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.