Electronic Governance: Lessons from Experiences1

Prof. T.P. Rama Rao

Center for Electronic Governance,
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Electronic Governance (e-Governance) is the use of Information and Communication

Technologies (ICT) for the planning, implementation, and monitoring of government
programmes, projects, and activities. E-Governance is expected to help deliver cost-effective and
easy-to-access citizen services, and improve processing of transactions both within the
government, and between the government and other agencies. The stakeholders in e-governance
include government officials, legislators, regulatory agencies, citizens, voluntary organizations,
technology consultants and vendors, academicians, researchers, funding agencies, and the media.
In short, anybody interested in the application of ICT for governance.

A recent NASSCOM report puts e-Governance in India as a rapidly growing segment with three
southern states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu) making significant progress. It
however, suggests that to achieve desired benefits, several pro-active steps need to be taken by
governments to address the operational, economic, personnel, planning and implementation
issues, which are the bottlenecks to effective implementation of e-Governance.

The studies conducted by the Center for Electronic Governance (CEG) at Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad, indicate that the governments are enthusiastic in adopting e-
governance. There are many examples of e-Governance projects, which have won international
and national awards. However, a more focused and comprehensive approach is needed to ensure
their sustenance- they sustain and that citizens derive true benefits from such investments. Many
government services need to be re-engineered to benefit from the emerging ICTs. There is an
inherent distrust in citizens on the service delivery mechanisms. This image needs to be
improved with confidence building measures. Since the governments do not have adequate
resources, private participation will have to be facilitated to bring in the expertise, to share the

1
Presented at National Seminar on Computer in Rural Development, Computer Society of India, Vallabh
Vidyanagar, February 2003.

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cost, and to offer better value proposition to citizens. The governments will have to seriously
address the tasks of identifying and preparing project champions, ensuring appropriate tenures,
and work towards the development of sustainable solutions and their ownership by all the
concerned employees.

This paper presents the experiences, in the past three years, of the CEG-IIMA in the design and
implementation of proof-of-concept applications, evaluation studies, and knowledge
dissemination activities.

Center for Electronic Governance (CEG) at IIMA

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, together with the support of Oracle Software
India Limited, Compaq Computer (India) Pvt. Ltd., SCO, and CMC Ltd. set up, in October 1999,
the Centre for Electronic Governance (CEG) as a research project.

In its three years of existence, the CEG has executed two proof concept projects, two evaluation
studies, and two major training programmes, and knowledge portal activity.

Proof-of-concept Projects

The proof-of-concept application projects are those in which the CEG works with the concerned
department extensively, in designing, developing, and implementing the applications involving
the use of emerging ICTs.

Two projects, one in Dairy Sector and the other in the District Administration were undertaken
by the CEG to demonstrate the power of connectivity and back-end computer processing in
empowering citizens.

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Dairy Information Services Kiosk (DISK) and Dairy Portal

The dairy sector project was aimed at enhancing the computers connected to the milko-tester
machine at the daily milk collection centers of the milk cooperative societies to function as a
‘Dairy Information Service Kiosk’. A database of the members and their cattle was created on
the PC at the milk collection center. A modem was provided with the PC to facilitate its
connectivity to Internet through the ISPs (Internet service providers). The Internet connectivity
was used to provide two way asynchronous communications between the society and the dairy.
Individualized messages concerning the services to members are printed in the regional
(Gujarati) language on the milk pay slip, which, the dairy farmer receives at the time of pouring
the milk. In addition a Dairy Portal, created by CEG-IIMA, provided information on various
dairying practices and offered a forum for exchange of views and commercial transactions to the
members of cooperative societies of the union.

CEG-IIMA involved a private vendor in supplying the hardware, testing the software, building
the database and in maintaining the system (hardware and application) at the milk cooperative
society level. Two milk cooperative societies and a Dairy Union in Gujarat participated in the
project by deputing the personnel. The project demonstrated the power of databases and
connectivity in improving the transparency and enhancing the quality of service to the dairy
farmers through the cooperative system.

The project generated high level of enthusiasm in the dairy sector. Several Unions have
expressed interest in adopting it. While significant level of application design and software
development resources have been invested by CEG-IIMA in carving out an application like this,
the issues before its replication and sustainability are:

1. Funding arrangements
The dairy cooperative societies are looking forward to an inexpensive packaged solution
with some funding arrangement. Organizations like NDDB will have to examine possible
options and advice the unions and societies.

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 2. Preparedness of the Unions.
The daily milk collection data goes to the unions on day-to-day basis through Internet.
Unions will have to be geared up to process such data and advice the societies in addition
to improving their own operational planning based on this data.
3. Content management of the Dairy Portal
Dairy unions will have to engage domain experts and take the responsibility of managing
the contents of the portal.
4. Private Participation
The only way to service the remote rural areas, in which milk collection societies are
located, is through participation of private entrepreneurs. A large number of them are
looking forward to rolling the model. They need to compose an inexpensive solution
including the licenses for various software and application components. Mechanisms will
have to be evolved to facilitate the same.

Citizen Services Portal (CSP)

The second proof-of-concept project is in the area of district administration. The objective of the
project is to offer the rural citizens an improved access to information on government schemes
and services and also facilitate the process of applying for the same from their villages, through
an Internet portal and PC based information kiosks. The portal is expected to enhance
transparency in government functioning and offer scope for improved service delivery.

The project enjoyed the support of a very dynamic and enthusiastic District Collector. The
Collector involved the various departments at the Collectorate and the concerned agencies in the
state capital of Gandhinagar and ensured their cooperation. CEG-IIMA interacted with various
government departments, community leaders, elected representatives and the common man. The
voluminous data received from the departments was categorized and converted to easily
understandable local language format and hosted on the portal.

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At the time when CEG-IIMA delivered the Citizen Services Portal (CSP) to district collectorate
for professional packaging and replication, the portal contained about 130 forms, 45 schemes and
700 pages, cutting across 13 departments. It provided online applications like national old age
pension scheme and grievance redressal, and easy to use search engines and feedback sections.
Small private entrepreneurs, STD booth operators, and cooperative societies, interested in
registering themselves as information service providers were trained to offer the services to
citizens using the internet-connected (for on-line transactions) as well as stand-alone CD-ROM
based systems.

Currently the portal is re-packaged as mahitishakti.net - meaning Information is Power by a

private entrepreneur and is being used by a large number of information service providers in the
district of Panchmahals in the state of Gujarat. It is being considered for statewide replication
after evaluation.

This project also generated considerable enthusiasm in the district administration. The district
collector facilitated its deployment through private participation. The service delivery is
completely through private STD booths, provision stores, and cooperative societies.

Following are some issues of significance in this project:

1. Project coordination:
The district collector (project champion) contributed significantly to the concept
development and in providing necessary linkages with related government departments.
CEG-IMA provided extensive research, training and software development inputs in the
project. The collector involved a private party for packaging, rolling and maintenance.

2. Private Participation and funding:

Through the society mechanism (e-Governance Trust), several private parties were
invited to offer the delivery of services to the citizens. Each member is charged a fixed

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 amount as registration fee to offer the services. The members were offered easy loans to
acquire PCs to offer this service.

3. Value for Citizens

The Gujarat Government has several schemes to offer to the rural poor. Thus, with the
implementation of the project, citizens find it worthwhile to visit a kiosk to know about
the schemes and obtain forms to apply for the same. Sustenance of this model depends
upon the efficacy of the backend services. If the backend services (announcement of
schemes as well as processing of applications) do not match upto the expectations, the
kiosks may degenerate into expensive forms vending machines.

The portal is packaged with several other services in the areas of education, health,
agriculture, forestry etc. The e-Governance Trust will have to ensure that the contents are
updated and put special effort to market the services.

4. Connectivity
Although options are provided to offer the services through stand-alone mode, Internet
connectivity could become a bottleneck for online applications. These problems have to
be monitored and alternate solutions have to be worked out to keep the kiosks attractive
for the citizens and to ensure that they are economically viable.

The two studies described above have demonstrated that it is possible to develop and deploy
innovative and cost effective ICT solutions to enhance citizen services through the collective
participation of government, e-governance research centers, and private entrepreneurs.

Lessons from Evaluation of some e-Governance Projects

CEG-IIMA has conducted comprehensive evaluations of two e-Governance projects and studied
several other projects. The two projects, which were evaluated comprehensively, are very

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celebrated ones and have won international awards in the area of IT applications in government.
This section presents a summary of our observations.

1. One of the projects is related to extending of government services to the rural poor at
their doorstep. The other project is related to improving the revenue collection by
minimizing manual intervention at Highway check posts.
2. Both the projects were conceptualized and implemented by highly motivated
administrative officers. The project champions have very good understanding of the ICT
and the application domain.
3. Resources for the projects were mobilized by the special efforts of the leaders. They got
the software developed rapidly through the involvement of private parties.
4. Private entrepreneurs were associated in the deployment of services and maintenance of
technology. PPP (Public Private Partnership) model seemed to have worked well in both
the projects.
5. In both the projects, the concerned government employees were extensively involved and
given training on motivation and understanding of ICT.
6. Citizens appreciated the transparency offered by the systems
7. Citizens appreciated the efficiency of processing offered through the connectivity and
computer processing. These systems have increased the awareness of ICTs and their
applications among the rural youth.
8. In one application, the revenue realized by government went up 10 folds from Rs.30
crores to Rs.300 crores. In the other application, the citizens of a remote tribal belt were
highly satisfied with quick responses from the government without the need to go to
district/taluka head quarters.
9. Both the applications slipped in acceptance as well as performance soon after the project
leaders were transferred. Following are some identified problems:
a. In the rural citizen centric application, citizens noticed slippage in response times
to their applications.

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 i. Connectivity and power supply often became serious constraints. Possibly
some services could have been designed not to use these technologies in
such environment.
ii. The backend systems required re-engineering, computerization and
networking. This is the most challenging task and needed more efficient
and strongly motivated project leaders.
iii. Since the applications related to the employment generation and
livelihood did not get attention, poor rural citizens gradually withdrew
from using the kiosks.
iv. The kiosk operators did not find it remunerative to run the services due to
very low volume of transactions with the existing services. Many service
providers have closed down their centers. Perhaps such low volume
services need to be augmented with revenue generating activities like job
work (data entry or minor desktop publishing), training and Internet
surfing.
b. In the improved revenue collection application at the check posts, transporters
encountered the following difficulties:
i. Since manual collection of cash was not totally eliminated at the check
posts, drivers continue to feel harassed. They feel that the 100% overload
checking capability facilitated by technology, is being misused to collect
more speed money than before. As there was no close monitoring at the
check posts, drivers have started loosing confidence in the transparency of
the system.
ii. The maintenance contract ran into problems of renewal. The long delay in
settling this has put the systems out of gear (to the advantage of vested
interests). Many technologies, which were meant to minimize manual
interventions in the collection process, were bypassed causing harassment
to the transporters.
iii. The high potential that existed with the technology could not be utilized
due to the government’s inability to place a project champion who is

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 required to pursue further work on the project. If this continues, the
expensive technology is likely to become obsolete even before deriving
complete benefit.

Summary
The e-Governance projects have very high potential of offering cost-effective, improved and
easy-to-access services to citizens, and improved processing of transactions both within the
government and between the government and other agencies. The planning, implementation, and
monitoring of government programmes, projects, and activities can be significantly strengthened
by these applications.
Successful e-Governance projects involved, in the design process, all stakeholders such as
government officials, legislators, regulatory agencies, citizens, voluntary organizations,
technology consultants and vendors, academics, researchers, funding agencies, and media. The
benefits derived from such projects are very significant as seen from the above case studies.
However, the government as well as project champions need to pay attention to the sustenance
problems faced by these projects. Proper planning is needed in working out revenue models,
ensuring the full implementations through appropriate tenure appointments of project champions,
ensuring effective monitoring and maintenance of systems.