Answer:

Citizens contact government for various reasons such as trying to influence public policy, to addressing personal concerns that they have, conducting government transactions, and finding information on benefits and services that government offers. e-Governance is one such channel of public service delivery. E-governance is much more than a technological initiative but is made of a complex set of relationships between the stakeholder’s commitment, structured developmental processes and adequate infrastructural resources.

Reasons for e-governance projects falling short of expectations:

♤ E-governance is seen more as computerisation, office automation and inventory management rather than as a means of good-governance.

♤ E-gov was supposed to transform citizens from passive to active participants in governance. While there are successful incidents such as citizen feedback on net- neutrality being incorporated in final policy, such examples are few.

♤ Citizens do not associate much value addition to the e-gov projects. For example in departments which maintain land records, especially in rural areas, the details regarding land ownership, cropping patterns etc. were computerized but no legal sanctity was given to the output generated by such systems in absence of a commensurate change in the statutes.

♤ Lack of horizontal integration means that e-governance projects continue to deliver services in a fragmented and unsatisfactory fashion resulting in the end users having to approach a multitude of government agencies, thus defeating the promise of ‘less government'.

♤ Lack of attention to issues relating to the confidentiality of data such as personal details of citizens in some cases.

♤ Digital Divide: There is always the risk of the implementation of e-governance projects being so prioritized as to benefit only a certain section(s) of the society.

Successful e-governance implementation is about four main components: Identification of needs of end-users, Business Process Modification, use of IT, and Government intent. Deficiencies in any of these would result in e governance projects failing to achieve their objectives.

According to ARC, achieving the desired results would require full political backing, a determined and resolute approach by all organizations and departments of Government as well as active and constructive participation by the public. It would require providing institutional and physical infrastructure for taking e-Governance initiatives across our cultural and regional diversities and the creation of an environment that would encourage the adoption of ICT. Thus, apart from the technical requirement, success of e-Governance initiatives would depend on capacity building and creating awareness within government and outside it.