In last 15 years, the technologies have changed to considerable extent. Policies or framework are essential for them so as to exploit them to their maximum extent. Speedy trade and transactions are on top priority. E-Governance tries to streamline those transactions so as to provide security and surety to conduct its transparency and accountability offering reliability. E-Governance tries to integrate and restructure the current processes to increase the efficiency of the systems. Government-to-Business, Government-to-Customer, Government-to-Employee and Government-to-Government are some models of E-Governance. This research paper will try to study these models using secondary research.
Key Words: E-Governance, Framework, e-Transactions, Security, Transparency, Efficiency, Reliability.
1The generally accepted definition for e-governance is as: the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by government agencies for any or all of the following reasons:
- Exchange of information with citizens, businesses or other government departments.
- Speedier and more efficient delivery of public services.
- Improving internal efficiencies.
- Reducing costs or increasing revenue.
- Re-structuring of administrative processes.
2There are four stages of e-governance which are identified to make e-government development accessible, effective, accountable described as:
- Information available online
- One-way interaction
- Two-way interaction
- Full online-transaction, including delivery and payment.
2There are four dimensions of e-governance:
- E-Services
- E-Management
- E-Democracy
- E-Commerce
In today’s Internet-centric world, all the transactions are done in virtual space where the digital economy deals with knowledge oriented societies. In this virtual space all the business transactions are done in a secured environment. There are some restrictions which the government as well as the citizens and customers need to follow. Due to these restrictions all the transactions gain reliability and transparency.
The processes are followed are very complex which cause the risks during carrying out these transactions. The most dangerous of all these are attackers or the hackers which sniff the data and misuse. Mostly, the government websites and databases are on the target so that the confidential data will be gained and it can be used for the betterment of the other countries. Hence, for these the transactions should be made securely and with the help of latest technologies that are available. All the governments make the use of one or the other technology so that their data is safe and no sensitive information leaks out.
E-governance is the framework to all these. E-Governance frames policies to make these transactions secure to a maximum extent and also to make them easier.
Why E-Governance?
For the efficient operation of government, a government-community-citizen infrastructure should be in place. This would result in sturdy and meaningful information flow between the government and citizens of a nation. A close-knit infrastructure would yield two-fold benefits, which would save time and money for all concerned:
- First, citizens can enjoy faster, effective and timely government services. This would also evolve a culture of self-service where-in citizens can help themselves wherever and whenever required.
- Secondly, government can become more integrated into the community itself. Also government can focus its resources where they are needed most.
Governments across developing nations worldwide have more challenges and responsibilities to bring their nations at par with the developed nations. To face such challenges, governments can bring e-Governance reforms. E-Governance helps improve government processes, connect citizens and build interactions with and within civil society.
At root e-Governance provides three basic change potentials for good governance development.
- Automation: Replacing current human-executed processes, which involve accepting, storing, processing, outputting or transmitting information.
- Informatisation: Supporting current human-executed information processes
- Transformation: Supporting new human-executed information processes.
These change potentials, in turn, can bring – singly or in combination – five main benefits to governance for development:
Efficiency gains:
- Governance that is cheaper: producing the same outputs at lower total cost.
- Governance that does more: producing more outputs at the same total cost.
- Governance that is quicker: producing the same outputs at the same total cost in less time.
Effectiveness gains:
- Governance that works better: producing the same outputs at the same total cost in the same time, but to a higher quality standard.
- Governance that is innovative: producing new outputs.
Hence, with e-Governance, a reinvigorated, digital-era government is at hand. When governments and citizens redefine and reengage their roles, better government—better governance—will be the result.
[3]& [4]Models in e-Governance:
There are certain models defined for e-Governance which can be used for improving the efficiency and effective of the e-government. These models are as follows:
- Government to Business (G2B):
G2B transactions include various services exchanged between government and the business community, including dissemination of policies, memos, rules and regulations. Business services offered include obtaining current business information, downloading application forms, renewing licenses, registering businesses, obtaining permits and payment of taxes. The services offered through G2B transactions also assist in business development, specifically the development of small and medium enterprises.
On a higher level, G2B services include e-procurement, an online government supplier exchange for the purchase of goods and services by government. Typically,
e-procurement Web sites allow qualified and registered users to look for buyers or sellers of goods and services. Depending on the approach, buyers or sellers may specify prices or invite bids. e-Procurement makes the bidding process transparent and enables smaller businesses to bid for big government procurement projects. The system also helps government generate bigger savings, as costs from middlemen are shaved off and purchasing agents’ overhead is reduced.
Essentials for Achievements:
Standards: Standards for electronic transactions or E-Commerce needs to be built. The standards will also include standards on content, etc.
Payment Mechanism: A secure payment mechanism needs to be built to enable payments over the electronic medium.
PKI: Public Key Infrastructure or PKI is required for secure and authentic transactions.
- Government to Customer (G2C):
Each citizen of the country who requests any service from government body is a customer. G2C will aim at connecting citizens to government by talking to citizens and supporting accountability, by listening to citizens and supporting democracy, and by improving public services. It will involve better services to citizens through single point delivery mechanism and will involve areas like:
E-Citizen: Under e-Citizen integrated service centres will be created. The purpose of these centres will be to take over the various customer services in due course. It will offer services like issue of Certificates, Passports, Payment of Bills and taxes, etc. These centres will become one shop delivery stop for all government services.
E-Transport: The transport aspects that can be easily e-governed include:
Registration of motor vehicles, Issue of driving licenses, Issue of plying permissions (Permits), Tax and fee collection through Cash and Bank Challans and Control of Pollution.
E-Medicine: It will involve linking of various hospitals in different parts of the country and provide better medical services to the citizen.
E-Education: E-Education will constitute various initiatives of educating the citizen and the Government with the various Information technologies
E-Registration: E-Governing the registration and transfer of the properties and stamp duty to be paid thereon will bring substantial reduction of paper work and reduce the duplicating of entries. Further the transparency in work will increase and the overall time of process registration will reduce.
Essentials for achievement:
Information for All: Keeping the citizen informed, providing him with details of Government activities. The citizen will act as watch dog to Government if the information will be available to him. Certain interest groups like the journalists, opposition will always keep an eye on the expenditure of the Government, status of which will be available on-line. The same will bring accountability amongst Civil Servants. The rationale is to increase the pressure on staff to perform well and to improve public understanding of government.
Citizen Feedback: Citizen feedback is must for improving the Government Services. Unless the Government listens to its customer, it will not be able to find out what does the citizens want. The elected representatives who are said to be voice of citizens also are not the true voice for they get their votes according to their offerings and not their offerings are according to customer wants. In short it is an effort to make the public sector decision responsive to citizens' view or needs.
Improving services: Improving the services delivered to the citizen on dimensions such as speed, quality, reliability, convenience and cost. Information Technology will have a big role to play in the same; the services can be delivered from 24-hour one-stop Government shops.
- Government to Government (G2G):
This can also be referred as e-Administration. It involves improving government processes by cutting costs, by managing performance, by making strategic connections within government, and by creating empowerment. It will involve
networking all Government offices so as to produce synergy among them. The major areas are:
E-Secretariat: Secretariat which is the seat of power has a lot of valuable information regarding the functioning of the State. The cross-linking of various departments and exchange of information amongst various components will simplify the process of Governance.
E-Police: E-Police will help to built citizen confidence. There will be two databases: One of police personals and the other of criminals. The database of personnel will have the records of their current and previous postings. This will help to track policemen specialized in certain geographical regions and skills.
The second database will be of criminals. This database has to be upgraded to national database for its total utility. By just typing the name of a criminal a police officer will be able to know the details of his past activities, including his modus operandi and the area of operation. Further a database like this will help tap the criminals easily for all the police stations will have simultaneous access to their record.
E-Court: The use of IT in the areas like recording of court proceedings, high resolution remote video to identify fraudulent documents, live fingerprints scanning and verification, remote probation monitoring, electronic entry of reports and paper work will further speed up the court proceedings.
State Wide Networks: This will involve linking all the departments of the Government with various district headquarters and the state capital, facilitating the flow of information between the various state departments and its constituents. Here various blocks will be linked to district Headquarters, district headquarters to State Headquarters and State Headquarters to the National Capital.
Essentials for achievement:
Cutting Expenditure: With proper process control the input-output ratio can be improved. The same can be achieved by cutting financial time costs. Cutting Government expenditure will lead to saving and accountability.
Organize around outcomes, not tasks: This principle suggests that a single person should perform all the steps in a process and that the person's job be designed around the outcome or objective rather than a single task. For example, a citizen applies for a permit – it becomes the duty of the receiving authority that the citizen gets the same, rather than moving around to get it done.
Managing process performance: The rationale is to make more efficient or effective use of process resources. Planning, monitoring and controlling the performance of process resources (human, financial and other).
Establish a network: Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized. Government can use databases, telecommunications networks, and standardized processing systems to maintain strategic connections in government like central-to-local, ministry-to-ministry, executive-to-legislature, and decision maker-to-data store.
Delegate and Empower: The decision making should pass on to the people who do the actual work from the people who are just monitoring it. People engaged in actual activities should be empowered to make decisions at the required focal point and hence to delegate such activities on their own so that the process itself can have built in controls. This will not only speed up the process but will cut cost as well.
- Government to Employee (G2E):
G2E services encompass G2C services as well as specialized services that cover only government employees, such as the provision of human resource training and development that improve the bureaucracy’s day-to-day functions and dealings
with citizens.
References:
1. E-Governance and Best Practices
2. Different Methodologies and Methods of E-Governance Using Open Source Technology by R.Srinivasan and G.Iyyakutti Iyyapan
3. E-Governance Strategy in India by Sameer Sachdeva
4. E-Government by Patricia J. Pascual e-ASEAN task Force
Comments