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In my previous article, I wrote
that we are now in the "era of e" and I had indicated
under this some "e's". The most important among
them that would directly benefit a common man
are the means to make him a "e-citizen". In my
opinion, the three most important factors are
the infrastructure, the transparency with respect
to the services that he expects from the government
through the so called e-governance and his own
adaptability to the situation in IT. Assuming
that the technologists and the Professionals provide
the necessary infrastructure, what is needed is
the e-governance. While many developed countries
have already established this, countries like
India are still in the very initial stages. But,
in regard to his adaptability, what exactly is
the perception of the common man on the e-governance?
Bill Linder, Secretary Department of Management
Services, State of Florida, says: "We must empower
citizens to act for themselves without having
to go through a bureaucracy. This is sometimes
hard for bureaucracy to understand. Government
agencies have to think of themselves as a resource
to citizens and not as an office regulating the
citizens. But guess what? It's fun to help citizens
solve their problems" Actually this is the sentence
that would prompt establishing a transparent system
employing the tools in Information Technology
leading to e-Governance. According to UNDP, Governance
includes the state, but transcends it by taking
in the private sector and the civil society -
all the three are critical for sustaining human
development. Good Governance has many attributes-
- it is anticipatory,
- it is transparent and
- it is accountable.
It is
effective in making the best use of resources in
a sustainable manner and it is equitable and promotes
the rule of law. As we all know a Government is
a typical example of a large enterprise comprising
various departments with a large geographical reach
and if we have to connect all of them together and
ultimately with the people to make everybody a e-citizen,
we need what we have in the technological term the
"Enter../../inc/header2.inc Archtecture Interface,
EAI" and that is the crux of the implementation
of e-Governance.
The Prime Minister's IT task
force, realising the importance, have given many
recommendations in this respect, particularly
for information dissemination like COURTIS (Court
Information System), PARLIS (Parliament Information
System), Land Record Information, On-line Registration
and Verification of vehicles, etc. Every state
government has started initiating computerization
of several applications and then try to integrate
them using networks and Internet. But we have
to go a long way. The main challenge will be in
integrating these applications seemlessly that
will be transparent to the users. I will discuss
this in my next article.
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