Day 69 – Q 5.What are the limitations of various e-governance models in India? Illustrate with the help of suitable examples.

5. What are the limitations of various e-governance models in India? Illustrate with the help of suitable examples.

भारत में विभिन्न ई–गवर्नेंस मॉडल की सीमाएँ क्या हैं? उपयुक्त उदाहरणों की सहायता से चित्रण करें।

Introduction:

E-governance services can be shared between citizens, business house, government and employees. These four models of e-governance are as –

• Government to citizens 
• Government to government
• Government to employees
• Government to businessman

Body

• Government to citizens (G2C)

This model of e-governance refers to the government services which are shared by citizens. Here, citizens visit to the link of services that they want to use. Type of services which are provided by this model includes –

• Payment of online bills such as electricity, water, telephone bills etc.
• Online registration of applications.
• Copies of land-record.
• Online filling of complaints.
• Availability of any kind of online information.

Some successful initiatives are 

• Computerization of Land Records

• Bhoomi Project in Karnataka for Online Delivery of Land Records
• Gyandoot of Madhya Pradesh with the twin objective of providing relevant information to the rural population and acting as an interface between the district administration and the people. 
• iFRIENDS (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 of Kerala. 

Limitation

• Lack of Literacy and Knowledge – Literacy in India is a key for social-economic progress, and the literacy rate is currently 74.04%. This literacy rate is the reason that acts as a challenging task for the government to implement e-governance in the country.
• Inequality of Income – Inequality of Income plays an important role in proving as a challenge of e-governance. Out of the total population of India 21.9% are below poverty line and half of rural India is under poverty line.
• In general, senior citizens do not have much computer education and they would have to approach a customer service officer for assistance.
• The vulnerability to cybercrimes will raise the question of privacy issues in the mind of the public. There have been incidents in the past where the data collected got completely lost because of the unpredictable problems of the system.
• Connectivity to backward areas – A very large part of India is far away from the basic necessities of life. The connectivity of e-governance to these areas will be challenging task for the government.

Government to government – This model refers to the services which are shared between the governments. Eg: Khajane Project – a comprehensive online treasury computerization project of the Government of Karnataka.

Limitations

• Resistance to Change – It is the human psychology that they do not want to accept change easily. So, this may play a part as a hindrance while implementing e-governance.
• Lack of matured technicians – India is working hard towards creating better technicians day by day. But still, there is lack of matured technicians in the country who can advise the government on technical grounds. 
• Lack of qualified administrators – India is not a very tech-savvy country and so is the administration. So, there is a lack of qualified administrators in the country, who are not very techno-friendly.

Government to businessmen – Through this model, bond between private sector and government increase and businessmen use to communicate. The general information shared through this model are Collection of taxes, rejection and approval of patent, payment of bills and penalty, sharing of all kind of information, rules and data etc. eg – MCA21 of Ministry of corporate Affairs for providing easy and secure online access to all registry related services; e-Procurement Project in Andhra Pradesh etc

Limitations

• Frequent changes in technology – The technology is the most dynamic field that keeps on changing every minute. The e-governance is all best on technology, so it will be a challenge for the government to keep pace with every changing technology.
• Political affairs – Politics have now turned to a blame game instead of making good decisions for the community. The opposition parties instead of supporting the decision of e-governance will always oppose it for the purpose of showing the negative side of the ruling party.

Government to employees – This model increases the transparency between government and its employee. Here, employee can keeps a check on the functioning and working of government and government can keeps on its employees.

Limitation 

• Resistance to Change – It is the human psychology that they do not want to accept change easily. So, this may play a part as a hindrance while implementing e-governance.
• Lack of matured technicians – India is working hard towards creating better technicians day by day. But still, there is lack of matured technicians in the country who can advise the government on technical grounds.
• The vulnerability to cybercrimes will raise the question of privacy issues in the mind of the public. There have been incidents in the past where the data collected got completely lost because of the unpredictable problems of the system.

Conclusion

We have seen how the concept of e-governance and m-governance has evolved in Indian scenario and how much it is required for transparency and accountability on the part of government and at the same time it is also a toll to increase the participation of people in policy making by empowering them with the right information at right time.