Bringing The Government Closer To The People Good Governance Day Special

Late Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee—a man of the masses—was firm in his political convictions and an ardent champion of social equality. He believed in a forward-looking, forward-moving India, ever modernising, ever renewing, ever re-energising itself. To celebrate his vision of spreading awareness on accountability of the Government, 25th December (the birth anniversary of India’s former Prime Minister) is observed as Good Governance Day every year.

Sushaasan, that is, Good Governance is the key to a nation's progress. From time to time, the Government brings administrative reforms following the maxim “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”, to encourage greater efficiency, transparent and corruption free governance, accountability and reduce scope for discretion. The Government is consistently working towards the goals of Good Governance through participatory, accountable, transparent, responsive government to the people of the country.

 Over the years, a large number of initiatives have been undertaken by various State Governments and Central Ministries to usher in an era of eGovernance. Sustained efforts have been made at multiple levels to improve the delivery of public services and simplify the process of accessing them. eGovernance in India has steadily evolved from computerisation of government departments to initiatives that encapsulate the finer points of governance, such as citizen centricity, service orientation and transparency. In the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “E-governance paves the way for Good Governance.”

Government Process Re-engineering using IT to simplify and make the Government processes more efficient has been critical for transformation to make the delivery of Government services more effective across various Government domains. The core idea behind the launch of any such initiative is that technology should be used as a tool to bridge the divide between the government and the citizens. The principle aim for reforming Government through technology is that all databases and information should be in electronic form and not manual, making the entire system transparent and faster. Initiatives like Digital India, MyGov.in, Jeevan Pramaan, e-Bhasha, e-Sampark, e-Greetings, .Bharat and others are some of the initiatives which have been recently undertaken to further the cause of Good Governance in the country.

Aadhaar

Aadhaar identity platform is one of the key pillars of ‘Digital India’, wherein every resident of the country is provided with a unique identity or Aadhaar number. The largest biometrics-based identification system in the world, Aadhaar is a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, public sector delivery reforms, managing fiscal budgets, increasing convenience and promoting hassle-free people-centric governance. It is unique and robust enough to eliminate duplicate or fake identities and may be used as a basis/primary identifier to roll out several Government welfare schemes and programmes for effective service delivery thereby promoting transparency and good governance.

MyGov

The citizen-centric platform empowers people to connect with the Government & contribute towards good governance. MyGov was established as the Government of India’s Citizen Engagement Platform which collaborates with multiple government bodies/ Ministries to engage with citizens for policy formulation and seeks the opinion of people on issues/topics of public interest and welfare. Almost all Government Departments leverage MyGov platform for their citizen engagement activities, consultations for policy formulation and also to disseminate information to citizens for various government schemes and programs. MyGov has adopted multiple engagement methodologies like discussions, tasks, polls, surveys, blogs, talks, pledges, quizzes and on-ground activities by innovatively using internet, mobile apps, IVRS, SMS and outbound dialling (OBD) technologies. Through the platform, logos and taglines of key national projects (eg, Swachcha Bharat, Digital India Campaign) have been crowdsourced. MyGov have also been frequently soliciting ideas for Mann Ki Baat, Annual Budget, Pariksha Pe Charcha and many more such initiatives.

e-Granthalaya

e-Granthalaya is a Digital Platform developed by National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for Government Libraries. Under the platform, NIC (National Informatics Centre) provides a complete ICT solution with integrated Library Management Software, Digital Library Module, Cloud hosting environment and a Library Portal (OPAC) with NICSI empaneled rollout services support. e-Granthalaya is useful to transform traditional libraries to e-library with Digital Library Services which includes automation of in-house activities of libraries, digital library integration, and to provide various online member services using Single Window Access System. The software provides built-in Web OPAC interface to publish the library catalogue over Internet. The software is UNICODE Compliant, thus, supports data entry in local languages. Latest version of e-Granthalaya (Ver.4.0) is a Cloud Ready Application and provides a Web-based solution in enterprise mode with a centralized database for clusters of libraries.

PRAGATI

Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation, or PRAGATI is a unique integrated and interactive platform through which the Hon’ble Prime Minister oversees the implementation of various government schemes, grievances, state and central government related projects & programmes by directly interacting with all stakeholders through Video Conferencing on a single platform. PRAGATI is aimed for a culture of pro-active governance through online video conferencing and meetings, and timely implementation of projects and schemes. It is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and eaccountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders.

National Centre of Geo-informatics

NCoG is a single source Geographic Information System (GIS) platform for sharing location-based analytics and a decision support system, catering to Central and State Ministries/ Departments/Agencies across the country. Under this project location-based datasets, such as data related to Central Government land banks, mining, forests, industrial parks, water resources, are collated with attribute-related data to bring out insights that are useful to support decision making. User departments can now pinpoint its operations, assets on a map and plan better. NCoG has provided mobile applications for geo-tagging and creating evidence of completed operations under the Government schemes. Promoting good governance, the Mining Surveillance System under NCoG has helped curb illegal mining through automatic remote sensing detection.The district officials are notified and action taken by them is reported through mobile app. The app also helps in monitoring and mapping of all Central government land parcels including that of CPSEs and enables identification of land for specific purposes.

e-Courts

e-Courts is a pan-India project monitored by the Ministry of Law and Justice. The project aims to enhance judicial productivity, both qualitatively & quantitatively, to make the justice delivery system affordable, accessible, cost effective, predictable, reliable and transparent. With a vision to transform the Indian Judiciary by ICT enablement of courts, the project lays great emphasis on efficient and time-bound service delivery to the litigants, lawyers and other stakeholders. The applications for mobile phones, SMS and emails are extensively used as platforms for dissemination of information. Certified copies of documents are given online and ePayment gateways have been provisioned for making deposits, payment of court fees, fines, etc.

e-District

Districts are the de facto front-end of the government where most Governmentto-Citizen or G2C interactions take place. The e-District project was conceptualised to improve this experience and enhance the efficiencies of the various departments at the district-level to enable seamless service delivery to the citizen. The project aims at delivery of high volume, citizen-centric services at the district level, such as the issue of birth/death certificate, income, domicile and caste certificates, issue of ration card, disbursement of pensions, among others.

eTaal

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), along with National Informatics Centre (NIC), the nodal information technology arm of Government of India, has developed the Electronic Transaction Aggregation & Analysis Layer (eTaal) portal. The portal provides an aggregated view of etransactions performed through eGovernance applications implemented including, but not limited to, the nationallevel mission mode projects (MMPs) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). eTaal automatically pulls the etransaction count, but not the personal details, from the applications using web service technology. The dashboard also facilitates quick analysis of data of various applications in tabular as well as graphical form enabling users to drill down to the lowest level of detail without compromising security and integrity of the servers from where data has been captured. eTaal 2.0 portal is launched before the public for providing a real-time aggregated view of the volume of eservices being delivered across the Central, State and local governments in India. It displays the number of ‘end-toend electronic transactions’ as the indicator for measuring the performance of G2C, G2B and B2C e-services.

Jeevan Pramaan

Also known as the Digital Life Certificate (DLC) for Pensioners Scheme, Jeevan Pramaan is an Aadhaar based biometric authentication system for pensioners. The system provides Digital Life Certificates for pensioners and does away with the necessity of the pensioner to be present in person before his/her Pension Dispensing Authority. DLC does not have to be submitted physically to the Pension Disbursing Agency (bank/post office etc.) as it is available to them digitally, and is automatically processed by the Pension Disbursing Agency. Also each DLC has a unique id called the Pramaan-Id. Pensioners of the Central Government, State Government or any other Government organisation can take benefit of this facility.

eGramSwaraj

e-GramSwaraj unifies the planning, accounting and monitoring functions of Gram Panchayats. It, in combination with the Area Profiler application, Local Government Directory (LGD), and the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), renders easier reporting and tracking of Gram Panchayat’s activities. e-GramSwaraj provides a single window for capturing Panchayat information with the complete profile of the Panchayat, details of Panchayat finances, asset details, activities taken up through Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP), Panchayat information from other Ministries/Departments, survey reports, etc. It is a simplified work-based accounting application for Panchayati Raj which aims to strengthen e-Governance in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) across the country, and bring in better transparency in the decentralised planning, progress reporting and workbased accounting.

(Compiled by Anuja Bhardwajan and Annesha Banerjee)