The Government of India (GoI) established the Department of Electronics in 1970. The subsequent establishment of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in the year 1977 was the first major step towards e-Governance in India. In the early 1980s, the use of computers was confined to very few organizations. The advent of personal computers brought the storage, retrieval, and processing capacities of computers to Government offices. By the late 1980s gradually, with the introduction of common use software such as word processing and other kinds of software, the computers were put to other uses like managing databases and processing information, etc.
The main thrust for e-governance was provided by the launching of the National Informatics Centre Network (NICNET) in 1987, the national satellite-based computer network. This was followed by the launch of the District Information System of the National Informatics Centre (DISNIC) programme to computerize all district offices in the country for which free hardware and software was offered to the State Governments.
A National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development was constituted in May 1998, while recognizing Information Technology as a frontier area of knowledge per se, it focused on utilizing it as an enabling tool for assimilating and processing all other spheres of knowledge. It recommended the launching of an ‘Operation Knowledge’ aimed at universalizing computer literacy and spreading the use of computers and IT in education.
Agenda for e-governance
• Each Ministry/Department must provide Personal Computers (PCs) with necessary software up to the Section Officer level. Besides, Local Area Network (LAN) must also be set up.
• Each Ministry/Department should start using the Office Procedure Automation software developed by NIC to keep a record of receipt of ‘dak’, issue of letters, as well as the movement of files in the department.
• It should be ensured that all staff with access and need to use computer for their office work are provided with adequate training. To facilitate this, inter alia, Ministries/Departments should set up their own or share other’s Learning Centres for decentralized training in computers as per the guidelines issued by the ministry.
• Each Ministry/Department should start using the Office Procedure Automation software developed by NIC to keep a record of receipt of ‘dak’, issue of letters, as well as the movement of files in the department.
Emergence of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)-
About the future of e-governance, the lighting words by the great visionary Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, in his inaugural address at IIT Delhi (India) during 2003 at International Conference on 'e-governance' can be summarized as- “E-governance has to be citizen-friendly. Delivery of services to citizens is considered a primary function of the government. In a democratic nation of over one billion people like India, e-governance should enable seamless access to information and seamless flow of information across the state and central government in the federal set up. No country has so far implemented an e-governance system for one billion people. It is a big challenge before us.”
About National e-Governance Division (NeGD)-
In the year 2009, National e-Governance Division was established by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) as an Independent Business Division under the Digital India Corporation. NeGD has played a pivotal role in executing e-governance Projects and initiatives undertaken by Ministries/ Departments, both at Central and State levels.
The roles and responsibilities of NeGD are-
a) Providing strategic direction in terms of framing policies and implementation strategy for the Digital India Programme in different domains of e-Governance.
b) Proactive support to Central and State Governments for Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and other e-governance projects.
c) Acting as a facilitator and catalyst for the implementation of the Digital India Program by various Ministries and State Governments.
d) Providing technical assistance to Central Ministries/ State Line Departments in their e-governance projects either directly or in collaboration with professional consultants.
e) Undertaking technical appraisal of e-governance projects for examining issues like overall technology, architecture, framework standards, security policy, service delivery mechanism, sharing of common infrastructure, etc.
f) Developing generic / model Expression of Interest (EoI), Request for Proposal (RFP), Standard Contracts, PPP Models, and other related documents for various stages and requirements of projects for the use of States.
g) Ensuring effective citizen engagement and communication with all stakeholders using offline and Social Media channels.
Implementation Strategy for E-governance-
The approach and methodology adopted for NeGP contains the following elements-
• Common Support Infrastructure.
• Governance- Suitable arrangements for monitoring and coordinating the implementation of NeGP under the direction of the competent authorities have been set up.
• Centralized Initiative, Decentralized Implementation.
• Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) model is to be adopted wherever feasible to enlarge the resource pool without compromising on the security aspects.
• Programme Approach at the National and State levels.
• Ownership of Ministries- Under the NeGP, various Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) are owned and spearheaded by the concerned line ministries.
Some Mission Mode Projects implemented by NeGD-
[1] Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG)-
UMANG is envisaged to make e-governance. It provides a single platform for all Indian citizens to access pan India e-Gov services ranging from central to local government bodies and other citizen-centric services. UMANG intends to provide major services offered by central and state government departments, local bodies, and other utility services from private organizations.
[2] DigiLocker-
DigiLocker system is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT under the Digital India Programme. Targeted at the idea of paperless governance, DigiLocker aims to provide a digital wallet to every citizen of the country so that all lifelong documents/certificates can be electronically held under a single secure digital wallet.
[3] National Centre of Geo-informatics (NCoG)-
NCoG is a single source Geographic Information System (GIS) platform for sharing, collaboration, location-based analytics, and decision support system, catering to central and state ministries/departments/agencies across the country. Under this project, location-based datasets such as data related to central government land banks, mining, forests, industrial parks, water resources, etc.
[4]- Rapid Assessment System (RAS)
RAS is an online instant feedback for e-services (online as well as offline through counters) delivered by the Government of India and State Governments. The main objective of RAS is to continuously assess the quality of e-Services, through feedback, under each e-governance project and realign processes to achieve targeted benefits. RAS interface prompts the citizens to provide feedback about the quality of service immediately after the citizen avails an e-service of the Government.
[5]- Program Management Information System (PMIS)-
PMIS build using open source technologies is used to track and monitor project initiation, planning, execution, and management. It can be utilized for Central/State/Integrated MMPs, Departmental and Adhoc projects under the Digital India programme.
[6]- OpenForge platform-
The objective of the OpenForge platform is to promote sharing and reuse of e-governance application source code. In 2015, the Ministry of Electronics & IT, Government of India rolled out the ‘Policy on Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications’, which provides a framework for archiving government custom-developed source code in repositories and opening these repositories for promoting reuse, sharing and remixing.
[7]- Learning Management System (LMS)-
LMS is a software application that automates the administration, tracking, and reporting of training events. LMS is a pioneer project under e-Kranti (an e-governance plan initiated by the Government of India). It is widely recognised that there is a tremendous need to enhance the skill sets and to develop an adequate number of appropriately trained resources for handling a variety of tasks including those who are expected to design and deliver Government services to the citizens.
[8]- Miscellaneous e-governance Projects in India-
• Passport Seva Project.
• Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT).
• Insurance (Department of Banking)
• Income Tax (Ministry of Finance/Central Board of Direct Taxes)
• National Citizen Database/UID (Ministry of Home Affairs/Registrar General of India (RGI)/ Planning Commission, Now NITI Aayog).
• Central Excise (Department of Revenue/Central Board of Excise & Customs)
• Pensions (Department of Pensions & Pensioners Welfare and Department of Expenditure)
• Banking (Department of Banking)
• Land Records (Ministry of Rural Development)
• Road Transport (Ministry of Road Transport & Highways)
• Treasuries (Ministry of Finance)