Does E-governance bring transparency in working of government?

Transperancy is essential in all our dealings, whether corporate governance or govt functioning. It puts not only what the organization is doing at a given moment but also hints at the reasons and motives of doing so. In a democracy, it is all the more important as it is about the participation of the people in governing process. The govt,s attempts at diluting the right to information act and the efforts of civil rights groups opposing the amendments itself proves what i say.

• E-administration—The use of ICTs to modernize the state; the creation of data repositories for MIS, computerisation of records.
• E-services—The emphasis here is to bring the state closer to the citizens. Examples include provision of online services. E-administration and e-services together constitute what is generally termed e-government.
• eGovernance—The use of IT to improve the ability of government to address the needs of society. It includes the publishing of policy and programme related information to transact with citizens. It extends beyond provision of on-line services and covers the use of IT for strategic planning and reaching development goals of the government. 
• E-democracy—The use of IT to facilitate the ability of all sections of society to participate in the governance of the state. The remit is much broader here with a stated emphasis on transparency, accountability and participation. Examples could include online disclosure policies, online grievance redress forums and e-referendums. Conceptually, more potent.

Actually, any ICT intiative inherently results in more informed and transparent decision making. Information Technology, due to its ubiquity and neutrality, opens doors which were otherwise closed by red tapes.

But in India especially, often the e-governance projects are mere computerization of the paper based system. No thought is given to process reengineering either due to vested interests, or due to fear of solution getting rejected by users. So, for example, when a municipal corporation computerizes its building permission system, it requires submission of a CD with all the forms filled, to the officer in person. This obviously keeps some scope for under table dealings between the developer and the officer in charge. There are numerous such examples where e-governance is just used for computerizing existing corrupt practises.

So what I am trying to say here, is that apart from computerization of existing processes, a good e-governance initiative must also include rethinking of existing conventions and methods in the light of information and communication technologies. Only then, it will bring real benefits of IT to the citizens.

Surely Yes. But the main hindrance to this is the illeteracy (created and nurtured by 60 yrs of politics) at the ground level. Also, the babus also do not want to give such transperency to the general public for their own selfish reasons. A big project started  by Gujarat Government with assistance from the Central government is a big step in thie direction. It is envisaged that each village will have an 'e-gram'. All the required government documents can be downloaded from this place as also the same can be deposited at this place for further processing along with payment of necessary fees.

Gujarat also boasts of broadband connectivity at taluka levels through which the government in the capital is able to interact directly directly with the administrators of the region through means such as video conferencing. Thre has also been instance of the Chief Minister attending 'Gram Sabhas' through such means.

So as such e-governance is very much necessary but along with that to get the maximum benefits out of it we need to upgrade the lioteracy rates as well as the necessary infrastructure.

Thanks,

Nital

It is very difficult to implement e-governance in India because of the diversity and language barriers prevelent here. Moreover we are endowed with an inefficient economic environment with people or categorized like animals, Lions, tigers etc;. Even human thoughts and consciousness is developed differently than many other countries expecially in areas of Economics and Business.

Unless we have a modern and efficient environment devoid of superstition and exploitation of each other the Machivellian type behavior I mean whatever we do is going to be like a Snail crawling towards our collective goals including e-governance.

If implemented correctly, e-governance has potential to bring complete transparency in the working of governments.