E-governance
E-Governance
E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of electronic communications devices, computers and the Internet to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. According to Jeong, 2007 the term consists of the digital interactions between a citizen and their government (C2G), between governments and other government agencies (G2G), between government and citizens (G2C), between government and employees (G2E), and between government and businesses/commerces (G2B). E-government delivery models can be broken down into the following categories: This interaction consists of citizens communicating with all levels of government (city, state/province, national, and international), facilitating citizen involvement in governanceusing information and communication technology (ICT) (such as computers and websites) and business process re-engineering(BPR). Brabham and Guth (2017) interviewed the third party designers of e-government tools in North America about the ideals of user interaction that they build into their technologies, which include progressive values, ubiquitous participation, geolocation, and education of the public.
e-governance management
Advantages of Electronic-Government
The ultimate goal of the e-government is to be able to offer an increased portfolio of public services to citizens in an efficient and cost effective manner. It allows for government transparency because it allows the public to be informed about what the government is working on as well as the policies they are trying to implement.
The main advantage while implementing electronic government will be to improve the efficiency of the current system( Paper based system). That would in return same money and time. The introduction would also facilitate better communications between governments and businesses.
For example: E-procurement facilitates G2G and B2B communication; this will permit smaller business to compete for government contracts as well as larger business. hence the advantage of creating an open market and stronger economy. Business and citizens can obtain information at a faster speed and it is possible at any time of the day.
The society is moving towards the mobile connections and the ability of an e-government service to be accessible to citizens irrespective of location throughout the country brings the next and potentially biggest benefit of an e-government service as we live in what is now termed as the Knowledge era.
The anticipated benefits of e-government include efficiency, improved services, better accessibility of public services, and more transparency and accountability.
The Disadvantage of Electronic-Government
The main disadvantage concerning e-government is the lack of equality in public access to the internet, reliability of information on the web, and hidden agendas of government groups that could influence and bias public opinions.
Potential implications of implementing and designing e-government, include disinter-mediation of the government and citizens, impacts on economic, social and political factors, vulnerability to cyber attacks and disturbance to the status quo in these areas.
Hyper-surveillance: Once the government begins to develop and become more sophisticated, the citizens will be forced to interact electronically with the government on a larger scale. E.g This could potentially lead to a lack of privacy for civilians as their government obtains more and more information on them.
Cost: Although large amount of money is spent on the development and implementation of e-government the outcomes and effects of trial internet-based governments are often difficult to gauge or unsatisfactory.
Inaccessibility: An e-government site that provides web based access and support often does not offer the potential to reach many users including those who live in the remote areas, have low literacy levels and exist on poverty line incomes.
Challenges in implementation of E-Governance Applications
A number of issues, some old and some new have arisen in e-governance application, for example:
(i) Lack of strategies and financial plan
(ii) The project implementation is generally vendor driven
(iii) Lack of standardization ( For example, similar projects are carried out by different state agencies using incompatible file formats and application standards)
(iv) Reverse compatibility of application with legacy systems are missing in several projects.
(v) The IT Infrastructures are procured before building the application or digitizing the data.
(vi) Physical security is emphasized, whereas the Logical and application security is left to vendors in many cases.
(vii) Lack of understanding by the departments, for the components of e-governance applications, which can be outsourced or can be carried out in-house.
Conclusion
E-Governance is an innovative initiative by the government to ensure that government services are easily accessible to people and they are able to accrue its benefits. The importance of eliminating all obstacles cannot, therefore, be overstated.