E-governance: e-nabler, e-mancipator

With the advent of e-Governance, it has been found that the number of trips made by people to government offices has reduced to just one or two.

IIM studies show it saves users from clutches of corrupt officials, reduces commuting cost

With the advent of e-Governance, it has been found that the number of trips made by people to government offices has reduced to just one or two. Also, the waiting time to get the land records and property registered has come down by nearly 40 per cent.

According to a study conducted under the National e-Governance Plan by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad IIM-A, the direct cost savings to citizens averaged between Rs 60 and Rs 110 across the states. The incidents of corruption in government offices have also reduced by 29 per cent, while in some cases, it has vanished completely.

The Centre for e-Governance at IIM-A and the Department of Information Technology, Government of India, released the study 8216;Impact Assessment of e-Governance Projects8217; covering six e-Governance initiatives on Wednesday.

Out of these, three are national projects on collection and processing of income tax, registration of new companies MCA21, and issue of passport. The other three are state-level projects of vehicle registration, property registration and land records computerisation.

The assessment of state-level projects consolidates the results from systematic analytical studies of 36 e-Government projects in 12 states. The survey covered nearly 800 citizens from each of the state spread across 15 locations, making the total sample of 9,000.

Prof Subhash Bhatnagar from IIM-A said: 8220;Its impact on property registration has been quite significant. Now, the average time has come down to only four days, which in some cases had even taken nearly three months.8221;

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However, pointing out that not everything about e-Governance is rosy, Bhatnagar said the departments where 8216;collusive bribery8217; was prevalent, like driving license registration, e-Governance has not made much impact.

The study also reveals a great deal of difference in the performance of the best and the worst state in the three computerised applications. Based on the overall rating, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu rank high in all the three projects.

Moving to the three national-level projects, MCA21 has had the most positive impact.

While the income tax processing indicates benefits to corporate users, the passport project had met with little success.

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In the case of MCA-21 and the income tax portal, the study has found a reduction of users paying bribes from 20 per cent to less than 5 per cent. A major faction of users also reported vast improvement in the quality of services.

When asked about the varying degree of impact of the e-Governance initiatives, Bhatnagar said: 8220;There is difference in the extent of computerisation and re-engineering done in each of the projects. While the national projects operate through a portal, the state-level projects use the mode of delivery as assisted service centres.8221;