Abstract – There has been a significant growth in the implementation of e-governance initiatives in India both at the national as well as the state levels. However, the focus in these projects in terms of the impact has largely been on the efficiency and quality of citizen services. This paper gives a stage-based e-governance maturity model which describes e-governance maturity in terms of four growth stages. Using a sample of recently implemented e-governance projects, which are in operation successfully, the paper finds that most of these projects fall in the initial first and second stage of maturity, and as we go higher up the maturity ladder, the number of existing projects falling in that category is very scarce. Since the developmental and societal value of high-maturity level e-governance projects is high, the paper suggests that the maturity level considerations should be brought into consideration in the NeGP to enhance the share of high maturity projects in the entire spectrum of e-governance projects and initiatives.
Index terms- e-Governance Maturity, Growth Stage Models, e-Governance in India, NeGP
Introduction
E-governance initiatives are common in most countries, including industrialised economies, emerging economies, and developing economies. The World Market Research Centre’s Global E-Government Survey [1] lists 196 countries having e-government initiatives. The United Nations’ Benchmarking e-Government Survey [2] lists 133 countries. According to the new eEurope 2005 Action Plan [3] adopted by the Commission in May 2002, the goal for Europe is to provide its citizens with “modern online public services” by the year 2005 [4,5]. In the Indian context, the e-government programme formally started in 1992 and now the programme is more than a decade old with a formal National e-Governance Plan announced and approved in 2006.
Oddly enough, in spite of the worldwide diffusion of e-governance initiatives, getting the claimed benefits of e-governance has not been easy for various technological as well as organisational reasons. This is true of both industrialised as well as developing countries [5, 6, 7]. Consequently there has been significant interest on developing e-governance best practices and maturity models and applying them to monitor whether e-governance programmes and initiatives are on the right track. Whereas the concept of best practices development is well-known in the e-governance literature, the concept of “e-governance maturity” is not so widely used and understood. This paper explores the concept of e-governance maturity and proposes an e-governance maturity model as a Stage of e-Governance Growth model. Furthermore, it identifies the challenges of each of the Growth Stage and makes an initial assessment of overall e-Governance Growth Stage in the Indian context.
E-Governance Maturity Models
The terms “maturity” and “unmaturity” are often used to characterise the state of a given level in a continuous process. The terms are used relative to their objects (e.g., “e-governance is still in an immature state”). Unfortunately, the concept of e-governance represents a rich pool of organisational and technological issues; and adding the concept of maturity or immaturity does not strengthen the ontology of the concept. Some qualitative and/or quantitative measures to determine what characterises different degrees of maturity are necessary.
There are a number of academic disciplines that use the term ‘maturity’ and develop maturity models as classification schemes. For instance, in software engineering, the Capability Maturity Model, a measure of maturity, determines how structured the software development process is [8]. Within the field of business economics, examples of explicit usage of the term maturity are found in the Product Life Cycle concept [9]. In the information systems field, the term maturity is also familiar, for instance in the context of the “Stages of Growth model” [10]. This Stages of Growth model illustrates the organisational stage in a development process where the organisational usage of information technology (IT) is measured. Whereas Galliers and S
utherland [10] decomposed maturity into six stages with each stage characterising the presence of particular attributes of the organisation, the strength of the Stages of Growth model is in its focus on IT and organisation. Similarly, Layne and Lee [11] have described different stages of e-governance development (maturity) which may help public administrators of traditional government organisations think about e-governance and in planning such initiatives. The Layne and Lee’s stages of growth model for e-governance outlines the structural transformations of governments as they progress toward electronically-enabled government and how the Internet-based government models become amalgamated with traditional public administration, implying fundamental changes in the form of government.
Developmental Stages of e-Governance
This model is based on the technical, organisational and managerial feasibility at a particular growth stage (maturity level) of e-Governance. It proposes four stages of a growth model for e-governance: (a) cataloguing, (b) transaction, (c) vertical integration, and (d) horizontal integration (Fig.1).
Stage 1. In the initial stage of ‘cataloguing’, the efforts of governments are focused on establishing an on-line presence for the government in the form of developing a web site. The typical functionalities at this stage are mostly to on-line presentation of government information. Toward the end of this stage, often pushed by citizens’ demands, governments begin to establish index pages or a localised portal site in which scattered electronic documents are organised so that citizens can search for and view detailed government related information and download necessary forms. This first stage is called ‘cataloguing’, because the focus is mostly on cataloguing government information and presenting it on the web site. Though the technology at this stage is relatively simple, there are several challenges on managing such web sites. The first challenge is assigning responsibility for the overall coordination and planning of services on the state web site as well as having each agency (represented on the web site) assign responsibility for the maintenance of the web site. The second challenge is assigning responsibility for the answering of e-mails. Web sites often include an e-mail address for questions from the site users. Often these questions may be wide ranging and beyond the ability of the web master. Therefore, some procedure must be established to address how these e-mails will be handled and how quickly.
Stage 2. In the second stage, e-governance initiatives focus on connecting the internal government computerised systems to on-line interfaces (accessible to citizens) and allowing citizens to transact with government electronically. In case, the internal systems of the government are not computerised (as might be the case in many local or state-level governments in India), this stage will also involve developing the internal computerised system and providing an on-line interface to it for the citizens at the same time. This stage is called ‘transaction-based’ e-government, because while the cataloguing stage helps citizens’ fact-finding process, this stage presents government on the other side of the Internet as an active respondent. Citizens transact with government on-line by filling out forms and government responds by providing confirmations,
receipts, etc. At this stage the focus is on putting live database links of the internal computerised system to on-line interfaces for the citizens, so that citizens may avail government services themselves, such as renewing their licenses and paying fines on-line. As the number of transactions increases, governments will be compelled to integrate these computerised systems directly to their functional intranet (such as on the SWAN). In ideal cases, citizens can carry out their transactions through the government web site, which is directly connected to the internal computerised system and only a minimal interaction with the government staff may be required. Organisational challenges are much greater in this stage. Existing electronic databases must be redesigned to handle such changes requiring internal committees to assess user demands and user interfaces in current computerised (legacy) systems. Issues of confidentiality and security also surface, and must be addressed by the organization as a whole.
Stages 3 and 4. As the citizens’ demands for better service quality increases further, e-governance needs to go further as the critical benefits of implementing e-governance are actually derived from the integration of underlying processes not only across different levels of government but also different functions of government. By having similar agencies/departments across different levels of governments
and by having different agencies with different functionalities talk to each other, citizens will see the government as an integrated information base. In this manner a citizen can contact one point of government and complete any level of government transaction – a “one-stop” shopping concept.
Such integration may happen in two ways: vertical and horizontal. Vertical integration refers to local (say district), state and central governments connected for different functions or services of government. As an example, for programs like Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, a program planning and monitoring system may have vertical integration at the district, state and central government levels. A district-level system may monitor literacy levels at the district level and plan for district level resources. Since all district level systems are connected to the state-level system, all district-level plans can be consolidated to develop state-level plans, and since the state-level systems are connected to the central government level, the state-level plans can be consolidated to develop a national plan, which may be more realistic because of this bottom-up vertical information consolidation. In the absence of such integration, all plans are not based on factual information and resource projections may be totally disconnected from one district to another or from one state to another. In contrast, horizontal integration is defined as integration across different functions and services provided by similar agencies in different states or different agencies in the same state, or different agencies at the national level. An example would be a business being able to register its business in two states simultaneously using the same system.
In defining the maturity-levels of e-governance, the vertical integration across different levels within similar functionality is posited to precede the horizontal integration across different functions. This is because the discrepancy between different services of government is larger than the discrepancy between levels of government; vertical integration will be attained first before horizontal integration. In vertical integration, communication and integration-oriented technologies become more critical. As vertical integration targets to integrate departments/agencies in state governments with their local and central government counterparts, technically a web of remote connections is a prerequisite.
Fig.1. Stages of e-Governance Maturity
E-governance Maturity Level in India
Though the e-governance initiatives in India had a slow start in the nineties, today the e-governance movement has started moving towards higher levels of maturity, perhaps because of the availability of better technological infrastructure as defined in the National e-Governance Plan. At the stage 1, cataloguing level, there are a large number of government departments and agencies having good quality web sites providing useful information and forms level access. Examples of such level one initiative are the web site and portal of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad; National Panchayat Portal of Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India; and ‘city health-line’ web site of Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Nagpur. In addition to providing rich domain information, some of these web sites also provide basic transactional services, as for example in HIMPOL (Himachal Pradesh Police Web Portal), which accepts crime reporting leading to an FIR (first information report).
At the stage 2, transaction-based e-governance level, also an increasing number of projects and successful systems are emerging. However, there is a big difference between these in terms of the breadth and depth of services provided by them. Some of these systems provided a comprehensive set of integrated services in a particular function. For instance, the ‘e-procurement system’ provided by Industry & Mines Department of the Government of Gujarat provides a comprehensive set of integrated services related to the procurement function in a government department/agency and is being used successfully by hundreds of departments/agencies. Similarly e-Lekha and COMPACT systems provided by Controller General of Accounts and National Informatics Centre provide a comprehensive set of functionalities required from an integrated financial management system for a government organization. On the other hand, there are also systems which provide a large set of different services provided by the same department/agency, such as the e-City project of City Civic Centres by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad, which provide a large set of tax collection and information services to the Ahmedabad city residents. Other such examples of e-governance systems are the Public Distribution System-Online of the Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection, Government of Chhattisgarh; Some of these systems can also provide pure informational transactions. For instance, the Jaankari system of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG), Government of Bihar, accepts requests for RTI information and monitors them till the necessary information is provided to the requesting person through the system. Another example of an informational transaction-based system is the Fire Alert and Messaging System of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Madhya Pradesh which captures environmental data and analyses it for fire risks in the forests and send fire warning messages if necessary.
Beyond stage 2, the number of e-governance systems reaching levels 3 – vertical integration is much less than systems at the stage 1 and 2, but still there are many such systems today. For instance, the e-Lekha/COMPACT financial management system stated above also qualifies as stage 3 system because it integrates financial information at multiple levels vertically. Some other examples of stage 3 e-governance systems are the Drug Logistics Information and Management System (DLIMS) of Central Medical Stores of Health & Family Welfare Department of Gujarat Government, and Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) of Health & Family Welfare Department of Gujarat Government, as both these systems vertically integrate departments/agencies within the Health & Family Welfare Department.
As for stage 4 e-governance systems showing horizontal integration are at present rare, primarily not because of technological reasons but because the change management required for integrating departments/agencies belonging to different states or different departments/agencies in the same state. We have come across only one such case (though there may be many more) – Rajeev Aarogyashri system of providing cashless health insurance to BPL families in Andhra Pradesh, which integrates financial loan service from a Trust, health insurance service from an insurance company, and healthcare services from hospitals and doctors. As the full potential of ICT, from the citizens’ perspective, can only be achieved by horizontally integrating government services across different functional walls (or “silos”), therefore, there is an urgent need for developing a framework using which the horizontal integration needs of an e-governance system can be identified. As an example, e-government system for online passport services only provides a vertical integration of functions carried out by the passport offices [12] and is not integrated with the police verification activity (horizontal integration) even though maximum delay in completing the service is caused by this activity.
Conclusion
This paper has presented a growth stage model of e-governance maturity to assess the maturity level of e-governance projects and initiatives in India. The growth stage model identifies four stages of e-governance maturity – cataloguing, transaction-based, vertical integration and horizontal integration. Using a small sample of e-government systems short-listed for their success at the national level, the paper has identified their maturity levels. From this analysis, it emerges that there is no dearth of successful e-governance projects at stage 1 and 2. Projects at maturity stage 3 are few but there is an increasing number of stage 3 projects being planned and implemented recently or under implementation. Oddly enough, projects at stage 4 are in scarcity; even though they provide maximum value in citizen-centric services as well as their developmental impact. Therefore, special efforts need to be made to encourage growth of stage 4 level e-governance projects and initiatives. It is suggested that the issue should be taken at the National e-Governance Plan level, which should also address the maturity stage issue in identifying the Mission Mode Projects for different states.
References
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