E-Government in Odisha: Development and Issues

Information is the key to democracy. For a successful democracy, information empowerment is fundamental. The advent of Information Technology (IT) has encouraged the rapid growth of a global information society that is changing the way people live, learn, and work. Information and Communication Technology’s (ICTs) were recognized to have tremendous administrative potential. For example, ICTs could help to create a networked structure for interconnectivity, service delivery, efficiency and effectiveness, interactivity, decentralization, transparency and accountability. Electronic government (E govt.) has emerged as a new concept in public administration to cover all of theses functions. In this context, the emergence of India as a global player in software development and IT is one side of an information revolution that has begun to impact on governance and development of a domestic level in areas such as e-governance, e-commerce, and e-health. The state, private and civil sectors have invested in numerous initiatives throughout the length and breadth of India aimed at extending the benefits of the information revolution to rural and remote area. These ranges from roll out of low-cost mobile cellular phones to numerous civil society based initiatives aimed at establishing affordable access to information and knowledge (e.g., VKCs, Bhoomi Project, Gyan Ganga Project). However, despites various initiatives at different levels of government and many conferences on e-government by academicians and practitioners report shows that the experiences with e-government initiatives as chaotic and unmanageable. E-government initiatives presents a number of challenges for public administrators, such as sustaining committed executive leadership, building effective e-government business cases, maintaining a citizen focus, protecting personal privacy, implementing appropriate security controls, maintaining electronic records, maintaining a robust technical infrastructure, addressing IT human capital concerns and ensuring uniform service to the public. To help public administrators think about e-government and these organizations, this article discusses about e-government development and issues. In this article we attempt to discuss the initiatives and developments related to egovernment with a particular emphasis on Odisha. The e-governance vision of odisha aims at establishing a truly networked government that would create and manage all the four pillars of e-governance, namely emanagement, e-service, e-democracy, and e-