E-Governance is the use of Information and Communication Technologies by the Government, Civil Society and political institutions to engage citizens through dialogue and feedback to promote their greater participation in the process of governance of these institutions.

E-Government can be viewed as a subset of e-governance and its focus is largely on improving administrative efficiency and reducing administrative corruption. E-Government is about a process of reform in the way government work, Shares information and delivers services to external and internal clients. Spcifically, e-government harnesses information technologies to transform relations with citizens, business and other arms of Government.

Analogue to the concept of e-commerce, which brings customers closure to business (B2C) and enables businesses to transact with each other (B2B) more efficiently-government aims to make the interaction between government and citizens (G2C); Government and business enterprises (G3) and inter-agency dealing (G2G) friendly, convenient, transparent and less expensive.

The Information and Communication Technologies used by e-government projects can serve a variety of ends:

1.) Better delivery of Government Services to citizens

2.) Improved interactions with business and industry

3.) Citizen's empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management.

The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, and revenue growth and / or cost reductions.

Many large projects have been undertaken ad these have been prominent failures. Building a portal requires strong centralized leadership to facilitate and encourage interdepartmental coordination.

E-Government projects must be accompanied by process re-engineering of back-office procedure. Process should be re-engineered to reduce discretionary powers of civil servants and make data and decisions more transparent rather than to downsize the department. Many e-government projects invest too little effort in process re-engineering because this exercise meets significant internal resistance from civil servants who fear loosing their jobs and their power.

A discussion of e-government can cover several prospective. A technical prospective will focus on technical architecture of solutions; choice of technology and platform; different ways of handling security and electronic payments.

A public administrative prospective may focus on outcomes, impact on efficiency, transparency and corruption

An economic prospective will focus on the questions of investments, cost and benefits.

A managerial perspective may focus on systems and design reengineering and management of changes

Burgeoning effort of Government for better Governance can be successful by understanding the requirement of multi-disciplinary approach to plan and implement e-government projects.

Author : Orisys Infotech

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