Question- What do you mean by e-government? Differentiate it from e- governance.

Related Short Answer Questions
Question- 1. What do you understand by e- government?

Ans.

E-Government

Traditionally, the interaction between a citizen or business and a government agency took place in a government office. With ICT it is possible to locate service centers closer to the clients.

E-Government is the use of information and communication > technologies to improve the activities of government. It is the use by government agencies of information technologies e.g. WAN, the Internet, mobile computing etc, that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses and other arms of government. These technologies provide better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. Following are the major domains of e-government:

E-administration: improving government processes.

E-citizens and e-services: connecting citizens.

 E-society: Building external interactions.

1. E-administration : It is to improve government processes. E- government initiatives within this domain deal particularly with improving the internal workings of the public sector. They include the following-

(i) Making strategic connections in government : connecting arms, agencies, levels and data stores of government to strengthen capacity to investigate, develop and implement the strategy and policy that guides government processes.

(ii) Cutting process costs : improving the input-output ratio by cutting financial costs and /or time costs.

(iii) Creating empowerment : transferring power, authority and resources for processes from their existing locus to new locations.

(iv) Managing process performance : planning, monitoring and controlling the performance of process resources.

2. E-Citizens and E-Services : Such initiatives connect citizens to deal particularly with the relationship between government and citizens; either as voters /stakeholders from whom the public sector should derive its legitimacy, or as customers who consume public services. These initiatives may well incorporate the process improvements. However, they also include a broader remit :

(i) Talking to citizens : providing citizens with details of public sector activities. This mainly relates to certain types of accountability : making public servants more accountable for their decisions and actions.

(ii) Listening to citizens : increasing the input of citizens into public sector decisions and actions. This could be flagged as either democratisation or participation.

(iii) Improving public services : improving the services delivered to members of the public along dimensions such as quality, convenience and cost.

3. E-Society : It building external interaction and initiative to deal particularly with the relationship between public agencies and other institutions other public agencies, private sector companies, non-profit and community organisations.

The initiatives involve a broader remits-

(i) Building partnerships : creating organisational groupings to achieve economic and social objectives. The public sector is almost always one of the partners, though occasionally it acts only as a facilitator for others.

(ii) Working better with business : improving the interaction between government and business. This includes digitising regulation of, procurement from, and services to, business to improve quality, convenience and cost.

(iii) Developing communities : building the social and economic capacities and capital of local communities.

The major benefits of e-government are pointed out as under-

Len corruption
Greater Convenience
Increased transparency
Growth in revenue
Reduction in cost

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