Electronic-Governance: Empowering Masses

Introduction
The advent of Information Technology as a high leverage-enabling tool for delivery of services in the public and the private sector has by now been universally recognised. This has redefined the fundamentals and has the potential to change the institutions as well as the mechanisms of delivery of services forever. Quite obviously, therefore, the objective of achieving Electronic Governance (EG) goes far beyond mere computerisation of stand alone back office operations. It means to fundamentally change how the Government operates and this implies a new set of responsibilities especially for the State Governments and local bodies.

Government departments, which have maximum interaction with the public, must be identified for the use of IT. Listed below are a few such departments that can be considered:

Public Grievances: Electricity, Water, Telephone, Ration Card, Sanitation, Public Transport etc.

Rural Services: Land Records, Below Poverty Line (BPL) Families etc.

Police: FIR Registration, Lost and Found etc.

Social Services: Pension, Registration of Licences and Certificates, Ration Cards, Birth Certificates, Death Certificate, Domicile Certificate, Caste/Tribe Certificate, Registration of Documents, School Registration, University Registration, Motor Vehicle Registration, Driving License etc.

Public Information: Employment Exchange Registration, Employment Opportunities, Examination Results, Hospitals / Beds Availability / Services, Railway Time Tables, Airline Time Tables, Road Transport Time Tables, Charitable Trusts, Government Notifications, Government Forms, Government Schemes etc.

Agriculture Sector: Seeds Information, Pesticides, Fertilizers, Crop disease, Weather Forecast - short range / District wise, Market Price etc.

Utility Payments / Billing : Electricity, Water, Telephone etc.

Commercial: Taxation & Return Filing, Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Custom Duty, Central / State Excise Duty, Sales Tax, House Tax, Property Tax, Octroi, Road Tax, Company Returns etc.

Government: Electronic Procurement, Education University Model for E-Governance etc.

Benefits in Developing Countries
The benefits of e-governance for developing countries are considerable. E-governance can be leveraged to provide services effectively to the poor masses of developing countries, which lack basic health, sanitation and education facilities. E-governance can also be leveraged to improve the delivery of not only these basic services, but also other services that might have been deemed inaccessible to poor, isolated villagers.

E-Governance in India
For centuries most of the India’s population living in villages was just unreachable and uninformed of various developments taking place in other parts of the country. Villagers were locked in a battle against three seemingly invincible foes: drought, poverty, and crooked landlords. The new information and communication technology developments in different states of India have changed the way government offices used to work and also the life style of the villagers and other citizens.

Some of the e-governance projects in the country are discussed as under:

1. Akshaya: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Kerala State Department of Information Technology with an objective to make Kerala a 100% e-literate state. Under this project e-centres with internet connectivity are being setup throughout the state to provide e-literacy to one member from every household and eventually act as ICT Dissemination nodes and IT Enabled Service Delivery points in every village.
2. AP online- One-stop-shop on the Internet: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh with an objective to provide a single window online service for its citizens through a portal designed to be a one-stop-shop on the Internet. The portal seeks to provide information in respect of all services to the citizens and businesses in Andhra Pradesh. The portal was launched on 27th March 2002. Information about services offered by TWINS, FAST & CARD (ICT projects that have been initiated by AP) along with other basic information regarding all departments of the Government of Andhra Pradesh is available on this portal.
3. Arunachal Pradesh Community Information Centre: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Central Government and State Governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura in August 2000. Its objective is to link the blocks in the North Eastern states through Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), and provide Community Information Centres (CICs), which will act as an interface between the citizens and institutions of Government. CICs have been set up in all the 487 blocks of Northeast and Sikkim in just about 2 years. Each Centre is well- equipped with infrastructure including one server machine, five client systems, one each of a VSAT, Laser Printer, Dot Matrix Printer, modem, LAN hub, TV, Webcam and two UPS. Each CIC has two CIC Operators (CICOs) for managing the centres and providing services to the public. Basic services to be provided by CICs include Internet access and e-mail, printing, data entry and word processing and training for the local populace. Many of the CICs, already operational, charge nominal amounts from users for services which helps them to meet day-to-day running expenses such as consumables, stationery, fuel for the Genset etc. It is proposed to use the Community Information Centres for E-entertainment in the future.
4. Bhoomi: : It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Govt. of Karnataka to ensure more secure title and decrease rural graft, by providing access to printouts of land holdings at specified Govt. offices in districts to citizen-consumers. The project was initiated in 1998. At this point, 167 of the total of 177 Talukas have already been computerized. The information has been transferred from existing manual registers and inputted into a database. The database generated in this project is going to be used for a number of other developmental applications including better agricultural and financial planning for farmers in collaboration with the Centre for Knowledge Societies, Bangalore.
5. Computerized Panchayat in Belandur (Karnataka): It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Bellandur Gram Panchayat and Village Development Committee with an objective to limit corruption and get development resources through computerization of the Panchayat. Software packages have been developed to suit the needs of panchayat administration, handling the recording of property details, tax collection, data management and so on. The current system has aided in limiting corruption, and generated a 100-fold increase in revenue for the Panchayat. Enhanced tax collections have already been put into good use in development initiatives.
6. Dairy Information System Kiosk (DISK): It is an E-Governance project initiated by the National Dairy Development Board with an objective to provide data analysis and decision support to help rural milk collection societies in improving their productivity and the yield of cattle. The project was conceived with two components, an application running at the rural milk collection society that could be provided Internet connectivity and a portal at the district level serving transactional and information needs of all members. The DISK application has helped in the automation of the milk buying process at 2,500 rural milk collection societies.
7. Delhi Slum Computer Kiosks project: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Delhi State Department of Information Technology with an objective to help improve the conditions of the Ambedkar Nagar slums as well as to spread computer awareness. After using the computer based learning modules designed as part of the project, the children's grades in subjects like science, math and the English language improved remarkably.
8. e-Computerised Operations for Police Services (eCops): It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh with an objective to computerise activities related to crime control, administration and support services in order to maintain information, monitor and enhance the performance and efficiency of the police department across the state. It will help police stations reduce paperwork and automate the maintenance of registers, report generation, data analysis, planning and co-ordination, enable the speedy detection of crime and monitor prosecutions. For citizens, the project will lead to online interaction with the police department over the Internet.
9. Grameen Sanchar Sewak: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Government of India with an objective to make the telephone accessible to people at the remotest corners of the country through postmen. Under the project, the postmen in rural areas, who have been renamed Grameen Sanchar Sewaks (GSS), will carry handsets that operate on the Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) network when they go out for their normal routine of delivering letters and money orders. Initially it will cover 8,000 villages in 21 telecom circles. The handsets are operable in an area of five km of the nearest tower.
10. Gyandoot: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh with an objective to cater to social, economic and development needs of the villagers through an innovative G2C (Government to Citizen) model. The Gyandoot project was initiated in January 2000 by members of the Indian Administrative Services in consultation with various gram panchayats in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh. The project has installed a low cost, self-sustainable, and community-owned rural Intranet system (Soochnalaya) that caters to the specific needs of village communities in the district. Thirty-five centres have been established since January 2000 and are managed by rural youth selected and trained from amongst the unemployed educated youth of the village. They run the Soochanalayas as entrepreneurs (Soochaks) and charge for the services that include agricultural information, market information, health, education, women's issues, and applications for services delivered by the district administration related to land ownership, affirmative action, and poverty alleviation.
11. Himachal Buses: Transport Tracker: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Himachal Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) with an objective to remote control buses in Himachal Pradesh on the net. HRTC, which runs its network of buses on some of the harshest and highest roads in the world, will have their progress monitored through the Internet with a "remote tracking system". This will help logistics and fleet management systems including route analysis, warehouse data and vehicle dispatch. Besides, breakdown of buses will also be monitored. The salient features of the system would be real time tracking, two-way communication capabilities, online guidance, and system for distress signaling and emergency notification. There will be a graphical display on the Internet as well as pan and zoom facilities.
12. Krishi Marata Vahini: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Govt. of Karnataka with an objective to network agricultural produce markets in Karnataka for providing real time prices and other information on crop production, market prices of agri-products, and soil conditions to the farming community. The "Krishi Marata Vahini" or agriculture produce marketing vehicle web site www.agmarknet.nic.in, was launched on the 15th of June 2002. Karnataka is the first state to launch such a website in the country to provide reliable data on daily arrivals of agricultural commodities with minimum and maximum prices in all 142 agricultural produce marketing centres in the State of which 70 are to be computerised. Information is to be made available everyday by 4 p.m. The web site enables 24-hour automatic collection and dissemination of market information on over 100 commodities.
13. Sampark 2003-04: : It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Income Tax Department, Government of India with an objective to facilitate filing of tax returns by citizens. The Income Tax department has released software which will help people file their tax returns in the assessment year 2003-04 through a simple question-answer session. All taxpayers, except those in the business or professional categories, can use the software, 'Sampark 2003-04'. Taxpayers have the option of either preparing their return on the Internet or taking a print out for filing, or downloading the software on their computer and reparing their return off line. The software is part of a taxpayer facilitation scheme and is available on the department's website at http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/.
14. Saukaryam: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh with an objective to provide better civic services to citizens by providing online information. Launched in the year 2000, Saukaryam the pilot project of the Municipal Corporation of Visakhapatnam is now being implemented in other parts of the state of Andhra Pradesh. Online payment of Municipal dues has been taken up as its first sub-project and other services include Online Filing and Settlement Of Complaints & Grievances, Online Tracking of Building plan Status, Online Registration of Births and Deaths, Instant Issuance of Birth and Death Certificates, Online Tracking of Garbage Lifting. The programme is built on a public-private partnership platform. Every service extended by the city corporation is being extended online.
15. Telemedicine Service in Pune Primary Health Centres: It is an E-Governance project initiated by the Pune District Administration with an objective to provide expert medical counsel at affordable rates to people living in the interiors of Pune villages. The Pune district administration in partnership with a global health portal www.doctoranywhere.com and Tata Council for Community Initiatives (TCCI) has launched a telemedicine service from government Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) for those living in interior villages. There are currently 88 PHCs in Pune district, each manning five to six sub-centres. The telemedicine project aims to ultimately connect all the PHCs in the district. Doctors at the PHCs will refer complicated cases to the specialists in major cities who in turn will give their advice within 24 hours.

Conclusion
E-governance is an essential element in addressing the inter-related economic and social challenges in the country. India would be able to drastically reduce its poverty and accelerate economic growth if initiatives to apply IT and e-governance are effectively done in all the government departments.