Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction to e-Governance systems and their implementation:

The concept of governance has experienced substantial changes in the world during the last

decade. The changes occurred as a result of higher requirements and more expectations held for

the ways of governing democratic civil society: these should be more modern and effective.

Everyone today would agree that it is essential to integrate information and communication

technologies with the governing processes. That guarantees smart state governance and more

importantly, it ensures openness of all thegovernment structures for democratic control.

Theultimate objective of every democratic government is to create an advanced

informationsociety: educated, constantly learning and knowledge-based, where its members-

ordinarycitizens and government officials at all levels – are capable and willing to apply modern

means ofinformation and communication technologies in allareas of their life. Many studies state

that only where state and municipalauthorities are effectively using their national andglobal

computer information resources arecapable of prompt decision-making and ensuringpublic

access to reliable public information. Every democratic government must put their efforts

together and create an informationsociety, which is one of the key pre-conditions of asuccessful

and viable modem and smart society.

Creation of an information society is acomplex process that affects both the daily life of all

thepeople in the country as well as the life of people in the state.Development of the information

society includes keypolitical, social, economic and cultural changes insociety. Governments are

changing their traditional means of operations which means there is a transformation of the daily

1
operational activitiesof residents, businesses, public administration agenciesand non-

governmental organizations. Such processescreate new needs and requirements.

E-governance services imply public administrationservices to residents and businesses,

provided by themeans of information and communicationtechnologies. So the new technologies

are beginningto reshape public administration by improving links between all the stakeholders:

service-providers andindustry, public and private sector, public bodies andcitizens. They help us

save time and money and, mostimportantly, visibly reduce corruption and solve manyother

problems in a faster way.

There is need to highlight the fact that e-governance shouldnot become just a modern

slogan or a demonstration project. E-governance is a long-term initiative reforming the

entirepublic sector, seeking public confidence and higherquality of life. Modernization of state

governancewhile applying information and communicationtechnologies will help develop e-

governance byproviding services and information to residents andbusinesses as well as

increasing efficiency of publicadministration bodies and developing e-democracy.

Only when the economy is knowledge- and science-based,it can be effective and

competitive. Therefore, thedevelopment of e-governance will not only help improve governance

but also help companies in the state to develop business, encourage cooperation with

science,enable the private sector to move its business to the e-spaceand promote innovations

because knowledge isnot finite like other material resources, it isaccumulated and could be easily

shared with others. Obviously, the ability of today’sstates to lookat the needs of knowledge

economy and e-businessensures successful economic development ofthe countryand its

international competitiveness.A strategic objective of the public administration sector in a

modern, progressive, and smart state is to create a transparent, effective and result-drivenpublic

2
administration system which provides adequate services to every individual and is based on

information and communication technologies.

1.2Background of the Study

ICT policies of a state should talk aboutthe development of information technologies

enablingpublic administration to perform their functions:creating conditions for the electronic

exchange ofinformation among public administration bodies;ensuring the interface between state

informationsystems and various registers; moving public servicesinto the e-space.

While fulfilling these e-governance tasks modern governments should seek that the

public services be placed in the e-space and should be accessible to and used by the widest

possiblesegments of society. Governments should encourage all the institutions to apply the one-

stopshop principle. While taking this road, discovered by the old democracies, governments will

be able to develop amodern public sector and increase public confidencein the state

bodies.Information has been one of the most important resources used by government

organizations to deliver their services. Developments in information technology (IT) and the

computer based information systems (CBIS) in the past few decades have enabled organizations

to use the information more efficiently and effectively to achieve their goals. The CBIS’s were

initially designed to cater to the information needs of individual departments and contribute to

achieving efficiencies at the departmental level. These departmental CBIS’s were referred to as

departmental silos which were unconnected to each other (Monk & Wagner, 2009). This means

that for a life event people have to deal with a number of agencies separately. This kind of

bureaucracy is increasingly unacceptable. People shouldn’t have to run from department to

department to get things done. Government organizations have felt the need for an Integrated

3
CBIS (Leon, 2009) that looks to join up public services and facilitate a single window service or

solution to a set of common problems for their citizens and other organizations.

This need, along with the success of e-commerce and the advancements in IT led to the

evolution of e-governance projects.

Governments, today, promise a more citizen-centric government and look to reduce

operational cost. Unfortunately most of the initiativeshave not been able to achieve the benefits

claimed. Often thereason for this failure is a techno-centric focus rather than agovernance-centric

focus. Today the need of the hour for Governments is Minimum Government and Maximum

Governance and to be more proactive, effective and efficient.

E-governance systems have evolved from the e-commerce systems that have been

extensively used by business organizations. The functionality of e-commerce systems included

the tasks associated with providing a customer to do "one stop shopping" with the assurance that

a single phone call will bring the right materials to the right location at the right time. These

information systems have been successful in propelling business growth and hence the economy.

The success of e-commerce encouraged governments to embrace e-governance projects to

provide public services to the citizens at their doorsteps. The functionality of e-governance

systems is similar to those of e-commerce systems. However, e-governance provides a wider and

better scope for integration of the various government processes in various government

departments.

An e-governance system supports the governmental use of information and

communication technologies to improve the quality of governance and public service delivery

(UN 2008, 10). These systems support integrated management of government processes as a

whole from the viewpoint of effective use of government resources to improve the efficiency of

4
the government. E-governance systems allow government to automate government processes,

share data and practices across departments, and produce and access real-time

information(Sumner 2005). Thus e-governance systems enable governments to quickly react to

pressures, realize opportunities, and tighten public administration.

In a bid to make governance more effective and achieve the goals of the government

efficiency,effectiveness, transparency, accountability in decision-making and to deliver efficient

and cost-effective public services to citizens, e-governance is being adopted as a tool. E-

governance initially began as process where government entities developed websites and began

populating these sites with information. After mastering this information dissemination aspect,

government units moved toward processing online transactions. Subsequent to mastering

transaction processing, governments moved across a continuum and engaged citizens online in a

participatory framework; that is, offering Internet applications that connect citizens with public

administrators, decision-makers, and perhaps elected officials (Schwester, 2009).

Assessment made by World Bank (2001) indicates that e-governance is in nascent stage

of implementation in both developed and developing countries. Government departments in

many developing countries publish information on web sites as a first step towards e-

government. Many of these sites are poorly designed and the department does not update or

monitor the quality of information. Initially the publishing of information online was targeted at

attracting foreign investments, but as Internet penetration grew in urban areas, many sites began

to focus on delivering information and services to citizens and businesses. A large number of

developing countries from Asia and Latin America have implemented transaction-oriented e-

governance applications on pilot basis. However, only a few of these pilot projects have been

replicated on a wider scale. With the popularity of e-governance and the increasing interaction

5
between government and citizens through the internet in many countries of the world, e-

governance is being adopted by governments to promote public accountability and service

delivery to stakeholders.

1.3Significance of the study

E-governance has already arrived in India, though it is essentially an imported concept based on

imported designs. There are growing numbers of e-governance projects, some of which are

contributing to public sector reform and delivering gains of efficiency and/or effectiveness across

a broad agenda. However, this positive picture must be set alongside significant challenges

(Heeks, 2002).

Governments both atnational and local level are making efforts to transform themselves

into a wellconnectedentity that responds efficiently to the needs of its citizens by developingan

integrated back-office infrastructure. Cities are implementing smart andinnovative means to

improve quality of life and enhance competitiveness. Variousmeasures are being taken to

provide transparent, efficient, innovative and responsivegovernment through adoption of various

Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) tools. Odisha, located in the east of India is

no exceptionwhich started its E-Governance initiatives a decade ago, has today crossed

significantmilestones. Various e-services platforms are created to inform and assistcitizens and e-

transaction platforms are created to reduce the burden on existingstaff in various departments.

These services have shown remarkable results inmanagement of some areas such as revenue,

land registration, transport, complaint registration, treasury, human resource, etc. Theseplatforms

are still evolving and being created and developed after thoroughresearch, planning and

consultative process with various stakeholders. The government of Odishahas been successful in

extending the reach of services digitally to its citizensand promoting a sense of sustainability.

6
This state takes care of wide spectrum ofadministrative, political and social services through

diverse ICT and GeographicInformation System (GIS) platforms. Odisha is a statefor tourism,

education, handicraft industry etc., and is also known for its advanced ICT industry and highly

innovative government initiatives.This sense of sustainability is also reflected in adoption of

environmentalfriendly practices which are being supported by befitting e-democracy and e-

governance measures.

In spite of the difficulties with the implementation of the e-governance projects

government organizations are increasingly adopting the e-governance systems for their potential

benefits. The most acknowledged benefits include benefits for individuals and organizational

benefits such as automation and integration of governmental processes, seamless data flow,

direct-access to real-time information, which in turn translates into improvements in productivity

and decision making speed (Nah, Lau &Kuang, 2001; Davenport, 1998).

Although, the Indian government started off a bit late as compared to its western

counterparts with the adoption of e-governance projects, the central government and the state

governments are increasingly adopting many e-governance projects in recent times. The trend

can be attributed to several factors such as providing proactive online government services, fast

pace of growing and good economic conditions, betterment in the infrastructure conditions,

increasing prominence of the emerging technologies like: Cloud architecture, Big Data and

Analytical technologies, Artificial intelligence, internet/web etc.

At par with the growing prominence in the government, e-governance projects have

become one of the important subjects of academic research as well. There are many research

studies touching upon different aspects of e-governance and their implementation. However,

research focusing on e-governance implementations in Odisha mainly consists of descriptive

7
case studies on the implementation problems, challenges, barriers and success factors. Studies

that have explored and validated the relationships between different factors related to the

outcomes of successful e-governance project implementation are scarce. The present study aims

to contribute to bridge this research gap by developing and testing a theoretical framework that

validates the relationships between the various success factors and the implementation outcomes

of a successful project. To achieve this, the study uses the updated IS Success model developed

by Delone& McLean (2003) model.

1.4Scope of the study

It is really a tedious and complex task to bring all the aspects of e-Governance within the scope

of a single research. Therefore, it is necessary to limit the area to be studied under the present

research. It is for this reason that the study has been restricted to the State of Odisha only. This

study is focused mainly on the success factors that impact on e-governance projects in Odisha, e-

rediness, strategies and implementation, and development of a framework for e-governance on

the latest platform. Keeping in view the formulated objectives, a questionnaire for the data

analysis (Appendix) have been designed. The data has been collected through online method

using google forms and also as hard copy. The area for collecting data has been specified as the

Government departments of the State of Odisha. For this purpose, the districts in the state of

Odisha have been included in the study.

1.5Research Methodology

The research methodology is the basic framework action plan adopted in carrying out the

research. Appropriate statistical techniques have been used for collection, analysis and

interpretation of the sample data. The steps involved are:

8
• Selecting the Districts in the State of Odisha through random procedure sampling

method.

• Study of various e-Governance Projects (successful and also failed ones) in Odisha.

• Formulation of the questionnaire through consultations, feedback and survey methods.

• Mapping the Questionnaire to the research objectives.

• Testing of the Questionnaire.

• Preparation of the sampling plan.

• Expressing and representing the sampling plans in detail for preparation of the effective

database for the sample collection.

• Analyzing the collected data and drawing valid conclusions regarding objectives of the

study. The data collected was analyzed and interpreted using various statistical

techniques including the ANOVA, F-test, t-test and Factor analysis.

1.6Research Process Summary

• The present study is based on the premise that government offices achieve different

levels of e-governance implementation success, despite the huge amount of resources

being invested into the implementation project. The study seeks to explore some of the

factors specific to e-governance project implementation success. Based upon the research

objectives and the methodology used to achieve the research objectives, the study

imbibes the characteristics of both descriptive and analytical types of research studies.

Descriptive studies identify relevant variables, but do not aim at testing hypothesis. On

the other hand, analytical studies are primarily concerned with testing hypothesis and

specifying and interpreting relationships (Krishnaswamy, 1993).

• One of the study’s objectives (Objective 1) is to identify factors that are likely to impact

9
 or influence e-governance project success, which aligns with the objective of descriptive

research study. Some of the factors identified by reviews of literature on e-governance

and ICTs, influence on project success. The second objective(Objective 2)of the study,

include investigating the impact of some of the factors on e-governance project success.

This objective aligns with the objectives of analytic research studies. Drawing upon the

insights from the literature review, hypothesis between the variables of interest were

developed. Survey methodology was adopted to collect the data used to test the

hypotheses. A survey instrument was designed using the inputs from the literature and

domain experts. Subsequently, the population for the study identified. Based on the

available information, questionnaires were sent to respondents in various government

departments and IT consultants associated with e-governance project implementations in

government of Odisha.

• Data analysis techniques such as: factor Analysis, Regression Analysis, ANOVA and

Chi-square test have been used for testing the hypotheses. The findings were

subsequently analyzed for possible theoretical explanation. The study concludes with a

discussion on the implications of the findings to theory and practice and scope for future

research.

10
1.7Organizatio of the thesis:

Chapter-1: Introduction – This chapter outlines the contents of this research work. It includes

an introduction, background of the research study, significance, scope, research process

summary, organization of the thesis etc.

Chapter-2: Review of Literature – In this chapter, an extensive survey of the existing research

literature in the form of research papers and articles published in the journals & magazines,

conferences, text and reference books, and case studies has been done. Governance, Good

Governance, e-governance,e-government, Project Success factors, cloud computing and an

overview of various other aspects and issues of this study has been presented through the review

of these studies.

Chapter-3: E-Governance in India and Odisha– This chapter describes the e-Governance

initiatives in India and Odisha and also details the Odisha e-Governance initiatives and the

various strategies and implementation being considered for the residents of the State and what

benefits can be accrued with its implementation and Emerging technologies in e-Governance has

been looked into.

Chapter-4:Research Model &Methodology – This chapter describes the method of study, area

of study, size of Population Sample, types of respondents considered and their selection criteria.

Besides, it also outlines measuring instruments, method of collecting data and process for data

analysis. The research model used along with the conceptual details of variables, Hypothesis

formulation, Models etc. have been presented in this chapter.

11
Chapter -5: Data Analysis:Results and findings. The results obtained from data analysis have

been presented in this chapter.

Chapter-6: Discussions and Closure: Contribution of study, limitations, scope for future

research. It highlights various shortcomings of the present system of e-Governance and lists the

recommendations to make the system more efficient and effective. Scope for further research has

also been given.

12