E-Government in India: The need to ponder current e-government uptake

Since the emergence of Public choice theory, New Public Management and Re-inventing government in 1990s, governments around the world are attempting to improve the system of public service delivery. The Information age and its rapid stride in the 2000s facilitated the re-invention of governments and prepare them to serve the needs of a diverse society. The information age has redefined the fundamentals and transformed the institutions and mechanisms of service delivery forever. The vision is the articulation of a desire to transform the way government function and it relates to its constituents. This concern gave rise to the concept of E-Government. It was being felt that E-government can be more productive version of government in general, if it is well implemented and managed. With rapid strides being made in the field of ICT, government all over the world are using digital technologies to re-invent their internal operations and in serving the needs of the diverse society and thereby becoming electronic governments. The idea lies in the successful remodelling of traditional form of ‘citizenship’ into ‘e-citizenship’, which redefines the relationship between government and citizens. The world is moving towards Next generation e-government where the citizen is becoming a unique customer.

The ICT revolution on the global level affected the developing economy of India and it was being realised that Indian Government machinery cannot isolate itself from the IT revolution and its effect on the public administration systems and the process of delivery of Information and, services. Therefore a large number of initiatives were undertaken by various Governmental levels to usher in this era of e-Government. Sustained efforts have been made at multiple levels to improve the delivery of public services and simplify the process of accessing them. The significance of E-government is being widely recognized as technological advancements facilitate the administrative systems by enabling Administrative Development and Effective service delivery.

This paper tends to highlight the initiatives taken by the Governments in India at various levels to modernise their processes and functions for delivery of information and services to the citizens, using the Information and Communication technology [ICT]. It also highlights E-Government uptake in different parts of the world, highlighting its need in India, as in developing countries like India, there is no comprehensive data on actual e-government uptake on a global scale.