Subject: - ISEE Unit-3

Leveraging Information Systems

Information System and Project Management Refer:- What is Data and Information? What is Information system and its definition etc… What is Project? How to Manage Project? LifeCycle of Project Phases? Etc. Refer

Managing data Resources:

Please visit:- grail.cba.csuohio.edu/~sanchita/ist305/classnotes/Ch3a.ppt

Business Process Integration and Enterprise System

Please visit:- http://www.ijcce.org/papers/89-T0047.pdf

Case Study- UIDAI Unique Identification Authority of India.

The case focuses on the Aadhaar project that was initiated by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), a coalition of central-political left parties heading the Government of India (GoI), under the guidance of Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh (Singh), to provide identity to the 1.2 billion citizens of India. The project aimed to plug loopholes in welfare programs where checking leakages and identifying beneficiaries was a major challenge. With an Aadhaar, there was an absolute guarantee that no two people would have the same Aadhaar, and it could not be duplicated either.

Aadhaar previously called as the Unique identification (UID) project was the 12 digit identification number provided by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on behalf of the GoI. The number served as proof of address and identity for citizens anywhere in India. In June 2009, Nandan Nilekani (Nilekani), former CEO of Infosys Technologies Limited was invited by Singh to head the Aadhaar project and was roped in with the rank of a union cabinet minister as the Chairperson of the UIDAI. In September 2010, the Aadhaar project was launched by Singh and UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi (Gandhi) in Tembhali village in Maharashtra. The launch signified UIDAI's core initiative of giving the poor and marginalized in India an easily verifiable and mobile identity. Having invited Nilekani, Singh had given him full autonomy during the implementation of the Aadhaar project. Nilekani was also given a free hand by Singh to recruit good talent and form his core team. Nilekani initiated the Aadhaar project by launching a pilot project in Karnataka, in October 2010. The success of the pilot project prompted the UIDAI to roll out the Aadhaar project in other states of India. Since the initiation of the Aadhaar, Nilekani received opposition from several quarters - mainly from cabinet colleagues, bureaucrats, policy experts, activists, and a few state governments. The Finance Ministry of India opposed that the Aadhaar would result in duplication of expenditure since the National Population Register (NPR) led by the Home Ministry was also responsible for making a comprehensive identity database. The Home Ministry questioned the security of biometrics and expressed concerns over how the confidential data would be protected. The Planning Commission said that the UIDAI structure was against government procedures. On the positive side, some policy makers felt that Singh's decision to recruit Nilekani proved to be appropriate since Nilekani had retained immense goodwill amongst the stakeholders involved. Moreover, the autonomy given to Nilekani by Singh led him to prove the viability of the project. The divided views over the Aadhaar project raised doubts whether the project would be trashed and Nilekani would step down from the post of the Chairman of the UIDAI. The debate over duplication of data and security concerns raised by the Home Ministry came to an end after Singh intervened. In January 2012, Singh in a meeting with Planning Commission Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Ahluwalia), Home Minister, P Chidambaram, and Nilekani concluded that the Aadhaar would be given an extended mandate of collecting biometric data of another 400 million residents in India. While the UIDAI was instructed to enroll 600 million residents across 16 states and Union Territories, the remaining 600 million residents would be recorded by the Registrar General as part of the NPR. The NPR and the UIDAI would then share the biometric data and de-duplicate the data to form a comprehensive biometric database. Nilekani's performance in successfully steering this challenging project was being keenly watched as it was one of the rare instances where the Government had entrusted a project of this magnitude to a corporate leader. Having achieved the initial breakthrough and scored early successes it was to be seen how he would overcome the new challenges and scale up the project.

Issues:

» Analyze the efforts by UPA and Singh in launching the Aadhaar project » Understand the initiatives undertaken by Nilekani in launching the Aadhaar project and making it a success » Understand the issues and challenges faced by Nilekani during the implementation of the Aadhaar project » Understand the dilemma faced by the GoI in taking the Aadhaar project forward

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority established under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 (“Aadhaar Act 2016”) on 12 July 2016 by the Government of India, under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Prior to its establishment as a statutory authority, UIDAI was functioning as an attached office of the then Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog) vide its Gazette Notification No.-A-43011/02/2009-Admn.I) dated 28th January, 2009. Later, on 12 September 2015, the Government revised the Allocation of Business Rules to attach the UIDAI to the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) of the then Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

UIDAI was created with the objective to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as "Aadhaar", to all residents of India that is (a) robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and (b) can be verified and authenticated in an easy, cost-effective way. The first UID number was issued on 29 September 2010 to a resident of Nandurbar, Maharashtra. The Authority has so far issued more than 111 crore Aadhaar numbers to the residents of India.

Under the Aadhaar Act 2016, UIDAI is responsible for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication, including operation and management of all stages of Aadhaar life cycle, developing the policy, procedure and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals and perform authentication and also required to ensure the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.

To learn more about UIDAI, please visit the Background and Organizational Structure sections of the website.

Headquarters (HQ)

At the HQ, the CEO is assisted by seven Deputy Directors General (DDGs), Joint Secretary level

Officers of Government of India, as in-charge of various wings of UIDAI. The DDGs are

supported by Assistant Directors General (ADGs), Deputy Directors, Section Officers and

Assistant Section Officers. The HQ has a total sanctioned strength of 127 officers and staff

members, including the Accounts and IT branches.

Regional Offices (ROs)

Each of the eight Regional Offices of UIDAI is headed by a Deputy Director General (DDG) and

the support structure comprises of Assistant Directors General, Deputy Directors, Section

Officers, Assistant Section Officers, Senior Accounts Officer, Accountant and personal staff

Regional Offices with the covering States and UTs under their jurisdiction are listed below:

Regional Offices

(ROs) States and Union Territories covered by the RO

RO Bengaluru Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Naidu, Pondicherry, Lakshadweep

RO Chandigarh Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and UT of

Chandigarh

RO Delhi Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan

RO Guwahati Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram,

Tripura and Sikkim

RO Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar

RO Lucknow Uttar Pradesh

RO Mumbai Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu

RO Ranchi Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal

Enrolment & Update Ecosystem

Enrolment Ecosystem consists of Registrars and Enrolment Agencies. Registrar is an entity authorised or recognized by UIDAI for the purpose of enrolling individuals. Enrolment Agencies are appointed by Registrars and are responsible for collecting demographic and biometric information of individuals during the enrolment process by engaging certified Operators/Supervisors.

In co-ordination with the Registrars, the Enrolment Agencies set up Enrolment Centres, where residents can enrol for Aadhaar. Multiple fingerprint scanners, iris scanners, and cameras used for enrolment are certified by STQC and UIDAI, and all connect to the UIDAI designed standard Application Programming Interface (API). Appointment of multiple registrars, multiple enrolment agencies, and multiple technology providers has created an environment of healthy competition within.

Authentication Ecosystem

The UIDAI has set up a scalable ecosystem for the purpose of instant authentication of residents. The Aadhaar authentication ecosystem is capable of handling tens of millions of authentications on a daily basis, and can be scaled up further as per the demand. The UIDAI has appointed a number of Authentication Service Agencies (ASAs) and Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) from various Government and non-Government organisations. The UIDAI, in partnership with STQC, has also laid down the technical standards for biometric devices, and certified a number of them.

Since the authentication service is provided online and in real-time, the UIDAI has also established two data centres where authentication and other online services such as e-KYC are deployed in active-active mode to ensure high availability. Banks and payment network operators have embedded Aadhaar authentication into micro-ATMs in order to provide branch-less banking anywhere in the country in a real-time, scalable and interoperable manner.

What is Aadhaar Authentication?

Aadhaar Authentication means the process by which the Aadhaar number along with the

demographic information or biometric information of a Aadhaar number holder is submitted to

the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for its verification and such repository verifies the

correctness, or the lack thereof, on the basis of the information available with it.

Overview

The Aadhaar number or the authentication thereof shall not, by itself, confer any right of, or be

proof of, citizenship or domicile in respect of an Aadhaar number holder.

Several requesting entities (or service providers) require individuals to submit their identity

proofs that serve as an enabler for providing consumer services, subsidies or benefits. While

collecting such identity proofs, these service providers face challenges in verifying/validating

the correctness of identity information documents or proofs submitted by individuals.

The purpose of Aadhaar Authentication is to provide a digital, online identity platform so that

the identity of Aadhaar number holders can be validated instantly anytime, anywhere.

UIDAI offers Aadhaar-based authentication as a service that can be availed by requesting

entities (government / public and private entities/agencies). This service from UIDAI can be

utilized by the requesting entities to authenticate the identity of their customers / employees /

other associates (based on the match of their personal identity information) before providing

them access to their consumer services / subsidies/ benefits / business functions / premises.

Modes of Authentication. —

An authentication request shall be entertained by the Authority only upon a request

sent by a requesting entity electronically in accordance with these regulations and

conforming to the specifications laid down by the Authority.

Authentication may be carried out through the following modes:

o Demographic authentication: The Aadhaar number and demographic

information of the Aadhaar number holder obtained from the Aadhaar number

holder is matched with the demographic information of the Aadhaar number

holder in the CIDR.

o One-time pin based authentication: A One Time Pin (OTP), with limited time

validity, is sent to the mobile number and/ or e-mail address of the Aadhaar

number holder registered with the Authority, or generated by other appropriate

means. The Aadhaar number holder shall provide this OTP along with his

Aadhaar number during authentication and the same shall be matched with the

OTP generated by the Authority.

o Biometric-based authentication: The Aadhaar number and biometric information

submitted by an Aadhaar number holder are matched with the biometric

information of the said Aadhaar number holder stored in the CIDR. This may be

fingerprints-based or iris-based authentication or other biometric modalities

based on biometric information stored in the CIDR.

o Multi-factor authentication: A combination of two or more of the above modes

may be used for authentication.

A requesting entity may choose suitable mode(s) of authentication from the modes

specified in sub-regulation (2) for a particular service or business function as per its

requirement, including multiple factor of authentication for enhancing security. For the

avoidance of doubt, it is clarified that e-KYC authentication shall only be carried out

using OTP and/ or biometric authentication.

Obtaining Aadhaar number holder’s Consent for Authentication

The Central / State Government may, for the purpose of establishing the identity of individual

as a condition for receipt of subsidy, benefit or service require that such individual undergo

authentication, or furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or in the case of an individual

to whom no Aadhaar number has been assigned, such individual makes an application for

enrolment of Aadhaar.

If an Aadhaar number is not assigned to an individual, the individual shall be offered alternate

and viable means of identification for delivery of subsidy, benefit or service.

In compliance with Aadhaar Act, all requesting entities or service providers shall

unless otherwise provided in the Act, obtain the consent of an individual before

collecting his/her identity information for the purpose of authentication in such manner

as mandated by UIDAI’s policy and regulations.

ensure that the identity information of an individual is only used for submission to the

CIDR for authentication.

Nothing contained in this Aadhaar Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing

the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or anybody corporate or

person, pursuant by law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect.

Provided that the use of Aadhaar number shall be subject to the procedure and obligations

under section 8 and Chapter VI of the Act.

Authentication Services

The authentication service is provided in online and real-time manner by UIDAI through its two

data centres i.e. Hebbal Data Centre (HDC) and Manesar Data Centre (MDC) where online

services for authentication and other services such as e-KYC are deployed in active-active mode

to ensure high availability of services.

The UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repositotry (CIDR) is currently capable of handling tens of

millions of authentications on a daily basis, and can be scaled up further as demand increases.

Many requesting entities that provide services to Aadhaar number holders have integrated

Aadhaar into their domain applications for improved service delivery anywhere in the country

in a real-time, scalable, interoperable manner.

Case Study-Cloud based ERP(SaaS Platform)

What is Cloud ERP Software?

Cloud-based computing (“the Cloud”) is one of the leading technology topics in the world.

Cloud computing, sometimes called on-demand computing, uses the Internet to provide shared

computing resources and storage of records or documents. The term covers everything from

emailing or photo sharing on a commercial service like Google to hosting the entire computing

infrastructure of a global corporation from remote data centers. For more insight, a formal US

government definition of cloud computing is provided from the National Institute of Standards

(NIST).

Cloud ERP, often called Cloud-based ERP, enables a company’s accounting, operations

management and reporting to run in the cloud. As one would expect, Cloud ERP vendors vary

significantly in their technology, functionality, and service. After researching ERP Cloud vendors,

it becomes clear that they have few things in common beyond hosting of an application and

utilizing the internet to provide connectivity. Acumatica is one of the few vendors that offer a

true ERP Cloud solution.

The Cloud is particularly valuable to small and medium-size businesses (SMB’s) because it

provides access to full-function applications at a reasonable price without substantial operating

expenditure for hardware and software. Using the correct cloud provider, a company can

rapidly scale as their business grows or a new company is added.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud ERP has been proven to reduce costs in many ways because it

Avoids upfront costs for all computing infrastructure such as hardware and data servers

Reduces IT support services because IT is in the cloud

Eliminates paying upfront for application software licenses

Shrinks the cost of maintaining and supporting those applications since the cloud vendor

handles the updates and upgrades

The most important benefits of Cloud ERP go beyond cost-savings and include

Paying only for the computing resources needed

A fixed monthly rate so companies can use their cash on other business initiatives

Taking advantage of Cloud ERP applications faster since installation of hardware and

software on servers or user devices is not required

The ability to adjust the amount of cloud service as a company’s computing or storage

needs fluctuate

Enjoying the confidence that the data has been backed up and there is a disaster

recovery plan

Avoiding attacks on the company’s server because the data in not stored locally, but in

the cloud

Accessing the system from anywhere makes it easy for a company to expand

geographically since the Internet is everywhere and there is no need to implement

hardware and software at remote locations

Learn more about the benefits of cloud computing by reading this report from the Aberdeen

Group, a highly respected industry analyst firm, entitled “Improve Your Midmarket Business

Operations with Cloud Applications”. It provides statistics on improvements that have been

achieved by using the Cloud.

At its most basic, cloud computing is all about renting processing resources and storage rather

than buying and maintaining them in-house (on-premise). It may come as a surprise to some,

but this is not a new concept. In the 1970’s, service firms used large mainframes to run

applications and provide data storage for other companies that would rent those computer

resources and storage space. This was called “time-sharing”.

Time-sharing was expensive and fell out of favor once the price of computers dropped and

companies could afford to buy and maintain their own systems. For the last few decades,

companies have been buying, installing and maintaining their hardware and software in their

own facilities.

Fortunately, new technologies have been introduced such as widespread Internet availability,

low cost of mobile devices, expansion of computing power and massive storage availability.

Technology has improved so much that very high functioning applications can safely and

securely run remotely on somebody else’s hardware. This eliminates the need for individual

companies to deal with hardware issues and allows their employees to work anywhere at any

time.

IDC, a premier global provider of market intelligence, recent wrote about the “IT Industry’s 3rd

Platform for Innovation and Growth”. In their eBook, “True Cloud Applications for Agile and

Fast-Growing Businesses”, IDC discusses the “explosion of innovation” that we are witnessing.

Clearing the confusion from buzzwords around the cloud

Talk about the Cloud is everywhere, but so are cloud buzzwords, which result in confusion and

misconceptions. Here is a brief discussion of the more common terms:

Licensing options: Purchase or Subscription

Perpetual or Purchase: These terms refer to when a company BUYS a software license.

The company pays to owns the license and also pays an annual maintenance fee for

upgrades.

Subscription: The company pays an annual or monthly charge to use the software

license. Upgrades to the software is usually included in the subscription price.

Deployment options: On-premise, Hosted, or SaaS

On-premise or in-house: The company is responsible for the infrastructure (hardware,

system software, communication hardware, software on user devices, etc.) and the

deployment of the application software (implementation, support, upgrading, etc.)

Hosted: The company or hoster buys a license for the software. The hoster manages all,

or most, of the infrastructure and software deployment as described above. The hoster

can be an independent company or a division of the company itself. Hosting is a way to

outsource IT operations.

Software as a Service (SaaS): This newest method of deployment is a combined software

licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and

hosted by the software provider, all for a single price that is typically a fixed amount. In

many cases the software provider uses a Public Cloud for the hosting.

Private Cloud and Public Cloud

Private cloud is privately owned and maintained by the company or a hoster. Based on

business requirements or regulations, sometimes this may be the only option (view

datasheet).

Public cloud is owned by a service company, such as Microsoft, IBM or Amazon. The

service provides all the hardware, load balancing, backup and security.

Hybrid cloud is a blended approach with a mix of on-premises, private cloud and third-

party, public cloud services.

Multi-tenancy

Multi-tenancy is where the Cloud software provider has single instance (version) of

software on a server and serves multiple tenants (customers) simultaneously.

Single-tenancy is where each customer has their own application and data base.

Cost Savings

o It is believed that multi-tenancy reduces the cost for the software provider,

which is absolutely true for cloud apps that are quickly purchased and

downloaded like Pandora, Facebook, etc.

o For Cloud ERP, the cost savings is insignificant compared to: providing the server

hardware, operating system and database; development of the very

sophisticated ERP programs; sales and marketing required; as well as on-going

support.

Flexibility is reduced when you share the same program with many others. The impact

may be loss of control in:

o Customization and tailoring

o Upgrading schedules

Note: Acumatica can run either multi-tenancy or single-tenancy depending on the customers’

needs.

Thin client & Web services

Thin client in cloud terms is a device (PC, tablet or phone) that requires NO application

or communication software to be downloaded. Any thin client can access the

application from anywhere, similar to a web page.

Web services are simply application components. They are designed for and used on the

Web. Common examples are the widgets on a phone, such a weather. Business

applications may include zip code look up, sales tax calculation or much more

sophisticated applications.

The Benefits of Acumatica's Cloud ERP

Acumatica Cloud ERP is a flexible and cost-effective option for small and medium-sized

businesses.

More importantly, it is designed to respond to and overcome the inflexibility of many existing

ERP solutions. This is done by allowing CHOICE of:

Functionality you wish to license with the Acumatica standard suites as well as optional

add-on features

Computing power and data storage size needed now and when the business changes

Deployment options ranging from SaaS, hosted in a private cloud or on-premise, which

can be switched as needs change

Licensing models of annual subscription or perpetual license

Data access to copy or move the data at any time, unlike many systems

Device mobility to easily switch between desired mobile device such as an Apple iPad,

iPhone and Google Android or use a Windows, Mac or Linux desktop computer.

All the flexibility above, plus the safety and security of a hosting provider such as Amazon Web

Services and Microsoft Azure public clouds.

Acumatica was founded in 2009 when our founders saw the opportunity to do things

differently. From the ground up, Acumatica was built for the cloud. This is written into the

company’s DNA and allows our customers to benefit from having a True Cloud solution.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) & E-Governance

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a key role in development & Economic growth of Rural India. Political, Cultural, Socio-economic Developmental & Behavioral

decisions today rests on the ability to access, gather, analyze and utilize Information and Knowledge. ICT is the conduits that transmit information and knowledge to individual to widen their choices for Economic and social empowerment. In near future people will be carrying a handheld computer connected to the Web to get the information about the World at their fingertips. Government of India is having an ambitious objective of transforming the citizen-government interaction at all levels to by the electronic mode (e-Governance) by 2020.

A successful ICT application in e-Governance giving one-stop solutions for rural community is the need of the hour. ICT is crafted to enable the Electronic Governance through wireless communication, thus it’s integrally interlinked and knitted.

India is a country of villages and to improve and sustain the overall prosperity, growth and development in the global competitive regime, National E-governance plan (NEGP) seeks to lay the foundation with various projects, starting from the grass-root levels, and provide impetus for long-term e-governance within the country. In this direction rural e-Governance applications implemented in the recent few years have been demonstrating the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the concerned areas of rural development. Indeed, some of the schemes introduced in rural India have improved the government services immensely.

Instances like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Warana Project in Maharashtra, Online Income Tax, Online Central Excise, Unique ID and E-office has accelerated growth of respective areas and contributing to country’s economic development. Similarly, at state level the various rural E-governance projects such as SETU Project in Maharashtra etc, projects that have been providing excellent services and saving time and money of people as well as of government and are contributing their might to the socio-economic development of rural India. Being ICT a significant instrument in E-Governance and Rural Development, appropriate infrastructure/design is mandatory for proper functioning as follows:-

• As designed of citizen centric services, and dependable service delivery mechanisms.

• Selection of appropriate (dependable, maintainable, cost effective) technologies for rural connectivity, and information processing solutions.

• As designed of cost effective delivery stations (kiosks) to build new services.

• Demonstration of transparency and efficiency to remove distrust and build confidence among the citizens on functioning of service delivery mechanisms.

• Invite private participation to reduce the burden on the central servicing agency, bring in the expertise, enhance the speed of implementation, and offer better value proposition to the citizens.

The term e-governance focuses on the use of new ICTs by governments as applied to the full range of government functions. Thus e-governance is the application of information and communication technology for delivering government services, exchange of information, communication, transactions, integration, various stand-alone systems, and services between government and citizens, government and business as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government frame work. The government being the service

provider it is important to motivate the employees for delivering the services through ICT. E-governance seek to achieve Efficiency, Transparency, and Citizen’s Participation. Enabling E-governance through ICT contributes to Good Governance, Trust and Accountability, Citizen’s Awareness, and empowerment, Citizen’s Welfare, Democracy, Nation’s Economic growth. ICT is the biggest enabler of change and process reforms fade in face of what ICT has achieved in few years.

E-governance services through ICT refer to transactional services that involve local, state or national government. ICTs acts in speeding up the flow of information and knowledge between government and citizens and transforming the way in which governments and citizens interact. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) the challenge for all countries is to create and develop a system of governance that promotes supports and sustains human development. Governments in many parts of the world have made huge ICT investments aimed at improving governance processes.

In the present century, the advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are changing the various components of human life. The changes in the ICTs have brought a positive impact in the process of public service delivery and socio-economic structure of communities.

In India, e-Governance applications in the recent past have demonstrated their positive impact in minimizing the processing costs, increase transparency and support economic development by income generating ventures, increase in agricultural production, and improvements in health and education sectors, all of which promote the overall quality of life of rural people. ICT contributes in providing the transactional services for the rural people with the benefit of time and cost savings in obtaining the public services with efficiency and effectiveness and it also examines changes in agricultural productivity and improved quality of life due to the ICT services. In addition to the above AEPS, GPS etc. are pivotal in ICT services.

The rural ICT applications attempt to offer the services of central agencies (like district administration, cooperative union, and state and central government departments) to the citizens at their village door steps. These applications utilize the ICT in offering improved and affordable connectivity and processing solutions. Several Government-Citizen (G-C) e-Government pilot projects have attempted to adopt these technologies to improve the reach, enhance the base, minimize the processing costs, increase transparency, and reduce the cycle times to half.

A large number of rural E-Government applications, developed as pilot projects, were aimed at

offering easy access to citizen services and improved processing of government-to-citizen transactions. The idea that the primary and the sheer object of ICT in e-governance and rural development is individual’s motivation to collective mobilization for an integrated rural development.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play a critical role in sustainable human development and poverty eradication[1]. ICT is a powerful enabler of development goals because of the way in which it improves communication and the exchange of knowledge

and information necessary for development processes. ICT is pervasive and cross-cutting, impacts the full range of human activity and will become one of the main enablers in the pursuit of poverty alleviation and wealth creation in developed and developing countries. As accelerator, driver, multiplier and innovator, ICTs are powerful if not indispensable tools in the massive scaling up and interlinkage of development interventions and outcomes.[2] ICTs also play a critical role in speeding up the flow of information and knowledge between government and citizens and transforming the way in which governments and citizens interact. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) the challenge for all countries is to create and develop a system of governance that promotes, supports and sustains human development[3]. Governments in many parts of the world have made huge ICT investments aimed at improving governance processes. E-governance is regarded as the ICT-enabled route to achieving good governance since it integrates people, processes, information, and technology in the service of governance initiatives. The expected benefits of such public sector reforms have been identified as an increase in the efficiency of government operations, strengthening democracy, enhancing transparency, and providing better services to citizens and businesses[4]. Defined broadly, e-government is the use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective government, facilitate more accessible government services, allow greater public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens. E-government has emerged beyond electronic service delivery and is part of the ongoing reform and transformation of government enabling participatory governance and partnerships to improve efficiency and effectiveness[5]. E-government is about transforming government to be more citizen-centred. Technology is a tool in this effort. E-government successes require changing how government works, how it deals with information, how officials view their jobs and interact with the public. E-government is also within the South African context split up into different sectoral areas such as e-health, e-education, SMME (Small and Medium Enterprises) and local content. Achieving e-government success also requires active partnerships between government, citizens and the private sector. The e-government process needs continuous input and feedback from the “customers”— the public, businesses and officials who use e-government services. Their voices and ideas are essential to making e-government work. E-government, when implemented well, is a participatory process. E-government and ICT are seen as elements of a larger government modernization program. It is well understood that simply adding computers or modems will not improve government, nor will only automating the same old procedures and practices. Making unhelpful procedures more efficient is not productive. Focusing only on the computers will not make officials more service-oriented toward government’s “customers” and partners. Leaders should think about

how to harness technology to achieve objectives for reform. ICT is an instrument to enable and empower government reform. In South Africa, the Vision 2014 describes an inclusive Information Society, one in which the use of ICTs will be harnessed to ensure that everyone has fast, reliable and affordable access to information and knowledge that will enable them to participate meaningfully in the community and economy[6]. The Vision further aspires to move the country from being a consumer of ICT products and services to being a major player in the production and innovation of these products and services. The cornerstones of this Inclusive Information Society are a vibrant and thriving ICT sector, an enabling policy and regulatory environment, accessible ICT infrastructure and broadband connectivity, and an appropriately skilled and knowledgeable citizenry. The vision for e-Government expressed in the approved E-Government Discussion document entitled, “Electronic Government, The Digital Future: A Public Service IT Policy Framework”, published in 2001 by the Department of Public Service and Administration recommended that an e-Government initiative should address three main domains:

E-government : the application of IT intra-governmental operations (Government to government or G2G)

E-service : the application of IT to transform the delivery of public services (Government to Citizens or G2C)

E-business : the application of IT to operations performed by government in the manner of G2B transactions (e.g. procurement)

The vision for achieving e-Government in South Africa is to render services around life episodes of the

citizens that follow a series of events, from cradle to grave. Such services must be accessible to all

citizens anytime, anywhere and through different access devices and media. All stakeholders –

government and nongovernment - were invited to participate in defining the vision. Continuous buy-in

and participation from critical role-players is recognized as a key priority. This is achieved through a

series of intergovernmental consultative workshops and working together with the Government Chief

Information Officer Council.

The vision of e-government is the optimization of services so that government can achieve its goals. One

especially sensitive issue, which may prevent or delay service delivery, is the issue of fraud. Within the e-

government policy and strategic framework, there is no particular focus at how government will address

the issue on non-delivery of services or inefficient service delivery to citizens.

Although there is no explicit reference to corruption in the South African E-government vision, a number

of important strategies are in place. To address the specific problems of corruption, Government

launched South Africa’s National Anti-Corruption Programme followed by Public Service and National

Anti-Corruption Summits. Late in 1999, Government also co-hosted the 9th International Anti-

Corruption Conference. At the beginning of 2002, Government adopted the Public Service Anti-

Corruption Strategy.

The e-government vision is informed by the growth and development priorities expressed in Vision 2014

as well as the Millennium Development Goals whereby ICT’s are regarded as an enabler for the

achievement of these goals within a broad and integrated developmental approach, rather than just as

an infrastructure. E-government is firmly seen as an integral pillar for developing a South African

Information Society and within this, e-education, e-health, and the development of small and medium

enterprises within the ICT sector.

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