Kants observation is even more valid today.

The citizens are ends in themselves, rather than as

means to other ends.

e-Governance is in essence, the application of Information and communications Technology to

government functioning in order to create Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and
Transparent 1 (SMART) governance.

This new paradigm would focus on the use of information technology to bring public services to the
doorsteps of our citizens and businesses on the basis of revolutionary changes in our institutional
structures, procedures and practices that would transform the relationsh

The purpose of implementing e-Governance is to improve governance processes and outcomes with
a view to improving the delivery of public services to citizens. Some authors have defined e-
Governance as the e-business of theState.

A more comprehensive definition of e-Governance proposes changes of government in two related

aspects: 1) transformation of business of governance i.e. reducing costs, improving service delivery
and renewing processes; 2) re-examination of the functions and processes of democracy itself

India, being the largest democracy in the world, has much to gain from e-Governance, especially
when citizen participation in governance is one of the features of the fully evolved stage of e-
government.

The resultant benefits are less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue
growth, and cost reductions.* Analogous to e-commerce, which allows business to transact with
each other more efficiently (b2b) and brings customers closer to businesses (b2c), e-government
aims to make the interaction between government and citizens (G2c), government and business
enterprises (G2b), and inter-agency relationships (G2G) more friendly, convenient, transparent, and
inexpensive.

The goals of e-Governance are:

a.better service delivery to citizens

b. Ushering in transparency and accountability

c. Empowering people through information

d. Improved efficiency within Governments

e. Improve interface with business and industry.

e-Governance needs to transform all levels of Government but the focus should be on local
governments since local governments are the closest to citizens, and constitute for many, the main
interface with government.

The benefits of information technology have not been evenly distributed. It has been noticed that
most of the time the benefits of e-Governance are also reaped by the affluent sections of society.
 comprehensive e-Governance reforms cover ( challenges) (1) the process, (2) preparedness and the
technology (3) and the people. Introduction of e-Governance needs process engineering as the first
step. Unless the processes and procedures and even structures of government are re-engineered so
as to be e-Governance compatible, e-Governance projects cannot succeed. The technology and the
hardware and software come second, only after the processes have been re-engineered. And
ultimately, in order to make the reforms sustainable the people in the concerned
departments/agencies have to internalize the changes. This is also one of the reasons why e-
Governance projects succeed at the pilot level but when up-scaled they become unsustainable.

Different States in India are at different levels of e-readiness: This makes implementation of national
e-Governance projects in a uniform way difficult.

The types of services possible through e-Governance can be broadly classified into three categories
(1) providing information (2) improving processing efficiency and (3) facilitating transactions.

e-Government is not about e but about government;

The four pillars of e-Government are:# People Process Technology

Resources

Process : Simplicity Efficiency citizen- Sustainability cost-centricity effectiveness

People : Vision Leadership commitment competency change

Technology : Architecture Open Reliability Scalability Security Standards

Resources : Holistic Efficient Service- Sustained Adequate oriented

Despite important policy initiatives and significant achievements in the economic and social sectors
in our country, we still have a long way to go before achieving our full potential for development.
This is because there is still a wide gulf between our policy initiatives and intents and the actual
achievements. Among the major reasons for this gap include outmoded systems of governance,
cumbersome processes and procedures, prevalence of corruption and lack of accountability in our
functioning.

The reason why countries around the world are increasingly opting for e-Governance is that
governance per se has become more complex and varied in the last few decades and more
importantly, citizens expectations from government have increased manifold.

It also helps in increasing the reach of government both geographically and demographically.

The emergence of Information and communications Technology (IcT) has provided means for faster
and better communication, efficient storage, retrieval and processing of data and exchange and
utilization of information to its users, be they individuals, groups, businesses, organizations or
governments.

. Government, today, is expected to be transparent in its dealings, accountable for its activities and
faster in its responses. This has made the use of IcT imperative in any agenda drawn towards
achieving good governance.
According to the World bank, 4 E-Government refers to the use by government
agencies of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the
Internet, and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens,
businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends:
better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and
industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient
government management. The resulting benefits can be less
corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/ or cost reductions.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, has visualized e-Governance in the Indian context to
mean: A transparent smart e-Governance with seamless access, secure and authentic flow of
information crossing the interdepartmental barrier and providing a fair and unbiased service to the
citizen.

Generally speaking, the Indian experience demonstrates that the onset of e-Governance proceeded
through the following phases: (challenges)

(a) Computerisation:In the first phase, with the availability of personal computers, a large number
of Government offices got equipped with computers. The use of computers began with word
processing, quickly followed by data processing.

(b) Networking:In this phase, some units of a few government organizations got connected through
a hub leading to sharing of information and flow of data between different government entities.

(c) On-line presence:With increasing internet connectivity, a need was felt for maintaining a
presence on the web. This resulted in maintenance of websites by government departments and
other entities. Generally, these web-pages/ web-sites contained information about the
organizational structure, contact details, reports and publications, objectives and vision statements
of the respective government entities.

(d) On-line interactivity: A natural consequence of on-line presence was opening up of

communication channels between government entities and the citizens, civil society organizations
etc. The main aim at this stage was to minimize the scope of personal interface with government
entities by providing downloadable Forms, Instructions, Acts, Rules etc. In some cases, this has
already led to on-line submission of Forms. Most citizen-government transactions have the
potential of being put on e-Governance mode

2.4 Types of Interactions in e-Governance 2.4.1 e-Governance facilitates interaction between

different stake holders in governance. These interactions may be described as follows:

G2G (Government to Government) In this case, Information and communications

Technology is used not only to restructure the governmental processes involved in the
functioning of government entities but also to increase the flow of information and services
within and between different entities. This kind of interaction is only within the sphere of
government and can be both horizontal i.e. between different government agencies as well
as between different functional areas within an organisation, or vertical i.e. between
national, provincial and local government agencies as well as between different levels
 within an organisation. The primary objective is to increase efficiency, performance and
output.
G2C (Government to Citizens) In this case, an interface is created between the government
and citizens which enables the citizens to benefit from efficient delivery of a large range of
public services. This expands the availability and accessibility of public services on the one
hand and improves the quality of services on the other. It gives citizens the choice of when
to interact with the government (e.g. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), from where to interact
with the government (e.g. service centre, unattended kiosk or from ones home/workplace)
and how to interact with the government (e.g. through internet, fax, telephone, email, face-
to-face, etc). The primary purpose is to make government, citizen-friendly.
G2B (Government to Business) Here, e-Governance tools are used to aid the business
community providers of goods and services to seamlessly interact with the government.
The objective is to cut red tape, save time, reduce operational costs and to create a more
transparent business environment when dealing with the government. The G2binitiatives
can be transactional, such as in licensing, permits, procurement and revenue collection.
They can also be promotional and facilitative, such as in trade, tourism and investment.
These measures help to provide a congenial environment to businesses to enable them to
perform more efficiently.
G2E (Government to Employees) Government is by far the biggest employer and like any
organisation, it has to interact with its employees on a regular basis. This interaction is a
two-way process between the organisation and the employee. Use of IcT tools helps in
making these interactions fast and efficient on the one hand and increase satisfaction levels
of employees on the other.

2.5 Benefits of e-Governance

i. Better access to information and quality services for citizens:

The ultimate objective of e-Governance is to reach out to citizens by adopting a life-cycle approach
i.e. providing public services to citizens which would be required right from birth to death.

ii. Simplicity, efficiency and accountability in the government:Application

of IcT to governance combined with detailed business process reengineering would lead to
simplification of complicated processes, weeding out of redundant processes, simplification in
structures and changes in statutes and regulations.

iii. Expanded reach of governance:

This expansion of e-government had three guiding principles: i. It should be citizen-centered and
not bureaucracy or agency-centered. ii. It should produce measurable improvements for citizens. iii.
It should be market-based, aimed at promoting innovation.
An effective connected government is about a bigger and better front-end with a smaller and
smarter back-end.

T h e Un i t e d Na t i o n s E - G ov e r n m e n t Su r v e y. The UN Sur vey (2008) has used a

comprehensive e-government readiness i n d e x t o a s s e s s t h e preparedness of various
countries for e-Governance

These components of the index are described below:

(a) The Web Measure Index:It is based on a five-stage model, which builds upon the previous levels
of sophistication of a countrys online presence.

(b) The Telecommunication Infrastructure Index: This is a composite index of five primary indices
relating to a countrys infrastructure capacity as they relate to the delivery of e-government
services. These are: i. Internet Users /100 persons ii. Pcs /100 persons iii. Main Telephones Lines
/100 persons

iv. cellular telephones /100 persons v. broad banding /100 persons

(c) The Human Capital Index:This is a composite of the adult literacy rate and the combined
primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio, with two thirds weight given to the adult
literacy rate and one third to the gross enrolment ratio.

In 1999, the Union Ministry of Information Technology was created. by 2000, a 12-point minimum
agenda for e-Governance was identified by Government of India for implementation in all the Union
Government Ministries/Departments. The agenda undertaken included the following action points:
21 i. Each Ministry/Department must provide Pcs with necessary software up to the Section Officer
level. In addition, Local Area Network (LAN) must also be set up. ii. It should be ensured that all
staff who have access to and need to use computer for their office work are provided with adequate
training. To facilitate this, inter alia, Ministries/Departments should set up their own or share
others Learning centres for decentralized training in computers as per the guidelines issued by the
MIT. iii. Each Ministry/Department should start using the Office Procedure Automation software
developed by NIcwith a view to keeping a record of receipt of dak, issue of letters, as well as
movement of files in the department. iv. Pay roll accounting and other house-keeping software
should be put to use in day-to-day operations. v. Notices for internal meetings should be sent by e-
mail. Similarly, submission of applications for leave and for going on tour should also be done
electronically. Ministries/Departments should also set up online notice board to display orders,
circulars etc. as and when issued. vi. Ministries/Departments should use the web-enabled Grievance
Redressal Software developed by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.
vii. Each Ministry/Department should have its own website. viii. All Acts, Rules, circulars must be
converted into electronic form and, along with other published material of interest or relevance to
the public, should be made available on the internet and be accessible from the Information and
Facilitation counter. ix. The websites of Ministries/Departments/Organisations should specifically
contain a section in which various forms to be used by citizens/customers are

available. The forms should be available for being printed or for being completed on the computer
itself and then printed out for submission. Attempts should also be made to enable completion and
submission of forms online. x. The Hindi version of the content of the websites should as far as
possible be developed simultaneously. xi. Each Ministry/Department would also make efforts to
develop packages so as to begin electronic delivery of services to the public. xii. Each
Ministry/Department should have an overall IT vision or strategy for a five year period, within which
it could dovetail specific action plans and targets (including the minimum agenda) to be
implemented within one year.

Prior to 2006 when the Government of India formally launched its National e-Governance Plan
(NeGP

4.2.1 computerisation of Land Records (Department of Land Resources, Government of India)

Lessons: i. The scheme failed to address the main problem in case of land records in India, i.e. the
land records do not reflect the factual ground reality. Computerisation of existing land
records without corroborating it with the actual field position only led to
perpetuation of existing loopholes and errors. ii. Complex e-Governance projects have various
components all of which need to be implemented for which a holistic approach is needed during
implementation.

BhoomiProject in Karnataka : Online Delivery of Land Records 27 4.2.2.1 Bhoomi is a self-

sustainable e-Governance project for the computerized delivery of 20 million rural land records to
6.7 million farmers through 177 Government-owned kiosks in the State of Karnataka.

Through this project, computerised kiosks are currently offering farmers two critical services -
procurement of land records and requests for changes to land title.

To ensure authenticity of data management, a biometric finger authentication system has been
used for the first time in an e-Governance project in India. To make the project self-sustaining and
expandable, Bhoomi levies user charges.

Lessons: i. A well conceptualized and executed BPR is a pre-

requisite for success of e-Governance projects. ii. There should be end-to-end
computerization. iii. Large e-Governance projects, having large scale impact
require total support at the political level. iv. Continuity in the Project Management team
helps in proper implementation of e-Governance projects. v. If benefits to
citizens are real and substantial, projects becomesustainable. vi. A
holistic approach is necessary for e-Governance. Adequate time and resources need to be devoted
in conceptualization, implementation and maintenance of projects. vii. Systems should have a
strong back-up mechanism.

Gyandoot (Madhya Pradesh)

Gyandoot is an Intranet-based Government to citizen (G2c) service delivery initiative. It was

initiated in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh in January 2000 with the twin objective of providing
relevant information to the rural population and acting as an interface between the district
administration and the people.

These were called Soochanalayas which were operated by local rural youth selected for this purpose
(called Soochaks).

Project FRIENDS in Kerala 4.2.5.1 FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for the
Disbursement of Services) is a Single Window Facility providing citizens the means to pay taxes and
other financial dues to the State Government.

4.3 Government to Business (G2B) Initiatives

4.3.1 e-Procurement Project in Andhra Pradesh

The benefits of the new system are as follows: Reduction in tender cycle time:

Reduction in opportunities for corrupt practices:

Cost Savings:

4.3.3 McA 21

Accomplishments of MCA 21: The accomplishments of the McA 21 can be presented under the
following heads: a. Providing access to citizens/stakeholders (G2C services):

b. G2B services:

c. G2G services and linkages:The architecture of McA 21 has been designed to meet future
challenges and scalability. It is capable of sharing information with other Government Departments/
Ministries/ Regulators in the corporate Sector and introduction of joined-up services in due course.
Presently, free access to company documents having been allowed to the following organisations: i.
Reserve bank of India; ii. Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND); iii. Department of Economic Affairs;
iv. Intelligence bureau; and

4.4 Government to Government (G2G) Initiatives

4.4.1 Khajane Project in Karnataka 4.4.1.1 It is a comprehensive online treasury computerization

project of the Government of Karnataka.

4.4.2 SmartGov (Andhra Pradesh) 48 4.4.2.1 The Andhra Pradesh Secretariat comprises a number of
departments. The processing of information in the Government is predominantly workflow
intensive
COREPRINCIPLES OF e-GOVERNANCE

5.1 Clarity of Purpose 5.1.1 There needs to be a clear understanding and appreciation of the purpose
and objectives to be achieved through e-Governance. In the past, a large number of projects appear
to be based on what technology can achieve rather than what the citizens need.

5.2 Environment Building 5.2.1 There is need to change the mind-set of all the stakeholders involved,
i.e. politicians, government officials and civil society at large. This would require a strong will to
change among various stakeholders in the governance system. As the task involves redesigning of
governmental processes at various levels, implementing e-Governance would require political
support at all levels. On the other hand, government personnel would have to be incentivised to
change old habits and acquire new skills. In the public, awareness needs to be created

5.3 e-Governance as an Integral Part of Reform in Governance

it cannot be taken as an adjunct of governance. It has to be an integral part of the governance

structure and processes.

5.4 E-preparedness and Step-wise Approach

However, different organizations are not, presently, at the same level of e-preparedness. There has
to be a step-wise approach to e-Governance so that outcomes are maximized and citizens reap early
benefits from e-Governance.

These steps are mentioned below: i. E-preparedness:A certain level of preparedness is essential for
any e-Governance project, in the form of existence of basic infrastructure and human resource
capabilities of the organizations

ii. Identification of e-Governance projects by each organization/entity:

This identification has to be based on the needs of the citizens.

iii. Prioritization:

This should be based on simplicity of the project, ease in implementation and benefits to the
citizens. However, capacity building for the more complex projects should remain in focus.

iv. Business process re-engineering

v. Developing technological solutions:

vi. Implementation of e-Governance projects:

5.5 Disciplined way of working

Most technologies pre-suppose a set of rational behaviour on the part of users. This element needs
to be emphasized during the capacity building as well as in the life cycle of the project.

5.6 Monitoring and Evaluation

5.7 Developing Secure, Fail-safe Systems and Disaster Recovery Systems

5.8 Sustainability

5.10 Development of Local Language Interfaces

IMPLEMENTING e-GOVERNANCEREFORMS 6.1 The Challenge( iNCLUDE all the 10 aspects listed
above)

No country has so far implemented an e-Governance system for one billion people. It is a big
challenge before us

The Organisation for Economic co-operation and Development (OEcD) has defined four stages of e-
government, each one more demanding than the next. 66 These are: i. Information:putting
information on web-sites ii. Interaction:allowing citizens to enquire about services, procedures etc.
and filling up forms and submitting them online iii. Transaction:allowing payments online iv.
Transformation:a mix of all the above and allowing the citizen to participate in governance through
IcT. 6.3.3 The basic approach in case of e-Governance projects should be to focus on KISS: Keep it
Small and Simple principle.

Recommendations a. Capacity building efforts must attend to both the organizational capacity
building as also the professional and skills upgradation of individuals associated with the
implementation of e-Governance projects. b. Each government organization must conduct a
capacity assessment which should form the basis for training their personnel. Such capacity
assessment may be carried out by the State Department of Information Technology in case of State
Governments, and the Union Department of Information Technology in the Centre. Organisations
should prepare a roadmap for enhancing the capabilities of both their employees and the
organization. c. A network of training institutions needs to be created in the States with the
Administrative Training Institutes at the apex. The Administrative Training Institutes in various
States should take up capacity building programmes in e-Governance, by establishing strong e-
Governance wings. ATIs need to be strengthened under the NeGP. d. State Governments should
operationalise the Capacity Building Roadmap (CBRMs), under the overall guidance and support of
the DIT, Government of India. e. Lessons learnt from previous successful e-Governance initiatives
should be incorporated in training programmes. f. The recommendations made by the Commission
in its Second Report entitled Unlocking Human Capital in paragraph (5.2.1.6) should be adopted
for creating awareness among people with regard to e-Governance initiatives.

A World bank document 79 which analysed how personnel issues slowed down e-Governance
projects in different countries identified five challenges which need to be addressed while bringing
about change: Threats of job losses increase resistance A real or perceived threat of job loss
should be addressed adequately to mitigate the damage to employees morale through inaccurate
information and rumors. Employees need support and re-training for a new set of skills.
Government staff may resent external staff Intrusion by external consultants on to what is
considered their privileged domain creates stiff resistance. It helps a great deal if external staff have
the time and patience to talk to employees. High-level support does not ensure staff buy-in
Even when top political leaders support an e-government project, senior officials and their staff may
remain uncommitted if they do not see benefits from moving to a new system.

Staff are unenthusiastic whe-

-n credit is not shared A common perception is that an e-government project is an IT department
project and if the project is successful, the IT department will get all the credit. This results in non-
cooperation. Turf wars between departments also results in one department being in the limelight
and taking all the credit. This undermines project success unless addressed adequately.

Managers exaggerated risk aversion harms project credibility Fearing that new systems
may not deliver, managers tend to continue manual systems in parallel, and thus there is no
incentive for staff to switch over to the new system. It also sends the signal that the new system is
unreliable. Prolonging the trial period also discourages users from changing old habits thus making
the final switch over all the more difficult.

6.10 Public-Private Partnership (PPP)

Financial and managerial resources are critically required for successful implementation and more
so, the sustainability of e-Governance initiatives. While the normal preference for any reform
initiative is through exclusive use of inhouse resources, the merits of inducting the private sector
resources into the e-Governance sector have now been appreciated and accepted by policy-makers
in Government. Public-Private Partnership has thus become one of the cornerstones of NeGP.

While early PPP projects like eSeva had attempted a simple version of PPP, more complex projects
like McA 21 required considerable innovation and experimentation in designing and adoption of an
appropriate PPP model

There are many compelling reasons why governments should look at PPP in relation to their e-
Governance plans. Some reasons are enumerated below:

a. Combining accountability with efficiency:

b. Pace of implementation:New innovations in the field of IcT are happening at a fast rate. This
applies to all its segments hardware, software and networks. Newer versions and releases of
operating systems, database servers, application servers, and security software are continuously
being released at regular intervals. The typical life cycle of a large e-Governance initiative is 18 to 24
months from initiation to completion. It has been observed that the private sector is generally
faster than government in adopting and making use of the latest technology.

c. Resources:The combined effect of the huge size of e-Governance effort and the speed of
implementation is that investments required in the e-Governance sector are very large over a
continuous period of 5 years. It is estimated that India needs over Rs 45,000 crore of investment in
e-Governance sector over a period of 3-5 years - excluding the cost of communication and access
infrastructure. This is sixteen times higher than the current annual IT expenditure of about Rs 3000
crore in the government sector. In addition to this, high quality managerial and human resources
are required. It is difficult to mobilize such large amounts of financial and human resources within
the government. Tapping the financial, managerial and manpower resources of the private sector is
a viable alternative in this regard.

The PPP model of implementation is more suitable for particular areas of e-Governance and not to
all. The criteria for PPP include long-term nature of demand for a service, profitability and
amenability to structuring a commercial framework and business model for PPP.
 Public-Private Partnership projects also pose several challenges which need to be
understood and addressed carefully.
There is often lack of congruence in the objectives of the two partners - government and
the private sector. The success of PPP depends on the degree to which the public and
private sector partners align their efforts in achieving these objectives. clarity on objectives
has to be achieved by both the parties at the outset.
Also, the organizational cultures in the private and public sector differ widely. This may
result in conflicting situations, since e-Governance involves substantial process reform
needing interaction between the partner company and the government agency or agencies
in charge of the domain. It is necessary to create an appropriate coordination and review
mechanism that develops mutual trust and confidence.
Also the agreements defining the mutual role and responsibilities should be precisely
drafted, following a transparent process of selection of the private partner.

NATIONAL e-GOVERNANCEPLAN

A need was therefore felt for taking a holistic view of the several e-Governance initiatives
implemented across the country. It was increasingly perceived that if e-Governance was to be
speeded up across the various arms and levels of Government a programme approach would need
to be adopted, which must be guided by a common vision, strategy and approach. This would have
the added advantage of enabling huge savings in costs, in terms of sharing the core and support
infrastructure, enable interoperability through standards etc, which would result in the citizen
having a seamless view of Government. It was with this background, that the National e-
Governance Plan (NeGP) was formulated for implementation across the country.

based on lessons learnt from the past and the experience from successful e-Governance
applications, the approach and methodology adopted for NeGP contains the following elements:

i. Common Support Infrastructure:NeGP implementation involves setting up of common and

support IT infrastructure such as: State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State Data centres (SDcs),
common Services centres (cScs) and Electronic Service Delivery Gateways.

ii. Governance:Suitable arrangements for monitoring and coordinating the implementation of NeGP
under the direction of the competent authorities have also been substantially put in place.

iii. Centralized Initiative, Decentralized Implementation:

iv. Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)

v. Integrative Elements:Adoption of unique identification codes for citizens, businesses and

property is to be promoted to facilitate integration and avoid ambiguity.

vi. Programme Approach at the National and State levels:

vii. Facilitatory role of DIT:

viii. Ownership of Ministries:Under the NeGP, various MMPs are owned and spearheaded by
the concerned line Ministries
For major projects like bharat Nirman, Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes etc., the line
ministries concerned are advised to make use of e-Governance as also automation techniques from
the inception stage.

The common Support Infrastructure The issues related to the implementation of common Support
Infrastructure SDc, SWAN and cScs are discussed in the following paragraphs. 7.3.2.1 State
Data Centre (SDC)

State Data centres have been identified as one of the important elements of the core infrastructure
for supporting e-Governance initiatives under NeGP. These would consolidate services, applications
and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2cand G2bservices through
common delivery platform seamlessly supported by the State Wide Area Network (SWAN)
connecting up to the villages through the common Service centres (cScs). Its key functions would be
to act as the central Repository of the State, provide secure data storage, disaster recovery and
remote management functions etc.

Although the State Data centres form one of the core elements of NeGP, the absence of any fixed
time frame for its implementation has resulted in delays.

The commission is of the view that owing to the nature of data and security concerns, the
implementation of SDcs should lie in the domain of government agencies such as NIc. Further, all
state-level data centres should be subsumed in the SDcs. Due to the interlinked nature of the core
components of NeGP such as SDcs, SWANs and cScs, implementation of these projects should be
co-ordinated in a way that there is no time lag in their operationalisation.

Apart from implementation delays, institutional hurdles have also been cropping up. For example,
there has been be a tendency in some State departments to set up their own data centre which
would give them control over the data and its disaster management and recovery. Further, as many
of the departments already have functional website/portals hosted by NIc, they may see no benefit
in changing the status quo

7.3.2.2 State Wide Area Network (SWAN)

This is aimed at establishing Wide Area Networks in all States and UTs across the country, from the
Headquarter of each State/UT to the blocks.

It would serve in providing G2G and G2cservices, especially for the various Mission Mode Projects
contemplated under the National e-Governance Plan.

The SWANs would connect each State/UT headquarters with the District headquarters and each
District headquarter with the block headquarters with a minimum 2Mbps leased line.

The Standing committee on Information Technology, while examining the Demands for Grants for
2008-09, found that the time limit for implementing the SWAN was December 2007 which is now
continuously being extended. Further, they were also informed that at the implementation level
also the States/UTs are facing problems of availability of basic telecom infrastructure at the block
level. 90 The commission is of the view that the highest priority needs to be given to the
simultaneous roll out of SWAN across the country so that the MMPs and other e-Governance
initiatives, which would ride on this network, can also be expeditiously implemented.

7.3.2.3 Common Service Centres (CSCs)( bigger and better front end , smaller and smarter back end )

These centres are intended to serve as front-end delivery points for government, private and social
sector services in an integrated manner to rural citizens of India. This scheme aims at establishing
about 100,000 common Services centres across the country, one each for every six census villages.
The objective is to develop a platform that can enable government, private and social sector
organizations to align their social and commercial goals for the benefit of the rural population in the
remotest corners of the country through a combination of IT-based as well as non-IT-based services.

The cScScheme has a 3-tier implementation framework: 91 The local Village Level
Entrepreneur (VLE - loosely analogous to a franchisee)
constitutes the first level. This would form the cutting edge of the whole scheme, with the
responsibility of providing services to the rural customer in a cluster of 5-6 villages. At the
second/middle level would be the Service Centre Agency (SCA -
loosely analogous to a franchiser) with the responsibility to operate, manage and build the
VLE network and business. A ScA would be a private entity and would be given the territorial
responsibility for rolling out the cScs in one or more districts

At the third level would be an agency designated by the

State Government, called the State Designated Agency (SDA), to facilitate
implementation of the Scheme within the State and to provide requisite policy, content and other
support to the ScAs. The SDA would be a PSU/Society or any other entity controlled by the State
Government.

Recommendations a. As recommended by the Standing Committee on Information Technology in

its 58th Report, the State Data Centres (SDCs) should be maintained by Government agencies such
as NIC as it involves handling of sovereign data. Further, all data centres at the State level should be
subsumed in the SDCs. b. The implementation of SDCs, SwANs and CSCs should be co-ordinated to
prevent significant time-lag between their operationalisation. Last mile connectivity issues involved
in operationalisation of CSCs should also be addressed in a time-bound manner. c. Gram
Panchayats should be involved in monitoring the operation of the Common Services Centres in the
first four years of their operation when they are receiving revenue support from government for
providing Government to Citizen services. They should proactively engage in making citizens
aware of the services provided through the CSCs and encourage them to make use of them. d. State
Governments should make available a large bouquet of G2C services through the CSCs. In doing so,
they should adopt the approach outlined in this Report while discussing identification and
prioritization of e-Governance projects. e. The Mission Mode Project on Gram Panchayats should
be finalized and implemented in a time-bound manner. The MMP should incorporate the
recommendations made by the Commission in its Sixth Report entitled Local Governance

Recommendations a. A clear road map with a set of milestones should be outlined by Government
of India with the ultimate objective of transforming the citizen-government interaction at all levels
to the e-Governance mode by 2020. This may be enshrined in a legal framework keeping in
consideration the mammoth dimension of the task, the levels of required coordination between the
Union and State Governments and the diverse field situations in which it would be implemented. b.
The legal framework should, inter alia, include provisions regarding: i. Definition of e-Governance,
its objectives and role in the Indian context; ii. Parliamentary oversight mechanism; iii. Mechanism
for co-ordination between government organizations at Union and State levels; iv. Role, functions
and responsibilities of government organizations with regard to e-Governance initiatives, especially
business process re-engineering; v. Financial arrangements; vi. Specifying the requirements of a
strategic control framework for e-Government projects dealing with the statutory and sovereign
functions of government;

Knowledge Management is a process that, continuously and systematically, transfers knowledge

from individuals and teams, who generate them, to the brain of the organisation for the benefit of
the entire organisation. It is the systematic, explicit, and deliberate building, renewal, and
application of knowledge to maximize an enterprises knowledge-related effectiveness and returns
from its knowledge assets. 125 Knowledge Management in an organization involves the following
steps: a. Identification of the knowledge assets within the organization - explicit and tacit b.
Development of these knowledge assets c.capturing and preservation of the knowledge d. Using
and sharing of the knowledge.

The steps of a KM process can be summarized as Knowledge creation Knowledge

capture Knowledge application Knowledge impact measurement