It for E-governance

India which takes pride in being one of the leaders in the field of information technology, especially software, however, ranks very low when it comes to Electronic governance-E-governance as it is called. It ranks 77 in a list of 133 countries that have been indexed for E-governance. It is, therefore, obvious that an attitudinal change, a change of mindset among political rulers, bureaucrats and the people are required to usher in this tool of modern administration. Computers and kiosks alone cannot do the job, though they are important. Computer literacy, access and connectivity also play a major part in the E-governance delivery system. Some of the State governments have taken the initiative to press ahead with E-governance in their own limited way. Some of them are on experimental basis. The Centre (Govt. of India) has decided to build a citizenship database over the next 12 to 18 months. This will be some kind of citizen’s identity that would then be used for all purposes. Perhaps as the permanent identity card. The objective is to adopt the E-governance system for the delivery of key services at the Central as well as State level: Income tax, immigration, passports, insurance and banking as far as the Central services are concerned and land records, road transport, property registration, municipal services, commercial taxes and the police among the State services. The current E-governance initiatives in states such as Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are concerned, they are pilot schemes. For a full extension of the services, security remains the key factor. Unless E-security is established, it would be unwise to adopt E-governance in an extensive form. The then Deputy Prime Minister (While inaugurating the 7th National E-governance conference during November, 2003) observed that “Globally India is recognized as one of the leading providers of information technology. Yet, we are way behind in introducing IT for E-governance. It is paradoxical.” It was pointed out that E-governance would succeed only when there is a commitment to g-governance (good governance) just as g-governance becomes easier with the introduction of E-governance. Unless E-governance is backed by administrative reforms in process, procedures and systems of governance, such initiatitves tend to end up as mere computerization with no tangible benefit to the citizens. Various suggestions have been made from time to make it a reality that E-governance was applied and made effective. In such a context, this chapter highlights/explains the features relating to benefits and applications of IT, models of E-governance IT inequalities, key