India s Administrative Reforms Commission on E...
Transcript of India s Administrative Reforms Commission on E...
India’s Administrative Reforms Commission on E-governance:
Call for E-governance for All by 2020
Dr D.C.MISRA*
Realising the need to revamp the public administration, Department of Administrative
Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India appointed a commission
of inquiry, called the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (SARC) “to prepare a
detailed blueprint for revamping the public administration system” on August 31, 2005.
The commission is required “to suggest measures to achieve a proactive, responsive,
accountable, sustainable and efficient administration for the country at all levels of the
government.” The commission will, inter alia, consider (ix) Citizen-centric
administration, and (x) Promoting e-governance.
Promoting E-governance
E-governance promotion is based on two important planks: (a) To reduce red-tape, delay
and inconveniences through technology interventions including the use of modern tools,
techniques and instruments of e-governance, and (b) Promote knowledge sharing to
realise continuous improvement in the quality of governance (ibid.).
The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (SARC) has now released its much-
awaited report on e-governance entitled “Promoting e-Governance: The SMART Way
Forward” (eleventh report; December 2008) on January 25, 2009 in New Delhi. The
Commission needs to be congratulated for placing its entire report online
(http://arc.gov.in/11threp/ARC_11th_report.htm) and that too immediately after its
release thus making it accessible to a large number of people. The Department of
Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India too
needs to be congratulated for specifically including the item of “Promoting e-
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governance” for consideration of the commission showing Department’s commitment to
the cause of e-governance.
E-governance for All by 2020 Recognising the importance of e-governance, the Second Administrative Reforms
Commission (SARC) has given a call for making e-governance available to all by 2020.
The Commission, among other things, has recommended that “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.”
Recommendations The Commission has summed up its recommendations in wide-ranging 17 categories. In
Category 1: Building a Congenial Environment, the Commission has recommended
“Providing political support at the highest level” for successful implementation of e-
governance initiatives. In Category 2: Identification of E-governance Projects and
Prioritisation, the Commission has categorized e-governance initiatives into five
categories ranging from simple (provision of information) to complex (creation and
integration of complex databases). In Category 3: Business Process Re-engineering, the
Commission has recommended: “…….governmental forms, processes and structures
should be re-designed to make them adaptable to e-Governance, backed by procedural,
institutional and legal changes.” In Category 4. Capacity Building and Creating
Awareness, the Commission has rightly laid emphasis on training, and in particular has
recommended: “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.”
In Category 5: Developing Technological Solutions the Commission has laid emphasis
on ‘enterprise architecture’ framework, observing “There is a need to develop a national
e-Governance ‘enterprise architecture’ framework as has been done in some countries.”
In Category 6: Implementation, an important category as e-governance projects are
known to fail quite frequently, in addition to familiar observations on project
management the focus is on websites and change management, two items important in
their own right. In Category 7: Monitoring and Evaluation, the Commission makes
routine observations. In Category 8: Institutional Framework for Coordination and
Sharing of Resources/Information, the Commission urges that the “Departments of
Information Technology at the Union and State Government levels should provide
institutional support to other departments and organizations in implementation of e-
Governance projects identified and conceptualized by them.” In Category 9: Public-
Private Partnership (PPP), the Commission recommends that “Several components of e-
Governance projects lend themselves to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. In
all such cases (PPP) should be the preferred mode.”
In Category 10: Protecting Critical Information Infrastructure Assets, the Commission
recommends “There is need to develop a critical information infrastructure assets
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protection strategy. This should be supplemented with improved analysis and warning
capabilities as well as improved information sharing on threats and vulnerabilities.” In
Category 11: The Common Support Infrastructure, the Commission re-iterates the
recommendation of the Standing Committee on Information Technology in its 58th
Report, that “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.” In Category 12: Mission Mode Projects, the
Commission makes a number of recommendations including use of annual performance
appraisal report for recording performance in e-governance.
In Category 13: Mission Mode Project on Computerisation of Land Records, the
Commission has recommended that “Surveys and measurements need to be carried out in
a mission mode utilizing modern technology to arrive at a correct picture of land holdings
and land parcels and rectification of outdated maps.” In Category 14: Passport & Visa
MMP, the Commission has recommended: “The entire passport issue process needs to be
put on an e-Governance mode in phases.” In Category 16: Legal Framework for e-
Governance, the Commission makes a far-reaching recommendation: “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.” In last Category 17: Knowledge Management, the
Commission has recommended: “Union and State Governments should take proactive
measures for establishing Knowledge Management systems as a pivotal step for
administrative reforms in general and e-Governance in particular.”
A Summing Up The Second Administrative Reforms Commission, set up in 2005, nearly four decades
after the first was set up in 1966, was required to consider “Promoting e-governance” and
“suggest measures to achieve a proactive, responsive, accountable and efficient
administration for the country at all levels of the government.” No doubt it was a tall
order. Yet it was also a major opportunity to promote the cause of e-governance
countrywide at all levels of the government. The report turns out to be a disappointment
making recommendations on various aspects of e-governance already currently under
implementation. Many of its recommendations are also incomplete.
For example, the Commission makes a salutary but incomplete recommendation on
training. While Commission’s focus on training is right, it is not clear as to what it hads
in mind while recommending creation of a network of training institutions with the
Administrative Training Institutes (ATIs) at the apex as it has not spelled out which
training institutes will constitute the network within the state and why. In fact, it is
unnecessary to set up any training institution at sub-state level as a capable ATI can, and
should, provide training online in the language of the state. More importantly, the
Commission is silent on e-governance training capability at the national level including
the performance of National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), Hyderabad and other
Centres for E-governance which have been or proposed to be set up as in matters like
these states often look to the Centre for guidance.
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Similarly the Commission has suggested development of a national e-Governance
‘enterprise architecture’ framework but this is already being done by National
Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi. The Commission has missed the valuable
opportunity of getting some of important websites independently evaluated to see if they
are meeting their stated objectives and trying to bring some order to what is fast
becoming an unregulated jungle of websites with accompanying waste of scarce public
resources. In evaluation, no suggestion has been made for any assessment of the
functioning of project management unit (PMU) for the National E-governance Plan
(NEGP), nor of the evaluation studies carried out so far, nor for that matter, evaluation
assessment framework (EAF) Version 2.0.
On computerisation of land records, the Commission has not specified the technology it
has in mind (satellite imagery? remote sensing? geographical information system (GIS)?)
nor has it mentioned of good work done by the Centre and states. Also it has mixed up
rural and urban land records, each of which has separate requirement. No attempt has
been made to compare and contrast deeds registration and Torrens system as a result of
which citizens continue to be burdened with the onus of proving ownership of land
resulting in heavy litigation. There is no mention about chip-based e-passport scheme
launched in June 2008 with e-passport likely to be made available from May 2009.
What was wanted was a close knit, clearly articulated, “action plan” for promoting e-
governance countrywide. A major opportunity to treat e-governance as a prime mover of
administrative reforms has thus been lost. With elections to Indian Parliament round the
corner, various political parties will soon draft their election manifestos. They owe it to
their electorate to include “promotion of e-governance” as an important item in their
election manifestos. This opportunity must not be missed. It must be seized in the interest
of e-governance so that interests of citizens are better served whether they relate to public
policy, regulation, public service delivery or development. In case this opportunity is also
lost then Commission’s well-meaning call for e-governance for all by 2020 may
degenerate into a mere slogan.
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*Independent E-governance Researcher and Consultant and former Chairman, Task
Force for IT Policy for Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, New Delhi,
India. Email: dc_misra[at] hotmail.com.