India is currently the second top software exporter in the world and IT sector solely contributes more than 7.5% to the GDP of the country[Ref]. That is the reason why our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has said “IT + IT = IT” in many conferences i.e.
Information Technology + Indian Talent = India Tomorrow
It’s really difficult to go ahead with our old and traditional way of administration rather we need a new way or IT way to administer and to give a efficient and effective governance.
Current Progress
Central Government and many state government has started using IT tools for effective and efficient governance eg. Integrated Grievance Resolution System(IGRS), Aaple Sarkar, RTI Online, Pardarshi Kisan Yojna Portal for the farmers and recent launch of UP Government, Anti-Bhoo Mafia Portal.
All these portals are having one common goal of providing citizens effective and efficient governance.
Recently NPCI (National Payment Corporation of India) has also came up with the new product i.e BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) works on the concept of UPI( unified payment interface) and it was launched with goal of making India Cashless and it has really changed the way of common banking upto some extend. In addition to promote the cashless payment through this application, Schemes like Lucky Grahak Yojana for consumers and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants was also launched.
DBTL (Direct Benifit Transfer in LPG) or ‘पहल’ (प्रत्यक्ष हस्तांतरित लाभ) has been a huge success story and it has paved the way for future Subsidy Management for the government using Aadhar. Accordingly government is planning to implement the DBT in Ration Distribution at Fair Price Shops.
Problems
Even though we are moving ahead with a good pace in using IT tools for administration and governance but still we are lagging behind. Mainly because of
- Citizens are not much aware about all these tools and even if they get to know about it. They are not using it because it less tangible in nature or they have lost trust in these system.
- No State has made any law to make all these tools of e-Governance more effective and accountable.
- It has been more than a decade since RTI Act 2005 was enacted but majority of the states have not gone digital for giving information.
- In most of the Grievance Resolution portals (eg.IGRS, Aple Sarkar), Grievances do resolve in system but not on ground. There is no well established laid down procedure to resolving these grievances. Anti-Bhoo Mafia Portal is new entrant in these list so its credibility is yet to be tested.
Way Ahead
- Sates governments are spending huge sum of money for developing same kind of governance solutions like Grievance Redressal System, RTO Service,Police Complaint etc. They should sign an MoU for same and can have a common IT System( i.e. Mobile App or Website ) for each and every state.With Localization facility, we can have same site in multiple languages.
- Central Government and State Governments should advertise these IT Solutions through various medium to spread awareness in masses like they does for “Vote Taking Schemes“
- In Grievance Redressal Systems, Each and Every Grievances should be mandatory closed by Citizens with feedback rather than Government Staff because these staffs can close these Grievance without actually taking any action.
- Availability and Credibility of all these IT solutions must be ensured.
Even with all these above countermeasures, it’s really important to train the goverment employee to gear up themselves to accept these changes and government should conduct training programs to focus on its employees’ skill set development.Government Employee are very much reductant to use these new technology specially those who are about to retire. To promote the usage of all these IT tools for effective and efficient governance, Government should provide mobile, laptop and printers at a concessional rate.
Its a good sign that we have well identified the need of these tool and this itself is a good sign of positive development. Already people are getting benifited out of these tools. We can hope a good progress in near future.
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