Digital divide v2

E-governance is the latest buzz word. There is a lot of
excitement about it in the industry because of the Rs 12,000 crore that is
planned to be spent in this area. And with a mention in the latest finance
budget, no one is left in any doubt of its importance to the country.

There are many ways to define e-governance. All of them go
beyond  'compu­terizing the
government'-a term that is used often, but means little. A more general
definition is-it is a way of empowering citizens by bringing in transparency
in the system and reducing corruption. To me it means using information techno­logy
to provide better services to customers by the government sector organisa­tions.
I like this description because it puts the focus right where it should
be-customers and services.

There is a lot of talk about the urban and rural digital
divide. There is also another divide that is constantly widening. The corporate
vs non corporate one. In many areas such as private banks and telecom, we are
seeing increased levels of customer service courtesy use of infor­mation
technology. In many others such as pro­perty, judiciary, and other aspects of
governance we see very little use of techno­logy to make the citizen's life
better. And this is the Digital Divide V2.

G2C or citizen-centric e-governance projects will be
successful only when the masses start using them. This needs first the appli­cations-with
in built pro­cess changes to make things more efficient-and then they need
access points for citizens. Bring down the cost of a computer to less than Rs
10,000 and see its numbers rise as quickly as those of mobile subscribers. The
Internet came to India before the mobile phones. Then what has made mobile
services beat Internet ser­vices in subscri­ption num­bers hands down? In
January 2006, the subscri­ber base touched 80 million, with 62 million GSM and
almost 18 million CGMA connec­tions. It became a mass phenomenon in three-four
years when the handsets became cheap and readily available, call rates crashed
and because mobile phones were easy to use and had a high utility. Nobody had to
push mobiles. They just hap­pened because the condi­tions fell in place. Can
these conditions be duplicated for computers?

The G2B story is not a happy one either. By and large
government processes with respect to industry are not computerized. Informa­tion
about laws, rules and regulations, clearances are available on websites, which
are often dated. Online appli­cations and clearances are a rarity. And of
course the processes are from the pre­vious century. It is appreciated that
making these things happen in the government sector is a complex job. But there
is little evidence of a strong move towards making these applications happen.

Ultimately if the governance has to become better the
government has to become more efficient. G2G makes its own contribution to the
great Indian digital divide. e-governance will happen when we get the above
examples and much more going. That needs a massive overhaul of much of the
government working . This can happen if there is a push from the top and a pull
generated from the bottom. Ministers and secretaries have to insist on using computers
themselves. And then they have to provide the computers, the communication
infrastructure and the training to their departments.