The additional outlay of Rs 1,300 crore over the previous year’s allocation is also expected to send an election-eve message to the masses that the Vajpayee government is laying emphasis on providing good governance. Sources say the issue was discussed at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting recently and is likely to be incorporated in the government’s annual expenditure plans.
E-governance involves the larger process of using IT to improve both the internal operations of the government and its interface with the citizens.
The increased emphasis on IT in governance is expected to reduce red-tape and lead to quicker decision-making. It is also expected to ensure a greater degree of transparency in the government.
The higher outlay for e-governance will also give a fillip to the country's IT hardware sector which has been lagging behind the software segment.
According to a recent Nasscom-McKinsey report, the e-governance infrastructure and services sector in India is a billion-dollar market for IT vendors, software and training companies.
The national agenda for the country's Tenth Five-Year Plan envisages defining a vision for national e-governance and designing an appropriate architecture to realise the vision . This also entails creation of infrastructure, implementation of a set of core initiatives and capacity building.
India is lagging behind in e-governance, despite its prowess in the IT sector. The country does not even figure in the four categories of global e-government nations. The first category includes “innovative leaders” — Canada, Singapore and the US. The second category comprises “visionary challengers” such as Australia, the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
The third group comprises “emerging performers” — New Zealand, Spain, Belgium and Japan, while the fourth covers “platform builders” such as Portugal, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico and South Africa.
E-governance has not been able to make a significant progress due to operational, economic and personnel reasons. Even within India, various states have achieved different levels of e-governance with Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujarat being relatively ahead of others like Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan.
According to the annual report of the department of information technology, “The e-governance vision differs from country to country, state to state, and region to region as it should reflect the needs and aspirations of those countries, states and regions. However, a certain commonality exists in the expectations of the stakeholders, namely, the government on one hand and the citizen/business on the other.”
Quelle: The Telegraph, 14.01.2004
