‘India is nowhere on the e-governance map’

Our eFE Bureau in New Delhi

John Roberts, Gartner, Research Dir.

Only 10 per cent of the government bodies round the world will be able to move towards e-governance by 2005, with India missing from the picture, according to Gartner. “India will not achieve e-governance before 2010 and the prime reason for this slow progress is poor infrastructure set-up,” Gartner Research Vice President and Research Area Director John P Roberts said. He was speaking on “E-government transformation” on the concluding day of the Gartner summit in New Delhi.

Pointing out the other factors hindering India’s move to e-governance, he said,”Indian political leaders must set specific targets like making all the government service online by 2003.”
Gartner has also predicted that by 2004, more than 50 per cent of e-government projects worldwide will fail to deliver the service levels required by citizens and businesses. Laying other guidelines for e-governance, Mr Roberts said that e-government strategies should start from low-risk services and processes to allow agencies to get a full understanding of costs, risks and implications.

According to Gartner, the transition from “government” to “e-government” takes place in four phases beginning with “presence” phase followed by “interaction” and “transaction’ phase, finally ending at the “transformation” phase. “India is still in the phase 1 of the transition from government to e-government,” he added.

By 2005, 35 per cent of governments will be at “interaction’ phase; 55 per cent will be substantially at “transaction’ phase and less than 10 per cent will be at the “transformation” phase. Gartner has also predicted that by 2004, more than 70 per cent of all strategies that do not set clear objectives for constituency service, operational proficiency and political return will fail.