Digital India: Advancements in E-Governance Services

Digital India was launched in India in 2015 with the aim of transitioning India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge-based economy. The primary objective of Digital India is to enhance the quality of life for all citizens by using digital technologies, driving growth in the digital economy, opening avenues for investment and employment, and strengthening the nation's digital technology prowess worldwide.

The purpose of this blog is to unfold the e-governance situation in the state. It would be most helpful for us as we look at how the government is applying digital platforms to provide better services and find out about the unique progress in digital governance through our exploration. The paper covers topics such as citizen-centric initiatives and the incorporation of new technologies, from which one can see that national progress toward adopting digital innovation aims at achieving transparency, efficiency, and accessibility in governance.

Vision of digital India

The Digital India programme revolves around three principal vision areas, as presented below:

Pillars of digital India

The Digital India initiative has been designed with a total of nine major pillars covering diverse areas that can transform India into an informationally advanced country.

Evolution of e-Governance services

It was around the mid-1990s when e-governance projects in India proliferated and mostly concentrated on large horizontal applications with a primary focus on citizen-centric services. Among the ICT initiatives were those aimed at developing major systems, railway computerization, land record computerization, and other related information systems. Later, many states started their electronic government programs with an aim to give citizens access to digital public services. Despite their citizen-centric focus, these e-governance projects faced challenges in achieving the desired impact because of their limited features. The isolated and minimally interactive systems revealed sizeable gaps, thus delaying the successful adoption of e-governance across governance areas. These highlighted an urgent need for more comprehensive planning and implementation, addressing infrastructure requirements and interoperability issues, to establish a more interconnected government.

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), a national-level initiative, was launched in 2006. It comprised 31 mission mode projects spanning domains such as health, land records, agriculture, passports, police, courts, education, municipalities, commercial taxes, and treasuries. Among these, 24 mission mode projects have been executed and have commenced providing either full or some of the envisioned services.

Acknowledging the areas for enhancement within the NeGP, including the absence of integration among government applications and databases, a restricted level of government process re-engineering and the opportunity to utilise emerging technologies like mobile and cloud, the Government of India authorised the e-Kranti program. This programme envisions ‘Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance.’

All new and ongoing e-governance projects, as well as existing projects under renovation, are required to follow to the core principles of e-Kranti. These principles include:

• Transformation, not translation
• Integrated services, not individual services
• Mandatory Government Process Reengineering (GPR) in every mission mode project
• ICT infrastructure on demand
• Cloud by default
• Mobile first
• Fast-tracking approvals
• Mandating standards and protocols
• Language localisation
• National geo-spatial information system (GIS)
• Security and electronic data preservation

The Union Cabinet has approved extension of the Digital India scheme for an additional five years. This entails a five-year allocation US$ 1.8 billion (Rs. 14,903 crore) over 2021-22 to 2025-26.

Major initiatives in e-governance services

In India, new e-governance initiatives are reshaping public services. These efforts simplify communication between citizens and the government, promoting efficiency and transparency.

As of now, 4,671 e-services have been rolled out across 709 districts in India.

In addition to the public service delivery measures, the Indian government is now turning its attention to enhancing e-Governance in agriculture as well. Some of the key digital initiatives that are implemented by the government to benefit farmers are briefed below:

Benefits from e-Governance

Case study: Key transformations achieved by Passport Seva

Passport Seva (PS) was launched as a Mission Mode Project by the Ministry of External Affairs in May 2010 with the objective of providing passport services to Indian citizens in a more efficient and effective manner.

Acknowledging the necessity for ongoing enhancements in Government-to-Citizen (G2C) services and the principles of Good Governance through IT and digital media, the Passport Seva Programme v2.0 is ready for a technology upgrade incorporating biometrics, artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics, auto-response, chat-bot, cloud enablement and natural language processing. Moreover, the introduction of e-Passports within the upgraded PSP-V 2.0 aims to improve customer satisfaction, strengthen security measures, and enhance citizens’ experiences. The Passport Seva Programme continues to be dedicated to the citizen-oriented e-Governance mechanism based on principles of responsiveness, care, concern, and transparency.

Conclusion    

One of the main consequences of introducing E-governance initiatives in India is that these have played a role as an engine to boost administrative efficiency, transparency, and empower citizens. To facilitate the nationwide implementation of e-governance at municipal, state, and national levels with greater speed, the government has adopted a practical orientation based on a common purpose and framework. This approach holds the potential to yield substantial cost savings through the sharing of core and support infrastructure, encouraging interoperability through standardised practices and presenting citizens with a seamless view of government operations.

These Indian e-governance efforts have resulted in seamless access to governmental services, simplification of bureaucracy, promotion of transparency, and democratization of society. These transformative projects have far-reaching implications for a future with an administration that is not only inclusive but also efficient.

• Common Services Centres (CSCs): CSCs operate in rural areas through Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs). CSCs offer more than 400 digital services.
• Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG): UMANG allows you to access more than 1,570 government services and ~22,000 payment services for bills through the mobile application.
• e-District Mission Mode Project (MMP): The e-services under this initiative includes:
  • Certificates
  • Pensions
  • Electoral services, and
  • e-services from various departments like Commercial Tax, Agriculture, and Labor.
  • DigiLocker: Facilitates paperless availability of public documents, DigiLocker is now utilized by more than 11.7 crore people. In total, over 532 crore certificates are kept in this digital document vault with records supplied by 2,167 issuer organizations.
  • Unified Payment Interface (UPI): Integrated with 330 banks, UPI processes over 586 crore monthly transactions.
  • MyGov: A citizen engagement platform, MyGov has over 2.48 crore active users, promoting participatory governance.
  • MeriPehchaan: Introduced in July 2022, MeriPehchaan is a National Single Sign-on platform designed to provide citizens with convenient access to government portals.
  • Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT): There are 315 schemes across 53 ministries offering Aadhaar-enabled direct benefit transfer, with US$ 293.5 billion (Rs. 24.3 lakh crore) disbursed through the DBT platform.
  • Diksha: This nationwide educational platform assists students and teachers in achieving learning goals, offering 7,633 courses, and recording over 15 crore enrolments as of July 27, 2022.