For an overview, KPMG Partner Prasad Kulkarni has this to say. The UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Dubai and Hong Kong are some of the countries where considerable progress has been made in e-governance. A recent survey conducted by Accenture had also put some of these countries on top of the e-ratings. The list had Canada, Singapore, US, Australia, Denmark and UK, in that order. Yet another study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked the US as the top country in e-readiness, followed by Netherlands, UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Finland, Singapore, Norway and Hong Kong. In the previous issue, we had showcased the e-government strides made by the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
Back home, some of the states are more active than the rest in the e-race. Take for instance the assessment done by the National Council of Applied Economic Research on e-readiness of Indian states. Its verdict: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are the leaders in e-readiness. Among the aspiring leaders are Delhi, Chandigarh, Goa and Gujarat. In the eFE dated March 10, Tech ’n Biz had focused on some of the ‘leaders’ and ‘aspiring leaders’, so to say.
Explaining the essence of e-governance, KPMG’s Mr Kulkarni says that these initiatives usually follow a three-phase approach, namely publish, interact and transact. ‘Publish’ is all about using information and communication technology to expand access to government information, he says. ‘Interact’ focuses on broadening the civic participation in a government. ‘‘The objective in the ‘interact’ phase is to involve citizens in the governance process, by engaging them in interaction with policymakers throughout the policy cycle and at all levels of government,’’ says Mr Kulkarni. Finally, ‘transact’ is making government services available online. ‘‘The objective is to offer a direct link to government services, available at any time, either to citizens or to businesses,’’ adds Mr Kulkarni.
What needs to be noted here is the fact that not many countries have successfully reached this third phase, though most have initiatives in bits and pieces across all these three phases, as the KPMG official points out. ‘‘We believe that to reach the third stage of e-governance there will have to be increased public/private partnerships (PPP).’’
And how can e-governance services be categorised? There are three broad categories—improved services to citizens; improved services to business; And enhanced government administration. ‘‘Under these categories, services could be provided either at the municipality level, state level or the central government level,’’ says Mr Kulkarni. Such is the intensity of competition at these three levels that ‘‘in some Western countries, cities vie with states and states compete with the central government,’’ he adds.
Citizen services could cover anything from birth registration to citizen information systems to utility payments to education and training to employment. Take for example the Singapore model. A people-private-public partnership, Singapore’s ‘eCitizen Helper’ focuses on assisting users in transacting with the government online.
Services to business would mainly include information vending for laws and regulations, starting and sustaining business, state support and resources, data and statistics, finance and taxes, workplace issues, online services for tax filing, small business procurement network, patent and trademark filing, online business counselling, and business licensing, among others. See www.Myflorida.com for an essence of things, recommends Mr Kulkarni. Also, Hong Kong government’s portal ESDLife will soon offer a service which will allow people an businesses to change their registered address by filling a single online form!
Coming to the third category, enhanced services of the government, this is aimed at improving the efficiencies of government operations. Australia is a case in point. And the Australian Taxation Office, which simplifies its own job as well as the citizens’ through the e-tax process, is something in those lines!
Autor: Nivedita Mookerji
Quelle: Financial Express, 24.03.2003
