e-Governance
Governance refers to “all of processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market or network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization or territory and whether through the laws, norms, power or language. It relates to the processes of interaction and decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem that lead to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of social norms and institutions.”
A variety of entities (known generically as governing bodies) can govern. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a given geopolitical system (such as a state) by establishing laws. Other types of governing include an organization (such as a corporation recognized as a legal entity by a government), a socio-political group (chiefdom, tribe, family, religious denomination, etc.), or another, informal group of people. In business and outsourcing relationships, governance frameworks are built into relational contracts that foster long-term collaboration and innovation. Poor governance can lead to contract failure.
Governance is the way the rules, norms and actions are structured, sustained, regulated and held accountable. The degree of formality depends on the internal rules of a given organization and, externally, with its business partners. As such, governance may take many forms, driven by many different motivations and with many different results. For instance, a government may operate as a democracy where citizens vote on who should govern and the public good is the goal, while a non-profit organization may be governed by a small board of directors and pursue more specific aims. In addition, a variety of external actors without decision-making power can influence the process of governing. These include lobbies, political parties, and the media.
Like government, the word governance derives from the Greek verb kubernáo (meaning to steer, the metaphorical sense first being attested in Plato)[1]. However, the use of the term governance in its current broader sense, encompassing the activities of a wide range of public and private institutions, acquired general currency only as recently as the 1990s, when it was rechristened by economists and political scientists and disseminated by institutions such as the UN, IMF and the likes.
Electronic governance or e-governance is the application of information and communication technology (ICT) for delivering government services. Theses service include exchange of information, communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and services between government-to-customer (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G) as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government framework. Through e-governance, it is envisaged that the government services will be made available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. The three main target groups that can be distinguished in governance concepts are government, citizens and businesses/interest groups.
Generally four basic models are available – government-to-citizen (customer), government-to-business, government-to-government and government-to-employees.
Both terms e-Governance and e-Government are treated to be the same; however, there is a difference between the two. “e-Government” is the use of the ICTs in public administration – combined with organizational change and new skills – to improve public services and democratic processes and to strengthen support to public. The problem in this definition to be congruence definition of e-Governance is that there is no provision for governance of ICTs. As a matter of fact, the governance of ICTs require most probably a substantial increase in regulation and policy-making capabilities, with all the expertise and opinion-shaping processes along the various social stakeholders of these concerns. So, the perspective of the e-Governance is “the use of the technologies that both help governing and have to be governed”. Many countries are looking forward to a corruption-free government. e-Government is one-way communication protocol whereas e-Governance is two-way communication protocol. The essence of e-Governance is to reach the beneficiary and ensure that the services intended to reach the desired individual has been met with. There should be an auto-response to support the essence of e-Governance, whereby the Government realizes the efficacy of its governance. e-Governance is by the governed, for the governed and of the governed. Establishing the identity of the end beneficiary is a challenge in all citizen-centric services. Statistical information published by governments and world bodies being aggregate measures, do not always reveal the facts. The best form of e-Governance cuts down on unwanted interference of too many layers while delivering government services. It depends on good infrastructural setup with the support of local processes and parameters for governments to reach their citizens or end beneficiaries.
e-Governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in the mid 1990s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. The major ICT initiatives of the Government included, inter alia, some major projects such as railway computerization, land record computerization, etc. which focused mainly on the development of information systems. Later on, many states started ambitious individual e-governance projects aimed at providing electronic services to citizens.
Though these e-governance projects were citizen-centric, they could make less than the desired impact due to their limited features. The isolated and less interactive systems revealed major gaps that were thwarting the successful adoption of e-governance along the entire spectrum of governance. They clearly pointed towards the need for a more comprehensive planning and implementation for the infrastructure required to be put in place, interoperability issues to be addressed, etc. to establish a more connected government.
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