PROJECT REPORT

ON

E-Governance
(E-Business)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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This project aims at studying the meaning and philosophy of E-Governance

& its implementation in India. E-Governance is more than just a government
website on the internet. The project tries to answer questions like- What
exactly is E-Governance ? Benefits & Challenges? What can Government do to
make it successful? SWOT analysis of E-governance & Case Study Of MCA-21
Project.
Solutions to development issues often require changes to government
processes, e.g. by decentralization. Objectives are generally to improve
efficiency and effectiveness and to save costs. The driving force can also be
public demand for online services and information that increase democratic
participation, accountability, transparency, and the quality and
speed of services. The implementation and use of ICT solutions can support
governance reforms. E-governance will become more and more present
around the world in the next few years.

WHAT IS E-GOVERNANCE ?
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It is a way for governments to use the most innovative information and

communication technologies, particularly web-based internet applications, to
provide citizens and businesses with more convenient access to government
information and services, to improve the quality of the services and to provide
enhanced democracy.
Imagine a situation in which all interaction with the government can be done through
one counter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without waiting in lines at government
offices. In the near future this is possible if governments are willing to decentralise
responsibilities and processes and they start to use electronic means such as the
Internet. Each citizen can then make contact with the government through a website
where all forms, legislation, news and other information will be available 24/7. Of
course, at first the front office will retain several communication channels, such as
physical counters, telephone, e-mail and Internet to serve everyone properly, but
this will change dramatically in the next few years.
In Europe and the USA, commercial banks already work according to this concept.
Only in a few very special situations one has to go to a physical counter. Most
transactions can be done at either an ATM, by mail or by the Internet, which has
saved banks an enormous amount of costs. In other words, they do more work, with
less people, in less time and with less and smaller offices: They use the Internet.
Government, as a collector and source of information, may also follow this
trend, in order to serve its customers (citizens, businesses, and other interest
groups) better and to save costs by making internal operations more efficient.

OBJECTIVES OF E-GOVERNANCE
The strategic objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance
for all parties - government, citizens and businesses. The use of ICTs can connect all
three parties and support processes and activities. In other words, in e-governance
uses electronic means to support and stimulate good governance. Therefore the
objectives of e-governance are similar to the objectives of good governance. Good
governance

can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority

to better manage affairs of a country at all levels, national and local.

To have transparency, efficiency, accountability in public governance.

To provide the cost efficient services to the customers.
To ensure adequate help to the common man under e-commerce services.
To have a unified data tracking system for the public.
Creating a better business environment.
Customers online, not in line.
Strengthening good governance and broadening public participation.

Improving the productivity and efficiency of government agencies.

Improving the quality of life for disadvantaged communities.

External strategic objectives. The external objective of e-government is to

satisfactorily fulfil the publics needs and expectations on the front-office side, by
simplifying their interaction with various online services. The use of ICTs in
government operations facilitates speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient and
effective interaction with the public, citizens, business and other agencies.
Internal strategic objectives. In the back-office, the objective of e-government in
government operations is to facilitate a speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient
and effective process for performing government administration activities.
Significant cost savings (per transaction) in government operations can be the result.
It can be concluded that e-governance is more than just a Government website on
the Internet. Political, social, economic and technological aspects determine egovernance.

Origins in India
E-governance originated in India during the seventies with a focus on in- house
government applications in the areas defence, economic monitoring, planning,
electronic file handling, public grievance systems, service delivery for high volume
routine transactions such as payment of bills, tax dues etc.
Thanks to e-savvy Chief Ministers like Chandrababu Naidu and S.M. Krishna, egovernance has become the buzzword for political success and the key enabler to
facilitate reforms.

The concept of e-governance has its origins in India during the seventies with
a focus on development of in- house government applications in the areas of
defense, economic monitoring, planning and the deployment of IT to manage data
intensive functions related to elections, census, tax administration etc. The efforts of
the National Informatics Center (NIC) to connect all the district headquarters during
the eighties was a very significant development. From the early nineties, IT
technologies were supplemented by ICT technologies to extend its use for wider
sectoral applications with policy emphasis on reaching out to rural areas and taking
in greater inputs from NGOs and private sector as well.

SERVICES OF E-GOVERNANCE
The major types of e-government services:

Government-to-Citizen (G2C) - Activities between Government to citizens

Government-to-Business (G2B) - Government sells product & services to
business

Government to Non Profit (G2N) - Government provides information to

nonprofit organizations
Government-to-Employee (G2E)- Services to Government employees
Government-to-Government (G2G)- Exchange of information among different
authorities

ADVANTAGES OF E-GOVERNANCE

It makes the government more result oriented, efficient, citizen centered

and easy access to information.

To citizens and businesses, e-government would mean the simplification of

procedures and streamlining of the approval process.

To government employees and agencies, it would mean the facilitation of

cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure appropriate and
timely decision-making.

Democratization & Environmental Bonus.

BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR E-GOVERNANCE

High and affordable information and internet infrastructure within government

ministries, private sector and citizens
Extensive ICT human capacity development
Legal framework that recognizes & supports digital communication

CHALLENGES
Who pays for e-government? (FUNDING)
E-Governance is very capital intensive and no donor or consortium of donors can
fully fund e-governance program.
Private sector is the major beneficiary of e-governance through increased access
to government e-procurements and e-services. It can play a major funding role to
subsidize e-governance products.
PPPs : A Viable model
Ensuring wider public use of e-government services

Many citizens do not use e-government for several reasons, among these are
unfamiliarity with ICT, lack of access, lack of training, and concerns about privacy
and security of information.
Economic Issues: Minimum Costs so as to guarantee good cost benefit
reusability - nation wide plan.

ratio,

Major Areas of Implementation

Public Grievances
Rural Services
Police
Social Services
Public Information
Agricultural Sector
Utility Payments
Commercial

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
The use of ICT means in Governance has impact on the following aspects:
24/7 Service Model
Systems and processes have to be adapted to a completely new service model.
Intake processes are made self-service and even in the middle of the night a citizen
should get an immediate (automated) response about the status of the application.
Citizens expectations towards governments response times will change because of
the new communication medium.
Need for Content
Websites consist of content (information). Governments will have to collect (buy),
produce and update content daily.
Human Resources
Effective use of ICTs in an organisation requires training of people. People should feel
comfortable with the tools they can use otherwise they will return to their old
working patterns and habits. Maintaining technological infrastructure requires IT

skilled resources. Governments will have to compete with the private (commercial)
sector to recruit the necessary IT skilled people.
Security
Just about any computer system is vulnerable to external attacks. As the
government moves its core processes (information, communication and
transactions) to the Internet it is becoming far more vulnerable. Internet increases
the number of entry points exponentially. Protection is possible with anti-virus
software, firewall at gateways, encryption technology, and authentic identification
tools.
Privacy
Governments possess detailed information about citizens and businesses, which is
often held in multiple offices on many different computer systems (or still in paper
files). The integration of data can result in situations where the privacy of individual
citizens is in danger. It is the responsibility of the government to restrict the
utilisation of private information, and secure such information from access by
unintended parties. Due to public concern regarding privacy several countries have
already passed data protection laws.
IT Department
With the implementation of e-governance IT is becoming more and more important
in government operations. The need for a professional IT department will inevitable
increase, not only during implementation, but also for maintenance of software,
hardware and infrastructure.

SWOT-Analyses E-Governance
The SWOTs are kept at a high level. Going into detail would be a problem because
situations vary for each country, for each moment and for each e-governance
solution.
Political Aspects
Political aspects related to e-governance are e.g. the formulated strategy and policy,
laws and legislation, leadership, decision making processes, funding issues,
international affairs, political stability.

Political aspects Implementation and maintaining of e-governance solutions

Strengths

Weaknesses

Combination with
democratization
reforms
Internet as pull factor
Modern
image

Opportunities
Raise external funding
Show competitive edge
Transparency causes
natural change of
processes
Reinvent
government

Budget
Cyber laws not available
No problem owner within
government
No expertise about
technology
Slow decision making
process
Hierarchy in organisations
Short term approach due
to elections
Integration
and reform

Threats
Bureaucracy
Piracy, misuse
Corruption
Maintaining
disorder,
no transparency
Political instability
Resistance

Social Aspects
Examples of some of the social aspects related to e-governance are people, (level of)
education, employment, income, digital divide, rural areas vs. cities, rich vs. poor,
literacy, IT skills.

Social aspects Implementation and maintaining e-governance solutions

Strengths
People eager to learn
IT skills
Skilled people
possible export
product

Weaknesses

Opportunities
Employment increases
Education system
improve
People learn structural
job
Cheap manpower
widely available
Promotion of internet
Better
healthcare

Basic education poor:

trainers needed
No IT literacy
Low literacy
Different languages
Public acceptance of
self-service models
Skill shortage:
competition with private
sector

Threats
Brain drain IT skilled
people after training
Resistance of
people
Digital divide
Privacy

Economic Aspects
Economical aspects related to e-governance are funding, cost-savings, business
models, e-Commerce, spin-offs of e-governance.

Economic Implementation and maintaining e-governance solutions

Strengths
E-Governance good
argument for external
funding
Transparency for
businesses
(procurement)

Weaknesses

Opportunities
Cost efficiency through
e-governance
New business
More efficiency tax
revenues

Investors
Budget control

Threats
Corruption

Technological Aspects
Technology will be a bottleneck for e-governance in developing countries.
Technological aspects involve software, hardware, infrastructure, telecom, IT skilled
people, maintenance, safety and security issues.

Technological aspects Implementation and maintaining e-governance solutions

Strengths
Everything is new: no
negative legacy
Leapfrogging possible
Internet as driving
(pull) factor
Lack of IT
standards?

Weaknesses

Opportunities
2nd hand hardware
available
Use one
standard

Shortage IT skilled
people
High cost of internet
Heterogeneous data
Lack of IT standards?
Costs of software
licenses

Threats
Dependency of
technology

E-Governance Project MCA-21

Ministry of Company Affairs - MCA21 Project
Ministry of Company Affairs, is primarily concerned with administration of the
Companies Act, 1956, other allied Acts and rules & regulations framed there-under
mainly for regulating the functioning of the corporate sector in accordance with law.
In the Indias first e-Governance initiative called MCA21, Ministry of Company
Affairs, has embarked upon the magnificent task of total re-engineering process of
corporate governance across India.
By taking the all important step, MCA had placed the assignment to TCS and
CMC, for country-wide implementation of the e-Governance project, which covers :
IT implementation, site-engineering, business process transformation, efilling, Digitisation of physical corporate records, Training to the staff and
Computerisation of the Establishment Functions of the department itself of
activities of the corporate governance re-engineering, into 21st century.
MORE ABOUT MCA-21 PROJECT
MCA21 project has been implemented at 20 Registrar of Companies offices across
Country. Over 60 Million physical record as pages were completely digitised and wide
range of filling form templates were transformed into e-filling system, to facilitate
the process of routine filling activities of the companies. CMC - ITES strategic
business unit played most significant role, by implementing digitisation project
simultaneously at 20 ROC locations across country, where IT set-up for digitisation,
was established in terms of Hardware: Servers, Desk-top systems, Networking
components, Software : RDBMS, imaging and quality control tools and Manpower to
deliver quality output to

the customer. More than 1500 skilled staff members were deployed to complete the
task, ahead of schedule. The critical activity of directors and company data updation
enabled access to the valuable data to the stake-holders.

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MCA21, Indias largest e-governance initiative by the Ministry of Company

Affairs is a flagship program executed on a PPP (Public Private Partnership)
Model .It involves design, implementation, owning, operating the system. Sixty
million company records have been digitized at over fifteen ROC centers (Registrar
of Companies) across India in a record time. The MCA21 portal enables e filing of
returns by companies for fulfilling statutory obligations. It also provides PKI based
digital signatures for directors for online registrations.

Transformational Services of Ministry of Corporate Affairs

I.

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)

The IT Act, 2000 provides for use of Digital Signatures on the documents submitted
in electronic form in order to ensure the security and authenticity of the documents
filed electronically. This is the only secure and authentic way that a document can be
submitted electronically. As such, all filings done by the companies under MCA21 eGovernance programme are required to be filed with the use of Digital Signatures by
the person authorised to sign the documents.
II.

One can fill Online form for Director Identification Number

III.

Register Digital Signature Certificate

Role check for Indian companies is to be implemented in the MCA application. Role
check can be performed only after the signatories have registered their Digital
signature certificates (DSC) with MCA. Once the role check is implemented, system
shall verify whether the signature on the e-form filed, is of signatory of the company.
IV.

eFiling

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has introduced the MCA21 e-Governance

programme with a view to providing all services relating to ROC offices on-line in eGovernance mode. All filings from September 16, 2006 can be done only under the
Digital Signatures of the authorised person (MD/ Director/ Company Secretary as the
case may be).
There are various channels available to stakeholders to enable them to do the
statutory filing with ROC offices across the country:

V.

The Virtual Front Office through www.mca.gov.in portal

Registrars Front Offices set-up under the Project and Managed & operated by
the Operator(53 all over India)
Certified Filing Centers managed and operated by the Professionals on user
charge basis (550 plus centers approved all over India at 85 cities).
Annual eFiling

As part of Annual eFiling, Companies incorporated under Companies Act, 1956 are
required to efile the following documents with Registrar of Companies (RoC):

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VI.

Balance-Sheet
Profit & Loss Account
Annual Return
Compliance Certificate
Company Master Data and Charge Documents

The Company Master Data and Charge data has been migrated from the legacy
system. There are possibilities that the Company Master Data and Charge Data are
incorrect. The facility of correction of Master Data has been made available without
any charge. However, this facility, without any charges, would be available only for a
limited period of time (up to 31 March 2009). Accordingly, all the companies are
requested to view their Company Master Data and take appropriate steps. A similar
facility has also been made available in respect of the 'Register of Charges' for the
companies by clicking on to the 'View Index of Charges'.

Scope of Work
MCA21 program scope provides, anytime anywhere electronic services with speed
and certainty to all the stakeholders. It includes:

Design and development of business application system

Setting up of IT infrastructure across India
Setting up the Digital Signature/PKI delivery mechanisms and associated
security requirements
Setting up of Physical Front Offices ( PFOs )
Setting up of temporary FOs for the peak periods to meet with requirements
and subsequent shutdown of temporary FOs at the end of such peak periods
Migrating legacy data and digitization of paper documents to the new system
Providing MCA services to all MCA21 stakeholders in accordance with the
Service Oriented Approach
Providing application training at all levels and all offices (Front and Back
Offices)
Automation of processes related to the proactive enforcement and compliance
of the legal requirements under the Companies Act, 1956.
Implementation Phase of 1 year, followed by business operation services for 5
years.

Challenges
Digitisation of approximately 60 million pages pertaining to 0.6 million active
companies across India in 6 months . The digitisation Includes document imaging ,
meta data entry and conversion of TIFF images to PDF. Setting up of front offices at a
short time frame, setting up infrastructure for implementation of the portal with
digital signatures etc within a very challenging time frame.
The prestigious project experienced, challenges in terms of following issues :

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A. Organisation re-engineering from manual to automated systems

B. Digitisation of physical company records, located at distributed customer sites
C. Resource mobilisation of large number of systems and qualified engineers across
country, within a short time-frame
D. Building large number of offices at multiple locations
The MCA 21 project is an outcome of the MCA's quest for simplifying forms,
making forms e-centric, promoting online transactions, and reaching out to
stakeholders in an economy that is growing fast and adjusting to the demands of
globalization. MCA 21 services are available 24X7 anytime and anywhere
through MCA Portal. With more information in its database. Until recently, corporate
representatives were required to
visit ROCs just because most transactions were paper-based, leaving little or no
room for value-added services. Procedures relating to sorting, storage and retrieval
of paper-based records were cumbersome and time-consuming.
Due to manual collection of information and verification processes, long queues were
inevitable at official counters. During the peak season (Oct-Dec), the situation used
to become unmanageable. The process of obtaining information was timeconsuming for stakeholders, while the information the erstwhile system yielded was
often inaccurate or outdated. The MCA21 covers a network of 25 MCA offices
across the country, with more than eight Lacs registered companies. E-filing of all
documents is mandatory since September 16, 2006, with the amendment in
Companies Act mandating use of digital signatures of companies' authorized
representatives. The new system enables payment of statutory fees through off-line
as well as on-line modes. As of July 20, 2007, the portal registered an average of 17
lakh hits per day. The e-filings till then totaled 23.77 lakhs.
CMCs Approach and Solution
A robust infrastructure has been built comprising of high-end server farms,
advanced networking equipments, communication links, skilled manpower resources
at the central repository at DC based at Delhi. To handle disaster management, a
back-up system has also been put-up as DR center in Chennai.
The approach was driven on the fundamental measures, to ensure following
parameters e.g.
1. Scalability
2. Availability
3. Maintainability
4. Manageability
5. Business continuity
6. Security
7. Multi-platform support
8. Multi format support
9. Offline form filling support
10. Data migration & Document migration
11. Standards & guidelines
12. User training
13. System & Network administration training

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Achievements
Over 1000 highly skilled IT professionals have been associated in the MCA21 project
to deliver the best results, to the customer. MCA21 seeks to fulfill the requirements
of the various stakeholders.
The key benefits of MCA21 project are as follows:

Expeditious incorporation of companies

Simplified and ease of convenience in filing of Forms/ Returns
Better compliance management
Total transparency through e-Governance
Customer centric approach
Increased usage of professional certificate for ensuring authenticity and
reliability of the Forms / Returns
Building up a centralized database repository of corporate operating
Enhanced service level fulfillment
Inspection of public documents of companies anytime from anywhere
Registration as well as verification of charges anytime from anywhere
Timely redress of investor grievances
Availability of more time for MCA employees for monitoring and supervision

CONCLUSIONS
Global shifts towards increased deployment of IT by governments emerged in the
nineties, with the advent of the World Wide Web. The technology as well as egovernance initiatives (Heeks & Richard, 2006) have come a long way since then.
With the increase in Internet and mobile connections, the citizens are learning to
exploit their new mode of access in wide ranging ways.
There has been an increasing involvement of international donor agencies
under the framework of e-governance for development to catalyze the development
of e-governance laws and technologies in developing countries. While the emphasis
has been primarily on automation and computerization, state Governments have
also endeavored to use ICT tools into connectivity, networking, setting up
systems for processing information and delivering services. The strategic objective of
e-governance
is to support and simplify governance for all parties - government, citizens and
businesses has been successful by the use of ICTs.
After ensuring that the basic requirements are fulfilled advantages of e governance
start accruing. Challenges need to be forecasted and dealt with very cautiously.

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For success of an e-governance project and superior service delivery, it is imperative

that the government agency focuses on whole citizen experience. Focusing on
the citizen is essential for long term success. The Government agency needs to
integrate information from all points of citizen interaction. The overall architecture
for e-Governance needs to ensure that the architecture components are extensible
and scalable to adapt to the changing environments.
MCA-21 project an e-Governance initiative of the Ministry of Company
Affairs (MCA). This is a flagship e-Governance Project of the Government of
India covers the core services of the Ministry. The project was visionary in nature and
aimed at repositioning the Ministry as a dynamic and modern organization, capable
of fulfilling the aspirations of stakeholders in the 21st century.
As a result of this, business and citizens enjoyed the benefits of working in a
modern office environment with access to the best in class information
technology solution that helped them in executing their responsibilities efficiently.
In the context of a globalising world, it is important that Indian industry remains in
the reckoning in a competitive environment. Therefore, the regulatory framework
must facilitate compliance of rules at a minimum cost and with convenience to the
stakeholder. MCA21 is founded on the Governments vision to build a healthy
business eco system and make the country globally competitive.
For any program to be outcome-based, a paradigm shift in the service delivery is
inevitable. A Service Centric Approach by the Government is the principal driving
factor to the transformation. The bottom line of this unique initiative is the
improved speed and certainty in the delivery of MCA services.
This improvement is primarily enabled through the mechanism of electronic Filing (eFiling) for the services and back office automation by harnessing the right technology
enablers.

The MCA21 initiative is part of the Mission Mode projects of the Government of
India. Such mission mode projects have been positioned to be major change
agents in the e-Governance space in India. Government agencies and departments
and even private entities, which want to play a role in e-Governance
transformations, will all be catalyzed to think along the roadmap and imbibe the
learnings from the mission mode projects. The MCA21 program may be looked at as
one of the early e-Governance building blocks capable of providing sustainable ethos
to the several modernizing initiatives that will be carried out by the Government of
India.
There are two distinct areas where knowledge and learnings can be taken
from the MCA21 project - (a) a model for secure electronic filing and (b) a concept for
improving Government Back office efficiency. It is needless to say that these two are
critical ingredients that can be used in a plethora of situations involving delivery of
citizen services by the Government.

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The experience gained from MCA21 can serve as a solid foundation not just for
improving service delivery but help the Government think out-of-the-box for
innovating and defining new services.

*******

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Data was collected primarily from secondary sources (internet, articles etc).
Following are the references.

www.mca.gov.in
www.icsi.edu/webmodules/student/mca_21.html
www.csi-sigegov.org/egovernance
www.wikipedia.org
www.nic.in

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