International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 10, October-2012 1
ISSN 2229-5518
Initiatives and implementation of e-Governance
Programmes: A Case Study of Odisha
Lalit Sharma, Prof Dr Priyadarshi Patni
Abstract— E-governance is more than just a government website on the Internet. The strategic objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for all parties; government, citizens and businesses. The use of ICTs can connect all three parties and support processes and activities. In other words, in e-governance electronic means support and stimulate good governance. Therefore, the objectives of e-governance are similar to the objectives of good governance. Good governance can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to better manage affairs of a country at all levels. It is not difficult for people in developed countries to imagine a situation in which all interaction with government can be done through one counter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without waiting in lines. However to achieve this same level of efficiency and flexibility for developing countries is going to be difficult. The experience in developed countries shows that this is possible if governments are willing to decentralize responsibilities and processes, and if they start to use electronic means. This paper is going to examine the legal and infrastructure issues related to e-governance from the perspective of developing countries. Particularly it will examine how far the developing countries have been successful in providing a legal framework.
Index Terms— ICT, e-Governance, G2C, G2B, G2G, e-Registration, IGR Odisha, Commercial Taxes, VAT IT Implementation, e- Municipality, e-Governance initiatives in Odisha, Orissa e-Governance Services Ltd. (OeSL), Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC).
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1 INTRODUCTION
-governance is the application of information & communi- cation technologies to transform the efficiency, effective-
ness, transparency and accountability of informational & transactional exchanges with in government, between govt. & govt. agencies of National, State, Municipal & Local levels, citizen & businesses, and to empower citizens through access
& use of information.
e-Governance is an instrument of the Information Society in the form of governance principles, strategies, systems and tools that enable the use of ICTs (Information and Communi- cation Technologies) in mutual interactions between and among the key members of the society; state, citizens, and businesses.
For governments, the more overt motivation to shift from manual processes to IT-enabled processes may be increased efficiency in administration and service delivery, but this shift can be conceived as a worthwhile investment with potential for returns. Following are some of the recent e-governance projects implemented by various state governments.
The three main benefited user groups that can be distin- guished in e-governance concepts are government, citizens and businesses. e-Governance is the use of information and communication technologies to support good governance.
The most common interactions in e-governance are Gov- ernment to Citizens (G2C), Citizens to Government (C2G), Government to Businesses (G2B) and Government to Gov- ernment (G2G). The various interactions in e- Governance are presented schematically in Figure.
Fig. 1. Service Integration.
Information, interaction, transaction & transformation are the four phase of e-Governance. Most governments start by delivering online information, but public demands and inter- nal efficiency soon require more complex services. In some cases the public demand is thedriving force, in other cases, cost saving aspects for the government are leading. e- Governance will mature according to the four phases: Infor- mation, Interaction, Transaction, Transformation. The first two phases concentrate on the information exchange via web- portals; the last two phases are mainly oriented towards an integrated service delivery approach.
2 NEED OF E-GOVERNANCE
Odisha state is attempting to revitalize their public admin- istration and make it more proactive, efficient, transparent and especially more service oriented. In this context, the appropri- ate use of ICT plays a crucial role in advancing the goals of the public sector and in contributing towards an environment of social and economic growth.
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e-Governance can support significantly the process of trans- formation of the government towards a leaner, more cost- effective government. It can facilitate communication and im- prove the coordination of authorities at different tiers of gov- ernment, within organizations and even at the departmental level. Further, e-Government can enhance the speed and effi- ciency of operations by streamlining processes, lowering costs, improving research capabilities and improving documentation and record-keeping.
Odisha has recognized Information Technology (IT) as an effective tool in catalyzing the economic activity, in efficient governance and in developing human resource. They have, therefore, made significant investments in it and successfully integrated it with the development process, thereby reaping the benefits to their society.
In Odisha also these developments have impacted the in- dustrial, education, service and Government sectors and their
TABLE 2
LIST OF UNDER IMPLEMENTATION PROJECTS OF GOVT. OF ODISHA
Project Description
e-Procurement e-Procurement is being implemented in 4
Departments (IT, RD, Works & Water Re- sources) in the Ist phase with the support of NIC, New Delhi.
influence on various applications is increasingly being felt of
late. As the era of digital economy is evolving, the concept of
governance has assumed significant importance.
3 FLAGSHIP PROJECTS OF ODISHA
Government of Odisha has initiated many projects for imple-
Food Grain monitoring sys- tem
An RFID based food grain monitoring sys- tem is currently under development. Pilot implementation is being done in Khurda & Koraput districts.
mentation of e-Governance in the state. Some of the successful projects running in the state to cater different citizen and busi- ness centric services are as follows:
TABLE 1
LIST OF IMPLEMENTED PROJECTS OF GOVT. OF ODISHA
3 ROLE OF IT IN E-GOVERNANCE
Advances in IT offer potentially beneficial effects on govern- ance. For instance, the increased performance and availability at reduced cost of microelectronics, fiber optics, voice and vid- eo compression, fast-packet switching and high-density stor- age technology could be utilized to make public administra- tion more efficient. Technology convergence due to digitaliza- tion, wide band transmission, compression technologies, and standards development lends support for the low cost provi- sion of public services such as health care and education. The pursuit of democratic governance could be fostered with a nation's access to a much greater diversity of communication sources and network designs. This is facilitated by the unbun- dling of communication functions and services due to the emergence of competing technologies, the dispersal of intelli- gence through diverse communication networks, the demands of large users, and the institution of competitive markets. In developing countries like the India, the expansion of two-way interactive media can support local grassroots participation. Democratic politics could be enhanced through the utilization of updated networking capabilities due to improvements in integration and switching technologies such as routers, intelli- gent hubs and asynchronous transfer mode, together with advances in wide band transmission technologies and soft- ware support applications. The increased mobility and porta- bility arising from distributed intelligence and innovations in wireless technologies such as satellite receivers, cellular te- lephony, radio paging, private branch exchange equipment, and local area and wide area networks also provide a rich en- vironment for cultivating good governance. IT promotes good governance in three basic ways: (1) by increasing transparen- cy, information, and accountability; (2) by facilitating accurate
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decision-making and public participation; and (3) by enhanc- ing the efficient delivery of public goods and services.
4 ODISHA E-GOVERNANCE PLAN
Keeping in line with the increased thrust on e-governance across the country, the state also took initiatives to computer- ise various departments, which started in mid 80’s with a few isolated initiatives. But since year 2000 the state has taken up statewide planned initiatives, which includes policies, infra- structure and software application development specifically to create an ICT enabling environment to enable citizen centric service delivery.
In the year 2004 the government came out with the Infor- mation Technology & ITeS Policy. The e-Governance roadmap of Odisha was released on 14th June 2006 by the Hon’ble Chief Minister, which compromised of governance Vision, govern- ance Strategy & Blue print and Capacity Building road map.
15 Departments were identified to provide more than 200 services under the Mission Mode Programme (MMP) of Na- tional eGgovernance Programme. The eRegistration Project has also been included into the ambit of MMP. The state Gov- ernment has implemented the eRegistration Project on PPP (Public Privat Partnership) and successfully implemented at
180 Registration Offices. Further to enable access to public utility services at citizen door step, establish of 8558 nos. of Common Facility Centre has been initiated and the much need Citizen Centric Services will be provided through these facility centres.
Fig. 3. Odisha e-Governance Plan.
5 FLIP SIDE OF E-GOVERNANCE
There are criticisms that most of the projects initiated by government departments, are dysfunctional, outdated, have ineffective links, and do not encourage interactive communi- cation with the population. In nutshell, for implementing a concept like e-governance, there is a total transformation of the public systems and procedures led by a change in the ad- ministrative mind-set. In this paper, the author has attempted to review the concept of e-governance; technology require- ments and impediments to e-governance; need for re- engineering as a pre-cursor to e-governance; and made certain recommendations for implementing e-governance solutions.
6 CONCLUSION
E-governance has been responsible for the progression in technology of developing countries and in this context Odisha has implemented some good projects in the state. The goal of E-governance is the ability to access and interact with the world on an even plain. No state should be left behind when it comes to being able to communicate with one another. Without E-governance, developing countries will be left be- hind when it comes to technology because almost every day, ICT technologies are advancing and changing. Developing countries now have the opportunity to better themselves through electronics and make their society be more advanced and more efficient than ever before.
Some of these core principles of e-Governance include a clear understanding and appreciation of the objectives to be achieved, making governance reforms rather than ICT the key focus for these projects, a step-by-step approach to maximum outcomes and benefits, complete re-engineering of govern- ment systems and procedures, constant monitoring and eval- uation, and use of local languages for ensuring citizen-friendly interface.
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