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Book Review
Assessing the impact of e-governance
SHYAM RANGANATHAN
UNLOCKING E-GOVERNMENT POTENTIAL — Concepts, Cases and Practical Insights: Subhash Bhatnagar; Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., B1/I-1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area, Mathura Road, New Delhi-110044. Rs. 450.
E-governance, broadly, is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in governance mechanisms. It is widely perceived as essential for efficient governance. But, beyond the obvious necessity for any society to absorb technological change and anecdotal reports of “success” in some projects, the actual impact of e-governance on citizens needs to be presented carefully to facilitate a systematic adoption. Subhash Bhatnagar, member, National Adviso
ry Group on E-governance, notes that a 2003 survey suggested that only 15 per cent of e-governance projects the world over were successful and that, in India, in spite of massive spending, hardly five per cent of government agencies provide e-governance services, and the failed projects are rarely documented thoroughly.
In this book, Bhatnagar points out the inadequacy of impact assessment methodologies (if they exist at all) used to measure project performance. Restricting himself to “e-government” — the subset of e-governance mechanisms dealing with the delivery of government services — he discusses a number of cases and provides a methodology to assess the impact of these and any future projects.
Catalyst
Bhatnagar emphasises that e-government cannot be a panacea for social ills like poverty and corruption, but he places enormous faith in its ability to act as a catalyst and as one of the drivers of development. Although most e-government schemes have an urban focus, he asserts that the political and social commitment to rural development can be accommodated in them.
Services provided at the villager’s doorstep via the e-governance route can presumably cut out the inherent social biases. A computer generating the printout of a land record for a peasant cannot possibly deny service on account of social prejudices or in expectation of a bribe.
However, the author notes that not all such rural (and, for that matter, urban) e-government schemes have been successful.
Schemes successful in some States in India have failed in others and he attributes the failures to a host of factors such as the absence of standards and infrastructure, the lack of local language interfaces, the resistance of civil servants to change, the absence of a political will to reform, and the institutional incapacity to absorb change. But, beyond such factors, people with a shared background are still needed to operationalise e-government systems designed to replace inefficient manual systems, and there might be no social imperative for the technological change, both causes ultimately resulting in similar effects.
As the author himself remarks, for a service to be successful it should match real user needs — “Villagers are not enamoured of electronic delivery.”
Case studies
Bhatnagar’s case studies suggest that, for a tangibly successful scheme, an enlightened political establishment, a technology-savvy and committed bureaucracy, a sound legal framework — he mentions the importance of the Right to Information Act in enhancing the success of some e-government schemes— and a design methodology that anticipates a real need and involves the users in feedback would all be necessary. Above all, there is the need for sufficient investments in infrastructure and training and a methodology to measure the gains. A useful read for any student of policy-making in an increasingly technology-driven world, the book attempts to make a strong case for ICT to be considered as essential as other forms of infrastructure.
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