On Strategies For NextGen Government

e-Government in India has entered Wave 3 of development. From deploying computers to setting up IT infrastructure and adopting Internet as an additional communication channel and developing customer interfaces to make existing services available online, the definition of e-Government has now changed to ICT-enabled Government Process Re-engineering.

According to a study conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton for the UK Cabinet Office, the progress, particularly in Wave 2, has not been without pain. The push to provide services online has often led to ‘online front office environment’ without corresponding ‘online process’ in the back office. The slickness of the interface raised customer expectations of more effective services, which governments, struggling with the same fulfillment systems they had always had, were unable to deliver.

In the Wave 3, however, the focus is on the automation of existing processes with the Governments fundamentally re-engineering their business, implementing smarter, quicker ICT-enabled processes and integration of the existing front- end service delivery mechanism with back-end operations, there by ensuring better governance.

Source: “Beyond e-Government”, Booz Allen Hamilton

e-Governance is no longer a mere buzzword in today’s India. Most e-Governance and computerization initiatives across the country now use information and communications technology (ICT) as a means to achieve a more effective delivery of government services and better governance in general. In fact, e-Governance is a prime area of concern for both state governments and the central government in India, not only as a means of achieving efficiency in the running of state departments, but, more importantly, as a means of providing an easy and effective way for citizens to access basic government services.

No wonder then, the IT investment opportunity in e-Governance space is immense. With communication and information technology now becoming an absolute must for improving effectiveness of services and, therefore, impacting the quality of life of the citizens, IT spending by various governments in the country increased by 30% to reach Rs 6,934 crore in 2005-06.

With the Indian administration and government sitting on the verge of achieving maximum automation akin to advanced democracies in the West, IT investments in India is expected to touch nearly Rs 9,500 crore by the end of March 2007.

Moving on from the Dataquest e-Governance Summit 2006 that attempted to create a vision for an e-Governed nation, the year 2007 Dataquest e-Gov Summit would attempt to evolve a strategy for the “NextGen Government” besides attempting to identify the key challenges and their solution through discussions, presentations, case studies, analysis and feedback.