to directly express their concern to key
decision-makers (by making available their email and other contact addresses).
• http://www.jubileeusa.org/
• India:PRS Legislative Research
• Tracks parliamentary bills which have been introduced and are coming up for discussions. It analyses the bills,
prepares summaries of reports of standing committees, puts forward its position, and engages in processes
which allow them to voice their opinions.
• http://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/
• Global: Independent Media Centre –
• The Center was established by various independent and alternative media organizations and
activists for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
protests in Seattle lin 1999. The center acted as a clearinghouse of information for journalists, and
provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its website.
• http://www.indymedia.org/
• Global: IGC Internet –
• Institute for Global Communications (IGC) has changed the way the progressive community worked
by introducing them to email, online discussions, mailing lists and the Web. IGC Internet offers
progressive individuals and groups a place on the Internet to learn, meet and organize. At the
moment, IGC Internet is changing to take its community of activists and non-profit professionals into
the Internet's next wave by focusing on content, information sharing and new, collaborative tools.
• http://www.igc.org
Evaluation

• This model has grown manifold since the onset of debates on the
Seattle round of World Trade Organisation in 1999, which saw the
formation of several virtual communities to express their concerns in
the WTO agreements.
• The display of a unified, informed civil society force at Seattle was in
some ways a result of the intensive interaction and exchange of opinion
happening over the virtual networks months prior to this WTO summit.
• There was a lot of concerted actions at the Regional level as an end
result of such discussions which built into the global movement.
• The Mobilisation and Lobbying Model enhances the
scope of participation of individuals and communities
in policy issues and debates.
• This model could be effectively used by
the Government to encourage public debates and to
measure public opinion on a particular issue as a part
of good governance strategies.
 Interactive-Service Model/
Government-to-Citizen-to Government
Model(G2C2G)
Principle

• Interactive-Service Model in many ways is a combination

of the earlier digital governance models and opens
up path for direct participation of individuals in the
governance processes.
• This model fully captures the potential of ICT and support
it for greater participation, efficiency and transparency in
the functioning of government as well as savings in time
and costs relating to decision making.
• The Interactive-Service Model makes possible various services
offered by the government to be directly accessible to
citizens.
• It creates an interactive government to consumer to
government (G2C2G) channel in various functions such as
election of government officials (E-ballots), filing of tax
returns, procurement of government services, sharing
of concerns and providing expertise, conducting opinion
polls on public issues.
Applications

• To establish an interactive communication channels with key policy-makers and

members of planning commissions.
• To conduct electronic ballots for the election of government officials and other
office bearers.
• To conduct public debates / opinion polls on issues of wider concern before
formulation of policies and legislative frameworks.
• Filing feedback and reports by citizens with the concerned governmental body.
• Establishing decentralised forms of governance.
• Performing governance functions online such as revenue collection, filing of
taxes, governmental procurement, payment transfer etc.
Example of organisations

• India: Gyandoot is an intranet in Dhar district connecting rural

cybercafes catering to the everyday needs of the masses. The site has
following services to offer in addition to the hope that it has generated
by networking, the first district in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India
• Commodity/ Agricultural Marketing Information System
• Copies of land maps
• On-Line Registration of Applications
• Public Grievance Redressal
• http://www.gyandoot.net/gyandoot/intranet.html
• Philippine Customs Reform : Using an "off-the-shelf" customs
application package as the main building block, the Philippines
Customs Bureau has developed an on-line system to process
clearance of imports, payment of duty, and delivery of release orders
for shipments to leave the docks. The new on-line system has
lessened the cost of trade for businesses, reduced opportunities for
fraud, and helped the Bureau to maximize revenue collection.
• http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/philippinecustomscs.ht
m
Evaluation

• This model is more embedded in digital-governance

initiatives in the developed countries and has often
been proposed for implementation in developing
countries.
• The model is on the higher end of technology reliance
as compared to the other models.
• This makes it difficult to replicate in developing countries
in the absence of individual and secure ICT access.
• Various other issues also need to be considered carefully
before such blind duplication can be attempted in the
developing countries.
• However, the trend is definitely in this direction and sooner
or later will be implemented in all the countries with due
modifications for local adaptation.
Evolution in E-governance and
Maturity Models

• The development in the Information and Communications Technology

(ICT) has made it possible for citizens to interact with the government
remotely without physically visiting any government office in most of
the cases and avail the e-Governance services in a convenient
manner.
• In the context of Electronic Service Delivery – “e-Governance is about
the making use of ICT in systems of governance for a wider
participation and a deeper involvement of citizens, institutions, civil
society groups and the private sector in the decision making process
of governance.”
• An e-government e-portal's maturity model is a set of
stages (from basic to advanced ones) that determines
the maturity of the e-government portal.
• The main benefit of those maturity models is to offer a
way to rank e-government portals.
A maturity level assessment may
provide the following benefits:

• -Ability to compare Maturity Level with other government

ministry / departments
• -A known Maturity Level, with precise recommendations
for improvement
• -An independently held set of "benchmarks"
• Simply put, maturity models are used to diagnose and eliminate
deficient capabilities, to guide improvement initiatives (to map
the way for improvement), and to control progress.
• E-governance journey encounters several milestones
that need to be identified and modeled so that
efforts invested can be assessed and an appropriate
course of action be taken by the organization to further
its way on the path of e-governance.
• The E-governance Maturity Model (EMM—version 1.0)
proposes five levels of maturity, depending on the
effectiveness
Five Maturity Levels

• The Five Maturity Levels of e-Governance is based on

fact that speed, openness and completeness are some
major capabilities of ICT.
• The maturity levels, described below provide a
necessary mechanism to benchmark the efforts
invested by an organization in implementing e-
Governance.
• Closed
• Initial
• Planned
• Realized
• Institutionalized
Level 1- Closed

• Here an organization does not use ICT as a facilitator for good

governance and has no plans to do so in the near future.
• Such situation may arise due to lack of exposure to ICTs and
associated benefits that again may depend upon a number of
reasons: remoteness, lack of resources .
• As a result the organization is closed in terms of being connected and
sharing of information in the context of “E-governance”.
• However, even in this condition the organization may be efficiently
functioning.
Level 2- Initial

• In this stage, top management knows ICT, its applications and benefits
for organizations.
• No organized efforts have been attempted to undertake the
eGovernment initiation.
• Efforts usually are experimental and with lack of direction.
• In the end of this stage, it’s expected to that the necessity of
eGovernment is realized.
• Main criteria of this stage are: degree of ICT knowledge in
organization, perception of eGovernment advantages and
disadvantages, administrative efforts, and productivity evaluation of
efforts.
Level 3- Planned

• This stage starts with systematic approach.

• With respect to strategic approach, information technology strategic plan is
formulated in this stage.
• Need assessments are made to prioritize the areas of implementation and
measure the extent of e-readiness.
• Taking necessary input from need assessment study, extensive planning has been
carried out indicating policies, strategies, various activities, stakeholders, roles
and responsibilities and resources required in terms of time, money and manpower
to undertake the e-governance exercise.
• Main criteria of this stage are: vision definition, need assessment, eGovernment
plan, and documentation.
Level 4- Realized

• After strategy formulation in the last stage, we will have

implementation and assessment in this stage.
• So, according to strategies, action plan with budget and time will be
defined.
• Then required actions are implemented and finally their results would
be measured and controlled.
• a) Retrospected
• Business processes are balanced with the vision and overall e-
governance objectives.
• There is awareness about e-governance among all concerned—the
stakeholders as well as the customers/users.
• b) E-ready
• The organization has a sound infrastructure (technological, institutional, legal,
and human) in place, for implementing e-governance.
• The customers/users are oriented and motivated to use e-governance
services.
• c) Partially open
• Some of the e-governance services are deployed, leading to partial
information exchange among the entities.
• Partially open organizations sometimes focus only on their internal or backend
processes, allowing an information exchange within the confines of
the organization thus remaining insulated from its external entities.
• In such cases, Government-to-Employee (G2E) interface is visible, whereas
Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Government (G2G) and
Government-to-Business (G2B) interfaces are not yet established.
• Another case of partial deployment of e-governance services result in a
conspicuous G2C interface with no emphasis on building G2E, G2B, or G2E
interfaces.
• In an enthusiasm to quickly open up its front-end, the
organization negligibly focuses on computerization of the
supporting backend processes, thus creating hollowness behind
the face of static web sites.

• d) Open
• The organization has an integrated system, reflective of smooth
information exchange within and outside the organization, i.e.
Government-to-Employee (G2E), Government-to-Citizen (G2C),
Government-to-Government (G2G) and Government-to-Business
(G2B) interfaces are well established over a sound foundation of e-
governance building blocks (the e-readiness essentials).
• Organization focuses on satisfying the users of e-governance
services.
Level 5: Institutionalized

• The e-governance system of the organization is driven by

a well established Knowledge Management System that
generates an ability in the organization to evolve with time
in view of new requirements.
• E-governance becomes an effortless exercise for the
organization and it becomes a way of life for the
stakeholders and customers/users.
• The organization at this level is completely paperless.
• E readiness are a set of prequisites that act as a sound
building block for implementing e governance.
• Following define the e-readiness of an organization:
• (a) Presence of strategic thinking, leadership and
commitment among top level decision makers.
• It is necessary to have visionaries at the top level who can put
e-governance on the agenda of the organization and are able
to carry it through to implementation and effective utilization.
• (b) Institutional infrastructure.
• There should also be institutions responsible for creating e-
governance awareness among stakeholders and users, and
coordinate the e-governance exercise.
• (c) ICT infrastructure.
• A sound computing and communication infrastructure is an
essential requirement for effective operationalization of e-
governance services.
• (d) Human capacities. It is important to build
human capacities in terms of necessary knowledge
and skills to initiate, implement and sustain
egovernance initiatives.
• All require extensive and intensive training and ICT
orientation programs at various levels of the staff and
officers in the concerned government organization.
• (e) Legal Infrastructure. The necessary laws
and regulations should also be in place to support ICT
as a tool for good governance.
Characteristics of Maturity Levels

• The characteristics exhibited by the organizations at various levels of

maturity facilitate assessing the current level of e-governance attained
by the organization.
• The following points describe the characteristics of the organizations at
various levels:
• Level 1: Closed
• Organizations are closed to e-governance.
• No plans or vision is available.
• They continue with fully manual and conventional operations.
Level 2: Initial

• Organization lacks strategic thinking and direction for e-governance at

top level.
• There are unorganized and isolated efforts of automation in some
areas.
• Automation efforts are a result of individual's initiatives.
• The effort sustains as long as the enthusiasm of the individual, who
initiated it, remains and is often abandoned due to lack of direction.
• Such organizations generally accumulate hardware without any
planning and much of it goes unutilized or underutilized.
Level 3: Planned

• E-governance is a part of organization's agenda.

• Strategic thinking and leadership guide the e-governance initiatives.
• Clear understanding of e-governance needs as projected by the external and
internal customers/users.
• Extensive plan is prepared for implementing e-governance, addressing all Key
Focus Areas (KFAs) and other related issues.
• All the necessary documents for e-governance planning are in place. T
• These documents include Vision and Scope document for e-governance, Need
Assessment Survey document, Policy guidelines, and Action Plan and
Outsourcing guidelines.
Level 4: Realized

• Retrospected
• Business processes are attuned with the vision and overall e-governance
objectives.
• There is awareness about e-governance among all concerned—the
stakeholders as well as the customers/users.
• E-ready.
• The organization has a sound infrastructure (technological, institutional, legal,
and human) in place, for implementing e-governance.
• The customers/users are oriented and motivated to use e-governance
services.
• Partially open.
• Some of the e-governance services are deployed, leading to partial
information exchange among the entities.
• Partially open organizations sometimes focus only on their internal or
backend processes, allowing an information exchange within the confines
of the organization thus remaining insulated from its external entities. In
such cases, Government-to-Employee (G2E) interface is visible, whereas
Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Government (G2G) and
Government-to-Business (G2B) interfaces are not yet established.
• Another case of partial deployment of e-governance services result in a
conspicuous G2C interface with no emphasis on building G2E, G2B, or
G2E interfaces.
• In an enthusiasm to quickly open up its front-end, the organization
negligibly focuses on computerization of the supporting backend
processes, thus creating hollowness behind the face of static web sites.
• A hybrid of the above two cases is characterized by building interfaces
with external entities and simultaneously focusing on computerizing
the corresponding backend processes, thus opening a balanced
information exchange among the internal as well as the external
customers of the organization.
• Open.
• The organization has an integrated system, reflective of smooth
information exchange within and outside the organization, i.e.
Government-to-Employee (G2E), Government-to-Citizen (G2C),
Government-to-Government (G2G) and Government-to-Business (G2B)
interfaces are well established over a sound foundation of e-governance
building blocks (the e-readiness essentials).
• Organization focuses on satisfying the users of e-governance services.
• The internal and external customers/users of the organization start
utilizing the e-governance services and become dependent on them.
Level 5: Institutionalized

• The e-governance system of the organization is driven by

a well established Knowledge Management System that
generates an ability in the organization to evolve with time
in view of new requirements.
• E-governance becomes an effortless exercise for the
organization and it becomes a way of life for the
stakeholders and customers/users.
• The organization at this level is completely paperless.
Key Focus Areas

• Key focus areas: Key focus areas (KFA) indicate the

areas that need to be focused by an organization and
are a set of related activities when performed
collectively, help achieving a particular level of
maturity.
Planned:

• Define a quantifiable vision for the e- governance exercise .

• conduct a needs assessment survey in view of objectives
covering the following areas.
• Survey of requirement both within and outside the organization.
• Analyze the requirement to identify priority areas for initiating e-
governance exercises.
• Assess the extent of e-readiness for identified areas and
requirement to achieve the desired level of e-readiness.
• Prepare an extensive plan on e- governance that includes the
following areas.
• Define objectives and goals for the e-governance exercise.
• design policies and strategies for implanting e-governance.
• Decomposes the e-government exercise into various activities.
• Project the resources requirements in terms of time, money and
man power.
• Define implementation methodology.
Realized

• Arrange for resources required to Implement the e-governance initiatives.

• Develop a high level awareness and commitment among decision makers, stake holders
and users to initiate and carry forward the e- governance objectives.
• Select vendors for out sourced activities and formalize terms and conditions.
• Set up management committees with holders for executing and monitoring the e-
governance objectives.
• conduct a detailed study and review of the existing business process in view of e-
governance objectives.
• Acquire , design, develop, test and deploy e-governance services with the following issues
.
• Address information needs of common man in local language with easy to use interfaces.
• Ensure easy accessibility to information .
• Provide efficient data communication.
• Build scalable architecture.
• Collect, compile , validate and update data.
• Conduct an impact analysis to access the effectiveness
of service delivery.
Institutionalized:

• Address the design reality gaps , if any by iterating

between planning and realization phases.
• Evolve a mechanism to make e-governance an effort
less exercise , so that the entire system develops an
ability to evolve and scale up with time and new
requirements.
Towards Good Governance through E-
Governance
• E-Governance is the key to the-Good Governance for the developing
countries to minimize corruption, provides efficient and effective or
quality services to their citizens.
• E-governance increase democratic participation, accountability,
transparency, and the quality and speed of services.
• However environment needs to be developed for the effective
implementation of e-government .
• The world has changed a lot over centuries and all these changes were
mainly triggered by scientific and technological innovations and
inventions.
• But over last fifty years, the world has been craving for more innovations
in the field of governance.
• The opening of the economy in India in 1991 ended of
license raj and freed the market forces.
• But later on, various scams underscored the lack of
transparency in the governance mechanism in India.
• Therefore there is a need for “A Government which is
responsive to the needs of the people, whose
transactions have clearly defined time
bound accountability and whose decisions are readily
available for public scrutiny.”
• Indian government has announced 25th December as
Good Governance Day.
• In order to ensure good governance for the country, the E-governance system will
have to follow various principles:-
• Accountability
• The biggest challenge of governance is the lack of accountability.
• Problems that a government faces are complex because the needs of the people
are complex and rapidly changing.
• To manage such complex tasks, clear accountability is required.
• Currently, there is no clearly defined personnel who are responsible for handling
any specific task and is solely responsible for the same.
• There is always a game of passing the buck from one department to the other
when a common man tries to access the government services.
• To avoid this problem, the governance system must define the personnel and the
stakeholders who are accountable for the provision of services.
• Further there is need for classifying the requests from the people into daily
administration problems, interdepartmental problems and policy level problems so
that targeting of problems is more precise.
Daily Administration Problems

• Most of the problems that common man faces in the society

re regular administration problems.
• For these, it is easier to define the time frame by when the
issue would be resolved by the government and who are
accountable for the resolution of the issue.
• This ensures that the citizen is empowered to know whom to
question for the resolution of his issue and also when to
expect the service from the government.
Interdepartmental Problems

• Some of the problems that a common man faces

would require the intervention of multiple
departments of the governments for the resolution.
• These problems would require greater amount of
time, but E-governance systems can still fix the
accountability if departmental jurisdictions are clearly
defined.
Policy level issues

• These are the most complex issues which arise with the
changes coming up in the society and require thorough
analysis as these issues have to be addressed keeping the
future in view.
• The solutions are of long term and therefore require
thorough analysis from multiple stakeholders’ point of view.
• E-governance systems can help in such cases by providing
accurate impact analysis of possible decisions.
Transparency

• The next major requirement from an effective E-governance

system is transparency.
• The last government suffered majorly because of multiple scams
that were unearthed by the media.
• People are now demanding far more transparency in the
government transactions than they ever did in past.
• Therefore there is a necessity for not only working in a
transparent manner but also communicate to the people that
every transaction is happening as per the mandate without any
violation.
• Therefore E-governance systems should be intelligent
enough to automate the decision making process so that
the transactions are highly transparent and are perceived
to be transparent by society at large.
• It would also ensure that transactions of the government
are as per the mandated criteria and that there is no
scope for a biased decision making, which is the root
cause for lack of trust in the governance systems in India.
Responsive

• Lastly, government as an entity has to be responsive to the need of the people.

• There is a need for a governance system which is responsive to the needs of the
people.
• Since major problems of the people are more of administrative nature, the citizen
should be given the opportunity to participate in the governance system.
• The true nature of democracy is to ensure that voices of the people are heard.
• Therefore E-governance systems must ensure that the systems created by them
are responsive to the requirement of the different sections of population.