E-governance in India: its impacts on relations among citizens, politicians and public servants

Introduction In all societies, the formation of public governance is largely dependent on its contextual parameters, including social structure, economic condition, political atmosphere, cultural pattern and technological trend. The nature of governance often changes depending on the intensity and speed of transition in some of these surrounding factors. In the current age, one of the most significant contextual phenomena affecting public governance is the revolution in information and communication technology (ict).1 Internationally, this revolution in ict has facilitated the globalization of the economy, business, finance and culture (Berleur, 1997; Heeks, 1999). Today ict constitutes the fastest growing component of the global economy and the revenue generated by the interactive information industry may have reached $3.5 trillion (Hariharan, 1999). Internally, within each society, the conventional forms of communication (print media, motion pictures, radio, telephones, records) are increasingly being replaced with digital and wireless technologies such as cellular telephones, satellites, electronic mail and, above all, the internet (Gudaitis, 2001). However, the most influential dimension of this revolution is the worldwide proliferation of access to the internet. It is observed that the number of internet hosts increased from 100,000 in 1988 to over 36 million in 1998; and the number of internet users rose from 26 million in 1995 to 143 million in mid-1998, and it might reach 700 million by the end of 2001 (UNDP, 1999; Norris, 2000). This contextual phenomenon, which has changed the nature of the workforce, human relations and public expectations, represents a considerable challenge to the state to adjust its public governance (Centre on Governance, 1999a, b). In response to this transition in the context of governance, in almost every country, the state has taken the necessary initiatives to restructure political and administrative institutions by adopting ict in order to enhance electronic interaction and service delivery (Menzel, 1998; Galbi, 2001). Today public servants are encouraged and trained to be familiar with the tools and languages of ict