Governance is all about understanding the social, economical, institutional and political issues closely and achieving improved livelihoods, environmental sustainability and strengthened resilience. In our country today, we are experiencing lack of accountability, transparency and good governance, when it comes to implementpation of various schemes, programmes and projects. Government departments are still struggling with 18th century regulations, policies and processes wherein technology has advanced into its 21st century. Clearly, such wider gaps are creating troubles towards leveraging of technology for betterment of the masses.
Today, ICT increasingly permits information to simmer up from the ground zero and filter through more dispersed and competitive sources which helps in better decision making. Some of the key changes and innovation in better governance can be experienced through use of ICT, such as:
*Citizens engagement and dialogue tools to generate concrete know-how that empowers, build capacities and facilitates different modes of learning
*Livelihood improvements and change processes with special emphasis on institutional dynamics and mechanisms
*Analysis of politics and policy processes including cross-scale, cross-functional and multi-level interactions
*Innovative knowledge sharing with an array of stakeholders and policymakers on the impact of action plans, government decision processes, practices for sustainable development
*Assessment, monitoring, evaluation and learning that encourages participative way of government-citizen relationship.
In a bid to create such ICT platform, the government is progressing well as part of National eGovernance Plan (NeGP). We have created network and communication infrastructure. Government departments have started focusing on ensured service delivery approach in the form of mission-mode-project and have started leveraging ICT for data consolidation, process re-engineering and automation, ensuring better service delivery with accountability, speed and transparency.
Time has come, where government departments would look for more private participation in terms of investment, capacity planning and infusion of ICT towards sustainable service delivery to its stakeholders and masses as a whole. The more we progress towards making our system, establishments and institutions accountable by means of RTI, Electronic Service Delivery Bill and Citizen Charter etc, more would be the requirements of ICT and would play a pivotal role in bridging these gaps. The real issue of the masses are illiteracy, backwardness, hunger and non-considerate of citizen rights. The idea is, can we provide a platform where the political, executive, judiciary and other institutions and establishments can perform their duties blend with preciseness, conscientiousness and rapidity?
The answer is yes. ICT may be used strategically to deliver citizen centric government services and to strengthen democratic governance. Application of ICT may be seen to address real and urgent governance problems, particularly in building local government capacity, reducing and preventing corruption and nurturing business friendly environments.
What I strongly believe is, we need to have immediate platform and podium through the presence of ICT and good governance that would help build meaningful and laudable outcome for the beneficiaries and masses as a whole.
Golok Kumar Simli
The writer is principal consultant & head?technology, Passport Seva, ministry of external affairs