Step Closer to Digitization

By: Raj Pareek

E-governance possesses the potential to offer citizen the choice of accessing government information and services as and when required. The rules, procedures in the government can be made transparent to the citizen and the information can be made freely available to them.

But all efforts at e-governance would be futile if information is not available to the key people of administration and a common user as and where required. In order to do so mobile communication system can play a very important role in providing information as and where required as in the recent survey only 25% of rural population is penetrated and there is huge scope to bring the common man close to the policies available and to avail benefits of the same, and internet usage is much lesser.

"Digital India" initiative, the urban-rural divide is actually more acute than it appears when it comes to Internet penetration across the country, a new report said on Tuesday.

While Internet penetration in urban India was at 64.84 per cent in December 2017 compared to 60.6% in December 2016, the rural Internet penetration has grown only a little -- from 18% in 2016 to 20.26% in December 2017.

"Even through the growth rate in rural India may seem higher, it is mainly due to low-base effect, given total Internet users in rural India are still critically low," said the report titled "Internet in India 2017" released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and market research firm IMRB Kantar.

An estimated 182.9 mn urban users access Internet daily as compared to 98 mn users in rural India. 

Almost double the proportion of rural users access Internet less than a month in rural India as compared to urban India.

"The number of Internet users are growing in rural areas, yet the bridge between urban and rural is vast. There are potential 732 million new Internet users in rural India.

"The bridge can be divided if adequate infrastructure is put in place, and the last-mile connectivity is improved. Putting in place adequate infrastructure is essential to have deeper Internet penetration in rural areas," he added.

According to the report, the skewedness of the Internet is further proven by the fact that the top nine cities account for 35 per cent of all urban Internet users. 

Number of internet users in India 462m

Active mobile social media penetration in India -15%

The rural Internet penetration has grown only a little -- from 18 per cent in 2016 to 20.26 per cent in December 2017, This is worrisome.

The private telecom operators and the system integrators should be allowed and encouraged  to use the existing infrastructure which is already in place in the rural sector like we have more than 7 thousand railway stations which can really help in providing broadband connectivity and data centers, we have lacs of cooperative societies in the country which can be used  as micro finance institutions (MFI) and with 1,55,618 post offices and over 5,66,000 employees we can really do wonders in each and every mission mode project., we should utilize our strengths and involve all the relevant institutions and companies to come forward and deliver.

All the 3 departments Railways, Postal and Cooperative is very close to the rural population and people believe and trust on these departments and by having these 3 strong pillars the objectives can be well achieved.

We should develop simple applications which can be easily understood by the rural citizen and at the same point of time he should be attracted towards the technology and should start believing in the mobile technology that this can do much more than only connecting them through voice.

This can also help in bringing down the level of corruption because most of the thing will be transparent and close to people, filling up information on mobile getting triggers on all the schemes, the money getting transferred through mobile in there accounts, availing facility of loan, PDS etc. through mobile will bring a revolution and this time it will be much bigger then any one’s expectation, a collective and cooperative effort is required.

Mobile phones provide a new platform through which rural communities will be able to access government information and services, using text, data, and audio browsing techniques

This study explains architecture for the E-Government system; its main concepts, objectives, most common applications, famous worldwide experiences and the E-Government in India. It introduces the E-Government model as a modern evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and how to convert the life of societies to the communication and networked age. It presents the experiences of countries like USA, UK, Singapore, UAE and Egypt.

E-Government can be defined as a process of conducting business between the public and the government through the use of automated systems and the Internet network  . Its main objectives can be categorized according to the promising benefits each government provides to citizens, businesses and other governmental agencies. The main benefits E-Government provides for the its citizens are: possibility of providing feedback mechanism from the citizen (service customer) to the government (service provider), citizens’ ability to receive customized and personalized services, possibility to shorten the delivery time by a great deal and ability to access individual or company information. For the businesses side, governments mainly focus on offering government ecommerce and e-procurement initiatives, opening communication between the public and private sectors and providing huge cost savings and lower transaction costs for most businesses. There are different kinds of objectives each government aims at achieving within its internal architecture. These benefits can be: new ways to integrate databases and networking websites, new tools to support horizontal services (like electronic payments, online auctions, customer relationship management and geographic information) and a new vision to realize important efficiency gains and work more effectively with each other.

E-Government initiative is one of the most important topics relates to E-Government planning and implementation. Determining the initiatives of EGovernment is assumed to be the common starting point for planning. However, these initiatives vary widely from one government to another . Globally approved, there are three main initiatives for Egovernance:

Policy environment to make sure that all previous stages are safely tested with no security or privacy conflicts.

The next generation Internet stage that will explore all the above stages on the World Wide Web (WWW) using the most recently updated technologies in this domain.

Achieving these milestones creates competitive advantage in both becoming E-Government and running it. The milestones are contributing to the cumulative attainment of each other. The United Nations Development Program UNDP has proposed four main stages in E-Government implementation listed below.

Exchange of values, in which websites allow an exchange of values to take place as government agencies interact directly with clients online, including recording and storing sensitive information. * Integrated services and exchange, in which there is portal that integrates ranges of government services based on needs and functions, not on department or agencies.

We are moving on from Information Technology (IT) to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and from Information Technology (IT) to Information System (IS)  . The penetration of ICT in all facets of human existence is leading to changes in the way humans interact within the society and the way societies involve individuals in the evolution process. The ICT can influence the process of governance in various ways and in varying degrees, from improving the current mechanisms of delivery of services to transforming the entire mechanism and the nature of services themselves. The role played could be purely technical in terms of automation of tedious tasks earlier done by humans, facilitating or supportive role leading to more participatory and all encompassing decision making and implementation processes, or completely innovative role which involves new services and new mechanisms to deliver these services.

EXPERIENCED E-GOVERNMENTS.

Several worldwide experiences in E-Government systems have been noticed during the last few years. Some of these experiences are mature and advance and some are still in the beginning stages. The USA, UK and Singapore E-Government efforts, in addition to two Arab promising works in UAE and Egypt are viewed in details below.

Getting people online. Getting online is being made easy with a range of training and help available. The UK online centers will offer access and support in local communities, businesses and the high street to people who are new to the Internet and other technologies. * Helping people succeed in online business to ensure that business is ready for the future of enterprise. The government is devoting considerable resources to support small and medium sized firms.

The Government Secure Intranet (GSI) launched in 1998 provides secure electronic mail and web browsing between all major central government organizations, improving the quality and timeliness of communications. Applications already established for the GSI include the Agenda, Electronic Parliamentary Questions and the Knowledge Network.

The Government Gateway is the centralized registration service for E-Government services in the UK . It is being developed. It will connect single points of access including the UK online Citizen Portal to back office of the IT infrastructures in Departments, so that transactional services can be delivered directly to citizens. It aims to produce significant benefits in terms of the ease and the efficiency of using online public services and will establish common standards of security. A key aim is to ensure that local government services are integrated into the portal and Gateway as these projects are taken forward  . Registering with the Government Gateway enables you to sign up for any of the UK Government’s services that are available over the Internet. When you have completed the registration process, you will be able to use a single User ID or digital certificate to send and receive forms, such as tax returns. Such forms can be sent using appropriate Government websites, portals, or third party software packages.

The Singapore Government website is the official Internet gateway of the Singapore Government. It is the first-level portal within which all other Government portals and websites reside. It enables the public to locate Government information and services on the web through a top-level directory and search function. The Singapore E-Government vision  is "To be a leading E-Government to better serve the nation in the digital economy." The UAE and Egypt are accepted. Currently, there is a lack to the minimum characteristics of the implementation of E-Government. For example, the Ministry of Finance and Industry (MFI) in UAE is responsible for fiscal, monetary and industrial policies and for their performances. The MFI has been given the task to implement reforms within the Federal Government. The UNDP has appointed a special group to undertake this task together with the staff form the Ministry. These improvements are in line with the efforts to implement ISO 9000 and improve the human major contribution to economic development through assisting Jordanian business in reducing their operating costs by providing immediate access to government information and procurement.

Improving government processes: EAdministration initiatives deal with improving the internal workings of the public sector. They include cutting process costs, managing process performance, making strategic connections in government and creating empowerment within the government architecture.

* Connecting citizens: E-Citizens and E-Services initiatives deal with the relationship between government and citizens, either as voters and stakeholders from whom the public sector derives its legitimacy, or as customers who consume public services. They also include a broader remit like talking to citizens, listening to citizens and improving public services.

* Building interactions with and within civil society: E-Society initiatives deal with the relationship between public agencies and other institutions such as public agencies, private sector service providers, nonprofit and community organizations. It also deals with the relationship among civil society institutions. They also include a broader remit like working better with business, developing communities and building partnerships within the country  . The IBM E-Government Seven Milestones:

* The integration process to found a general vision for the whole system. * The economic development to manage the related financial issues.

* E-democracy to formalize the government democratic architecture into electronic one.

* E-communities to move towards the fully digital societies. * Intergovernmental processes to connect all the governmental agencies with each other into strongly connected governmental architecture.

There are several objectives or goals most EGovernment implementations try to achieve but in different orders according to the country local conditions. The most important objectives are: improving the quality of E-Government services, increasing the transparency of government, improving the responsiveness of the government, creating a positive spin-off effect on the society and improving the efficiency in the government processe.

Most of the main services of mature E-Government efforts are implemented in USA, UK and Singapore. These services are like Government to Citizens (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G).

Most federal, state and local government agencies have had some sort of presence on the web for some time, such as providing information about the role of the agency, published reports, printable forms and data files. An E-Government service allows the public to initiate a request for a particular government service and then receive that government service through the website. The government service is delivered without the public going into a government office or having a direct in-person or telephone contact with a government employee. The E-Government in USA consists of both the ability for the public to interact sufficiently with government to receive a service and the government to sufficiently interact with the public to provide a service.

Common state e-government services

* Filing personal income tax return.

* Reserving a campsite in a state park.

* Applying for a state fishing or hunting license.

* Renewing a professional license.

* Submitting employment information.

* Registering a complaint against a business or professional licensee.

* Renewing a driver's license

The UK online (ukonline.gov.uk) will provide an easy to use, trusted and personalized service allowing the citizen to deal with government on a one-to-one basis, whilst presenting government as an integrated organization. It aims to be the citizen's personal window on government and the preferred method for the public to engage with the public sector. The Government Portal delivers a major element of the government's Information Age agenda.

The UK online is a national initiative to get every individual, business and community online, involving three main strands of activity listed below.

Providing easy access to government information and services, such as providing a single point of access to all government information and services available online. The site will be developed to provide a customizable front end for citizens to tailor what they see to their personal needs. resource capacity within the government. The MFI releases the Smart Card to be used for the fees of the government ministries services. A very promising EGovernment experience in the United Arab Emirates and in the whole Arab World is Dubai Portal Online. The main vision of Dubai E-Government is to ease the lives of people and businesses interacting with the Government and contribute in establishing Dubai as a leading economic hub  . Through the Government Portal visitors, they can complete all services offered by departments within the Emirate of Dubai by two methods.

Online services: Services that are available online have been listed and can be accessed from the search box on the government portal, or by visiting the service page of the relevant department if the department is known. If the department offering this service is unknown, the service can be accessed through Services for Residents, Services for Visitors and Services for Businesses.

Offline services: To offer visitors services that are currently unavailable offline. A comprehensive list of services and the required documents needed to complete these services have been compiled and made available to the public.

Visitors can access the necessary forms from within the portal, complete them and send them to the relevant departments. Some acts are to be considered for the Dubai case:  First, the use of Internet by Dubai Ports and Customers Authority allows thousands of freight transport companies to reduce time and cost with 24 hour access to customs clearance services. Second, the overhaul of government services offered to business and individuals in Dubai is estimated to reduce administrative costs by at least 10%.

The cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) is leading Egypt's campaign to establish an electronic government and it already has a comprehensive E-Government plan in the works. In Egypt, there is a website supplying a commodity as precious as water: Accurate information. Anyone attempting to negotiate Egypt's bureaucracy will appreciate a resource explaining how to get services, where to go and what to bring along. To access this information, however, you need to be able to read Arabic or enlist the aid of someone who does.