E-Governance

Governance of public administration, systems and utilities has been a subject of debate for quite some time now, particularly in the developing economies. After having used the omnipotent weapon of Information Technology to gain competitive advantage in businesses, IT experts have started focusing on exploiting the potential of Information Technology for the benefit of common man. Political leaders have been eyeing Information Technology as a useful CyberRath, which will take them to the seat of power in the next elections. E-Governance, which promises to make public services inexpensive, responsive, and truly transparent, has been inviting attention from polity, bureaucracy, and the businesses alike, though for different reasons. Most of the Indian states are following the SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive, and Transparent) Model of e-governance. On the flip-side, there are criticisms that most of the sites, which are created by government departments, are dysfunctional, dated, have ineffective links, and do not encourage interactive communication with the population. In nutshell, for implementing a concept like e-governance, there is a total transformation of the public systems and procedures led by a change in the administrative mind-set. In this paper, the author has attempted to review the concept of e-governance; technology requirements and impediments to e-governance; need for re-engineering as a pre-cursor to egovernance; and made certain recommendations for implementing e-governance solutions. The experiences of Indian governments have been used for discussions.