01ajay KR Singh PDF
01ajay KR Singh PDF
01ajay KR Singh PDF
Vandna SHARMA
SMS, GGSIP University, Delhi
Sr. Faculty
Birla Institute of Technology
E-mail: vandna_sh@rediffmail.com
Abstract
Government of India (GoI) recognizes that e-Governance, in the context of developing
countries, provides an excellent opportunity for improving governance. These changes
could not only go a long way in improving the quality of life of these sections of society, but
could actually provide them more equitable access to economic opportunities than ever
before. Hence the Government of India views e-Governance as a vehicle to initiate and
sustain reforms. The present work focuses on various e-government initiatives in India and
China. This study aims at finding users perception on level of Satisfaction from e-filling
Project in Indian companies. Questionnaire is administered on Company Secretaries,
Chartered Accountants of various manufacturing and Service Sector companies of India.
Descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used for analyzing data. Data analysis
suggested e-filling system need to be strengthened on various parameters like Connectivity
with server, Forms format, Ease in communicating information to outsiders, and data
Accuracy in India. Implications of the study, limitations and future research directions have
also been discussed in this paper.
Key Words: E-Government, E-Governance
JEL Classification: H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
1. INTRODUCTION
With the advancement of ICT (Information, Communication Technology), the words like
E-government and E-governance have come into prominence. In fact both these terms are
used synonymously although they are quite different and have differing audiences to cater
to and different objectives to achieve.
1.1 Definition of e-Government and e- Governance
The concept of e-government, according to the UN Global E-Government Readiness
Report, mainly involves government websites, the goal of which is to build “…a people-
centred and inclusive information society, putting the potential of information and
communication technologies at the service of development and addressing new challenges
of the information society” (www.unpan1.un.org).
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E-GOVERNMENT - E-GOVERNANCE
electronic service delivery - electronic consultation
electronic workflow - electronic controllership
electronic voting - electronic engagement
electronic productivity - networked societal guidance
1.3 Components of e-Government
It refers to the use by government agencies of information (www.electronicgov.net)
technologies (such as wide area networks, internet, and mobile computing) that have the
ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government, as
per World Bank definition. E-Government is expected to allow for less corruption, provides
increased transparency, affords greater convenience, improves revenue and reduces costs.
Preconditions for e-government are (a) Government in good working order, (b) Functioning
governance processes, (c) Availability of resources, (d) Consensus on drivers for e-
Government and (e) Political support & leadership. Government Stakeholders include
citizens, businesses, government employees, government ministries, department and
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agencies, union leaders, community leaders, politicians and foreign investors. Governments
are the societal superstructure for politics, policies, and programs. The components of e-
government are as follows:
i) Electronic Service Delivery (Dawes and Prefontaine, 2003)
Governments can query, inform, and transact with the public over electronic networks. The
expectations were,
• Access by a person to all the personal data on that person that is held in
government data banks. So far this is limited by security, privacy, and
confidentiality concerns.
• Access to all government documentation of all kinds by anyone. At present the
storage and retrieval costs are prohibitive, and there are also security, privacy, and
confidentiality concerns here as well.
• Information architecture that permits one-stop-shopping for all information from
all governments in a simple thematic directory. There are also cost constraints, and
no known technology to integrate, index and search all of this information.
ii) Electronic Workflow (Golubchik et al, 2003)
There are some user-friendly templates currently designed and deployed throughout
government intranets. There has to be the same standardized set for every type of
transaction located in every government department and agency. Like "business rules",
there is the potential to develop "administrative rules" that would routinize substantially
information processing and decision-making. The larger issues in this area are security,
privacy, and confidentiality.
iii) Electronic Voting (PUMA, 2002)
The system is working well in India. In developed countries, the concerns over security,
privacy and confidentiality could be more challenging than with most other electronic
interactions. If the suspicion arises that candidates can access the record of electronic
voting, voters are unlikely to trust the process enough to agree to use it. The challenge for
any proposal to increase electronic voting is to build sufficient public trust in the security of
the record of results.
iv) Electronic Productivity (OECD, 2003)
The rationale for e-government is better operations at lower cost, i.e., productivity. The
social need to ensure public health and safety, national security and crime control,
economic prosperity and environmental sustainability, will all guarantee the presence of
governments and their active involvement in our lives, whether visibly or "behind the
scenes". Efficiency of the expenditures has to be the target.
1.4 Components of e-Governance
E-Governance involves making and implementing decisions, proper Leadership, putting in
place Organizational arrangements, ensuring Resources and funding, establishing
Accountability and measuring success. The infrastructure requirements include,
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Sweden has surpassed the United States as the leader in the overall E-readiness index, with
Denmark, Norway coming in second and third respectively. The US slipped to fourth place.
Pakistan and Bangladesh have both improved, climbing to 131(from 136) and 142 (from
162) respectively.
The fourth edition of the UN survey measures the progress made by various member states
in drawing and implementing e-government policies to improve public services. It uses e-
participation and web assessment as two broad categories to rank countries on the basis of
e-information, e-services and e-tools provided by their governments to meet the demands of
transparency and accountability voiced by citizens. India did fairly well on both these
fronts.
In the e-participation index, India was ranked 49 globally, whereas in the web measurement
assessment, which measures the online presence of national websites, with those of the
ministries of health, education, welfare, labour and finance of each country, it was ranked
54.
The survey makes a mention of the government’s user-friendly site http://india.gov.in/,
which promotes e-governance as an important national policy and strategy, including a link
to the National e-Governance Plan (NEGP).
2. CASES OF E-GOVERNANCE INITIATIVES IN INDIA
i) e-Choupal, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
ITC Limited initiated e-Choupals project to deliver relevant technology in the hands of the
farmers, which can improve the economic condition of the entire village, reduce the number
of middlemen involved between agriculture commodity producers and final consumers,
create networks in rural areas, which can function as virtual agricultural commodity market
places.
ii) Bhoomi, Bangalore, Karnataka
The crucial document which records various parameters and information pertaining to land-
holding is the Record of Right Tenancy and Cultivation (RTC), which earlier were
maintained by 9,000 Village Accountants (VAs or village revenue officials). The RTC is
required for land transactions, to obtain crop loans, other loans and concessions linked to
the size of the land holding. The drawbacks of the manual system of maintaining RTCs
were: exploitative and bribes were often extracted, there was considerable scope for
manipulation, harassing citizens, tampering with the records and other corrupt practices.
When the Bhoomi project was launched, the generation time of the RTC has been reduced
from one to 30 days to five to 15 minutes. Similarly, the mutation process cycle time has
decreased from 90-180 days to 30-45 days. Crop record updating has increased to 80-100
percent from 50-70 percent. Around 12 million users have used Bhoomi since its inception,
which has resulted in the collection of Rs 180 million as user charges. Presently, 0.7 million
people are using Bhoomi centres every month and monthly user charges collected amount
to around Rs. 10 million.
iii) TARAhaat, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh
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TARAhaat (meaning star market place in Hindi) is a gateway that connects the village user
to information, social services, entertainment, and also to various markets, through a
network of franchised cyber centres, customized in the language of their choice, covering
all three components for rural connectivity: content, access and fulfilment. TARAhaat has
been conceived with the view that it has to be mastered and used by people with wide
variations in literacy, language, financial liquidity and levels of understanding.
iv) CARD Origin, Andhra Pradesh
The goal of the system was to introduce transparency and efficiency in the land registration
process. The main beneficiaries are the land-holding citizens of Andhra Pradesh, for whom
payment of land taxes and registration duties on property was made easier. The tasks
included digitization of records, implementation of hardware and software infrastructure
and training of personnel.
v) Gyandoot Origin, Madhya Pradesh
The project aimed to bridge the digital divide in 38 villages by providing computing
services to rural citizens and also to generate employment for youth who were to man the
kiosks as entrepreneurs. Each Gyandoot kiosk offered services such as: prices of
agricultural produce at various auction centers in the state; copies of the record of rights to
land at a nominal price; online application for revenue, caste or domicile certificates etc.
vi) eSeva Origin, Andhra Pradesh
Located in the urban twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad, e-seva was an attempt to
have a central facility (distributed across the two cities via 48 centres) for payment of taxes,
delivery of certificates, bill payments, document clearance, granting of licences and
permits, asset licensing, forms submission etc (a total of 66 services). The goal was to
eliminate the multiple offices and timings that citizens had to suffer to pay their bills and
obtain other government services.
vii) Akshaya Origin, Kerala
The project was initiated in 2002 by requests from the panchayats (or village councils) to
provide computer training to its constituents, to bridge the digital divide by providing
computer literacy and e-government services, and also to provide employment to rural
youth.
viii) Lokvani Origin, Uttar Pradesh
This project was initiated in 2004 to use existing computer kiosks to provide additional e-
government facilities by entering an agreement with the district government. The project
aimed to provide citizens of the district with access to information on government
programmes, on land records, and with a facility to file online grievances. The grievance
mechanism was such as to move the grievance to the district magistrate’s office from where
it was forwarded to the relevant department.
ix) SARI Origin, Tamilnadu
The Sari (Sustainable Access in Rural India) project in the Madurai district of the state of
Tamilnadu was started in the year 2000 to link up village kiosks using a wireless
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technology. The stated objectives were to improve the quality of life among the rural poor
by creating employment opportunities with the help of ICTs. The kiosks would provide e-
gov services along with information about health care, education, and economic conditions.
(x) MCA21 E-Governance Project
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has implemented MCA21 e-Governance Project. It is
one of the Mission Mode Projects of the Government of India under the National e-
Governance Plan. The project envisages easy and secure online access to all registry related
services provided by the MCA, including registration and filling of documents throughout
the country for all the corporates and other stakeholders at any time and in a manner that
best suits them. MCA21 seeks to fulfill the requirements of the various stakholders
including the corporate, professionals, public, financial institutions, and banks, Govrnment
and the MCA employees.
The key benefits of MCA21 project are as follows:
(a) On line incorporation of companies
(b) Simplified and easy mode of filing of Forms/Returns
(c) Registration as well as verification of charges anytime and from anywhere
(d) Inspection of public documents of companies anytime from anywhere
(e) Corporate centric approach
(f) Building up a centralized database repository of corporate operating in India
(g) Enhanced service level fulfillment and customer relationship building
(h) Total transparency through eGovernance
(i) Timely redressal of investor grievances
(j) Availability of more time for MCA employees for qualitative analysis of corporate infor
mation
Efiling: MCA21 project facilitates eFiling of various forms and applications under the Com
panies Act, 1956 and the Rules and Regulations there under.
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xi) The Golden Agriculture Project (jinnong) is a project that promotes the utilization of
ICT in agriculture. The Project has three major applications: (1) a monitoring and alert
system that provides warnings regarding agricultural production and animal diseases; (2) an
information system supervising the market for production materials, and; (3) a service
system that provides science and technology information for agricultural production.
xii) The Golden Water Conservancy Project (jinshui) was designed to build basic
infrastructures, increasing the supply of information, and enhancing the capacity of data-
sharing for water conservancy, including a National Flood-Control and Draught-Relief
Command System, as well as a National Supervision Network for Water and Soil
Conservation.
There are some other “golden projects” that were launched thereafter, such as the Golden
Bridge Project (jinqiao) run by China Jitong Telecom Inc., the Golden Hygiene Project, the
Golden Travel Project, the Golden Wisdom Project, and the Golden Trade Project, etc. But
the entire infrastructure is still known as the “Twelve Golden Projects.”
4. OBJECTIVES
The study involves understanding the e-government initiatives taken in India and abroad.
The main objectives of this study are:
1. To study the components of e-governance and e-government.
2. To study the level of satisfaction from e-filling Project of Government of India.
3. To make recommendations for improvement.
5. HYPOTHESES
This study begins with a hypothesis and research questions and involves precise procedure
and data source specifications.
• H0a: There is no difference of opinion amongst manufacturing and service sector
professionals on the level of satisfaction from e-filling project of government of
India.
• H1a: There is a significant difference of opinion amongst manufacturing and
service sector professionals on the level of satisfaction from e-filling project of
government of India.
6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To develop the quality instrument to assess level of satisfaction from e-filling project of
government of India, a two-stage research was designed. The first stage was the qualitative
research consisting of in-depth interviews, the second stage comprised of questionnaire
survey.
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Usage of e-filling
30
20
Usage of e-filling
10
0
Never Seldom Sometimes often frequently
In analyzing the survey results, the questions deal with the satisfaction level from e-filling
project. The survey responses indicate that respondents are highly satisfied from features
like Comfortability, Ease, Speedy, User friendly, Security checks, e-checking forms,
Completeness while dissatisfied from Connectivity with server, Forms format, Ease in
communicating information to outsiders, and data Accuracy.
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