e-Governance: concept and the National e-Governance Plan

Detail

1. What e-Governance means

• e-Governance: the government uses ICT (information and communication technology: computers, internet, mobile phones, networks) for two jobs:
• to deliver services to people, such as certificates, land records and bill payments

• to run its own internal work, such as files, approvals and accounts

• Why it matters for accountability:

• Every step is recorded online, so a delay or a bribe demand is easier to trace.
• Fewer face-to-face meetings with officials mean fewer chances to demand bribes.
• Rules and the status of an application are visible to the citizen, which makes government more transparent.

2. Types of e-Governance

Type	Who deals with whom	Example
G2C (Government to Citizen)	Government ↔ the public	Land records, passports, certificates
G2B (Government to Business)	Government ↔ companies	MCA21 (company filings), e-Procurement
G2G (Government to Government)	Between ministries, or between the Centre and the states	Data sharing, State Wide Area Networks
G2E (Government to Employee)	Government ↔ its own staff	e-Office, online pay and pension records

3. Stages of e-Governance (in order)

1. Web presence: the department puts information on a website. It is a one-way flow.
2. Interaction: citizens can download forms, send email and file complaints.
3. Transaction: the whole service is done online, such as paying tax or applying for a passport.
4. Transformation: departments are joined up and redesigned around the citizen. One window gives many services.

4. SMART government: 2nd ARC 11th Report (2008)

• The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2nd ARC) was set up on 31 August 2005 as a Commission of Inquiry. Its chairman was Veerappa Moily [7].
• Its 11th Report, Promoting e-Governance: The Smart Way Forward, came out in December 2008 [7].
• SMART government = Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive, Transparent. The report saw e-Governance as a way to reach these five goals [7][8].
• Core idea: redesign first, computerise later.
• Business process re-engineering means changing the steps, forms and rules of a service before putting it online.
• If you computerise a bad process, you only get a faster bad process.

• The report said these changes must be backed by procedural, institutional and legal changes [8].

• Other recommendations [8]:

• Build a "will to change" inside government, with political support at the highest level.
• Each ministry should pick 3–4 high-volume, citizen-centric e-governance projects first.
• Use PPP (public–private partnership: the government and a private firm share the work and the risk) as the preferred mode where it suits the project.
• Build capacity through e-Governance wings in state Administrative Training Institutes (ATIs).
• Make sure projects are evaluated at the Union and State levels.

5. Early milestones (before NeGP)

• NIC (National Informatics Centre), 1976: the government's own IT body. It built networks and software for ministries and districts.
• State pilots, the first working models:
• Bhoomi (Karnataka): computerised land records, so farmers could get a copy of the record of rights quickly.
• e-Seva (Andhra Pradesh): one-stop centres for paying bills and getting certificates.
• Gyandoot (Madhya Pradesh, Dhar district): rural internet kiosks.

• FRIENDS (Kerala): single-window counters for paying utility bills and taxes.

• IT Act 2000: gave legal validity to electronic records and e-signatures. Without it, an online document or approval could not stand in law.

6. National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), 2006

• Approved by the Union Cabinet on 18 May 2006 [2].
• Vision: make all government services available to the common man in his own locality, through common service delivery outlets. Services should be efficient, transparent, reliable and affordable [2].
• Mission Mode Project (MMP): an e-governance project with clear goals, fixed timelines and set service levels (for example, a promised number of days to deliver a service). One ministry or department owns each MMP.
• At the start: 27 MMPs + 8 support components [2][3]:
• 9 Central MMPs
• 11 State MMPs

• 7 Integrated MMPs

• The list later grew to 31 MMPs.

Category	Main examples
Central (run by Union ministries)	Passports, MCA21 (company affairs), Income Tax, Pensions, e-Office
State (run by states)	Land records, e-District, Commercial taxes, Treasuries, e-Panchayats
Integrated (need many departments or governments to work together)	e-Courts, e-Procurement, Common Service Centres

• e-District MMP: a separate scheme was approved to roll out e-District nationally. It delivers high-volume district services such as certificates, pensions and ration cards online [5].

7. Core infrastructure: the "3 pillars + gateway"

• SWAN (State Wide Area Network): a secure data network linking state headquarters, districts and blocks.
• SDC (State Data Centre): a central place where a state stores its data and hosts its applications.
• CSC (Common Service Centre): the front-end outlet where citizens actually get the service.
• Service delivery gateways (NSDG/SSDG): "middleware" (connecting software) that lets different departments' systems talk to each other and route a citizen's request.

8. Institutions behind NeGP

• DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) was the lead agency. It later became MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and IT).
• National e-Governance Division (NeGD) gives programme management and technical support.
• DARPG (Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances) has an e-Governance division. It handles process reform and owns the e-Office MMP [10].
• NeGP was folded into Digital India (2015). CSC 2.0 was launched under Digital India in 2015 [2].

9. Passport Seva: the usual success story

• Pilot Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) were launched in May 2010 [6].
• It was a Mission Mode Project run in PPP mode with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS):
• The private partner handles the front-end work: token, scanning and photo.

• Government officials keep the sovereign functions, which are verification and the decision to grant the passport [6].

• 77 PSKs were set up as extended arms of 37 Passport Offices [6].

• From May 2010 to 30 June 2014, 1,53,29,306 passports were issued under the new system [6].
• Reach: online passport applications can also be filed at over one lakh CSCs in rural areas [6].
• Later expansion: Head Post Offices are being used as Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) [6].
• Why it is cited as a success: the process was redesigned before it was computerised, service levels were fixed, and the applicant can track their application.

10. Front end 1: Common Service Centres (CSCs)

• Common Service Centre: an ICT kiosk in a village, with a computer, internet, printer and scanner. A local entrepreneur called a Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE) runs it, and earns a fee for each service.
• Timeline:
• September 2006: the CSC Scheme was approved as a key part of NeGP [2].
• 2009: CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd, an SPV (special purpose vehicle: a company set up for one task), was formed to manage the network. CSC marked "16 years" on 16 July 2025 [4].
• Early phase: over 86,000 CSCs served about 6 crore (60 million) people in nearly 5 lakh villages [3].
• August 2015: restructured as CSC 2.0 under Digital India. The aim was at least one CSC in each of about 2.5 lakh gram panchayats [2][9].

• 2025: over 6.5 lakh functional centres in rural and urban areas [4].

• Services offered [2][4]:

• G2C: certificates, pension and scheme applications
• Aadhaar enrolment and updates, and PAN cards
• Passport applications
• Banking (Business Correspondent model, DigiPay) and insurance
• Telemedicine (eSanjeevani) and legal advice (Tele-Law)
• Digital literacy (PMGDISHA) and utility bill payments

• In total, over 800 digital services are now offered [2]

• Link to panchayats: in 2024–25, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj approved 3,301 Gram Panchayat Bhawans with a CSC on the same site and sanctioned 22,164 computers for gram panchayats [11].

11. Front end 2: e-Office

• e-Office: an NIC software suite that replaces paper files with electronic files. Notes, drafts, approvals and movement of files all happen online.
• What it does for governance:
• Each file has a digital trail, so you can see who held it and for how long. This makes officials accountable.
• Files cannot be "lost", so decisions are faster.

• Records can be searched, which helps with RTI requests.

• It is a Central MMP. DARPG prepared its framework, which was discussed at a workshop on 2 December 2011 [10].

12. Assessment: why NeGP fell short

• Departmental silos: each department built its own system, and many could not share data with others.
• Weak process re-engineering: many old paper processes were simply computerised. This is exactly the mistake the 2nd ARC warned against [8].
• Digital divide: poor connectivity, low digital literacy and language barriers kept out rural, poor, elderly and women users.
• Viability of CSCs: VLEs earned too little where there were few transactions, so many kiosks closed in the early years. This was a main reason for restructuring the scheme as CSC 2.0 (2015) [2].
• Fix that followed: Digital India (2015) aimed for joined-up platforms such as Aadhaar, DigiLocker and UMANG, a move from "computerising" to "transforming".

Prelims Hooks

• NeGP was approved on 18 May 2006. It began with 27 MMPs (9 Central, 11 State, 7 Integrated) plus 8 components, later raised to 31 MMPs.
• Trap: e-Courts, e-Procurement and CSCs are Integrated MMPs. Land records, e-District and Treasuries are State MMPs. Passports, MCA21 and Income Tax are Central MMPs.
• SMART = Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive, Transparent. It comes from the 2nd ARC's 11th Report (Promoting e-Governance: The Smart Way Forward, December 2008). The 2nd ARC was chaired by Veerappa Moily.
• The CSC Scheme was approved in September 2006. The SPV CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd was formed in 2009. CSC 2.0 came in August 2015, with the goal of one CSC per gram panchayat (about 2.5 lakh).
• Passport Seva: pilot in May 2010, PPP with TCS. The private partner does front-end work, and the government keeps verification and grant of the passport.
• The IT Act 2000 gave legal recognition to e-records and e-signatures.
• Pilot–state pairs: Bhoomi = Karnataka, e-Seva = Andhra Pradesh, Gyandoot = Madhya Pradesh, FRIENDS = Kerala.
• Correct order of stages: web presence → interaction → transaction → transformation.
• NIC was set up in 1976. e-Office is NIC's software for electronic file movement and is a Central MMP.

Mains Points

• e-Governance as an accountability tool:
• Digital records, fixed service levels and the ability to track an application take away an official's discretion and the chance to demand bribes.
• This supports the transparency goals of the RTI Act 2005.

• Example: Passport Seva.

• Re-engineer before you computerise:

• The 2nd ARC 11th Report (2008) warned that putting old processes online without changing them gives poor results.
• NeGP's silos and patchy outcomes show this risk.

• Reform needs process redesign, systems that can talk to each other, and changes in law.

• Last-mile delivery vs digital divide:

• CSCs grew from about 86,000 to over 6.5 lakh, with an "assisted access" model run by VLEs.
• Problems remain: VLE income, connectivity, and fees charged to citizens.

• Digital literacy (PMGDISHA) and the panchayat–CSC link are needed for inclusion.

• PPP in governance:

• It brings efficiency and the ability to scale up, as with TCS in Passport Seva.
• Two questions must be answered: who is accountable when a private partner fails, and how is citizens' data kept safe? This is now tested against the DPDP Act 2023.