Lsg Project Final Panchayats In India And The Internet Age.docx

PANCHAYATS IN INDIA AND THE INTERNET AGE (Project towards fulfillment of assessment in the subject of Local Self Governance)

Submitted by:

Submitted to:

Shubh Dixit (1245)

Mr. Om Prakash Gautam

Chinmaya Mudgal (1320)

Faculty of Law

B.A., LL.B., (Business Law Hons. Semester VII

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, JODHPUR SUMMER SESSION (JULY-NOVEMBER, 2018)

Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................3 Need for Integrating Technology with Governance...................................................................4 Current Forms Of E-Governance...............................................................................................6 E-panchayats..........................................................................................................................6 Health management information services..............................................................................6 E-dhara...................................................................................................................................7 E-choupal...............................................................................................................................7 E-gram viswagram.................................................................................................................7 Gyandoot................................................................................................................................7 Case Studies...............................................................................................................................8 Rajasthan................................................................................................................................8 Plan and Strategy................................................................................................................8 Major Projects....................................................................................................................9 Current Status.....................................................................................................................9 Orissa....................................................................................................................................10 Plan and strategy..............................................................................................................10 Major Projects..................................................................................................................11 Current Status...................................................................................................................11 Concluding Remarks................................................................................................................12 Challenges............................................................................................................................13 Environmental and Social Challenges.............................................................................13 Economic Challenges.......................................................................................................13 Technical Challenges........................................................................................................14 Recommendations................................................................................................................14 Cutting Costs....................................................................................................................14 Increasing Literacy and awareness...................................................................................15 2

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................16 Articles.................................................................................................................................16 Newspapers and Articles......................................................................................................17 Internet Sources....................................................................................................................17

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Introduction The words of Late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India, e-Governance in the context of India can be stated as, ‘A transparent smart e-Governance with seamless access, secure and authentic flow of information crossing the interdepartmental barrier and providing a fair and unbiased service to the citizen.’1 The term e-Governance came into existence with the advent of government websites in late 1990s. E-Governance involves Information Communication Technology (Hereinafter referred to as ICT), especially the internet, to improve the delivery of government services to citizens, businesses and government agencies. The use of internet not only delivers the services faster but also brings more transparency between the government and the citizens. 2 The goal of eGovernance is not only to digitize the records of the government but to transform the process of governance to suit the aspirations of modern e-age. ICTs can play a vital role in this regard. ICT applications enhance the delivery of services to citizens by improving the process. It redefines the traditional concepts of citizenship and democracy. 3 But in developing countries like India, where literacy level is very low and most of the people are living below poverty line, it is very much difficult for the government to provide its services to such citizens via means of internet. Even the e-Readiness Rank of India is very low. ‘E-readiness’ is defined as the ability to use information and communication technologies to develop one’s economy and welfare.4 Cooperation from government officials and staff will be crucial in realizing the goals of modernizing this nation through E-Governance. Since this is a new concept for government officials who are used to familiar methods of work, the growth of EGovernance is met with resistance and fear, among other infrastructural problems.5 The impact of ICTs on societies is not homogeneous. The uneven brunt of ICT is responsible for irregular economic development in India. This aspect brings out clearly the criticality of 1 R.K.Gera, et al, Improving the Image of Rural India through E-Governance of Panchayat, International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology ISSN (Online):2278-5299 Vol.1,Issue 1 :30-35 ,MayJune(2012) http://www.mnkjournals.com/ijlrst.htm. 2 Dr. Pardeep Mittal, Amandeep Kaur, E-Governance - A challenge for India, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET) Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2013, http://ijarcet.org/wp-content/uploads/IJARCET-VOL-2-ISSUE-3-1196-1199.pdf 3 Supra note 1 4 See, http://deity.gov.in/content/e-readiness-assessment-reports 5 Vandana gupta & Ajay Sharma, E-Governance In India: Problems, Challenges and Prospects, Vol 1, No 9 (2012), http://www.theinternationaljournal.org/ojs/index.php?journal=rjebs&page=article&op=view&path%5B %5D=1110

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the role of government in the age of the information. 6 Recognizing the significance of eGovernance, the Government of India has introduced various administrative reforms and initiated many measures at the institutional level to further its prospect. 7 The effort is minor if we take into consideration the need for effective and viable usage of ICT tools at the panchayats, which represents the first level of government interaction for over 75% of the Indian populace.8 E-Panchayat was conceived as a Mission Mode Project (MMP) under National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) with the primary objective of introducing and institutionalizing egovernance in Panchayats. The primary aim was to transform Panchayats into efficient units and to strengthen their business functions and processes with the ultimate goal of ensuring effective local area development and prompt and efficient service to common man. As per official figures, there are approximately 2,50,000 Panchayats in India mapped by the National Informatics Centre and Ministry of Panchayati Raj on the ministry website under the project called e- Panchayat.9 While the aspiration of integrating technology with governance at the grass root levels remains yet to be realized completely, the authors have, in the subsequent parts of the project made out a case for the need of ICTs in governance of Panchayat Raj Institutions. We have then set out the forms in which ICT is currently being used as a tool for governance, the budget allocation for the same. In the final parts of the project, we have expounded on the challenges in integration of ICT with governance and advanced certain recommendations.

Need for Integrating Technology with Governance ICT facilitates in developing public service delivery and best practices in administration. It helps in redesigning the processes and service delivery at lower transaction cost with improvement in transparency and accountability. E-Governance information systems should not mean just an electronic reproduction of existing system of inter- departmental cooperation. It brings about transformational change rather than merely a technical change. E-Governance models integrated with ICT enable administrative processes and establish communication on line real time basis providing status tracking and information. It gets the 6 Supra note 1 7 Supra Note 5. 8 Jhumur Ghosh, Relevance and use of ICTs in grassroots’ participation in panchayat, Article - 4 Global Media Journal-Indian Edition Sponsored by the University of Calcutta/www.caluniv.ac.in, Summer Issue/June 2014/Vol. 5/No. 1, http://www.caluniv.ac.in/global-mdia-journal/ARTICLE-JUNE-2014/A_4.pdf. 9 ibid

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delivery of services without delay and corruption. The ICT enabled e-governance models provide improved transparency and help bridge the performance gap.10 The Gram Sabha was formed to enable each and every voter of the village to participate in decision- making at local level. It is a constitutional body consisting of all persons registered in the electoral rolls of a village Panchayat and a mechanism of direct democracy. In spite of this the operation of the gram sabhas has come under much criticism. The functions of the Gram Sabha also vary from state to state though there are certain common functions. The implementation of such functions can lead to a very active participatory democratic institution. So though there is legal provision in panchayati raj for regular meetings of the gram sabha including all members to discuss relevant issues and the gram sabha is supposed to play an important role in preparing village plans and deciding development priorities in the village, it is arguable whether this active and important role of the gram sabha has been realized in reality. In many villages, gram sabha meetings have been reduced to a mere formality.11 Nothing worthwhile has happened in making Gram Sabha a vibrant institution at local level on account of absence of power, lack of awareness, apathy of the villagers, lack of enthusiasm and absence of freedom on the part of this body. There is a need to throw light on the powers of the gram sabha in this context. As pointed out earlier the gram sabha is like the fulcrum of the Panchayati raj system.12 The enabling provision, Article 243-A has largely resulted in giving predictable functions to the gram sabhas such as to endorse, to recommend, to suggest, to consider annual accounts and administrative reports and audit notes, etc. But the first step to ensuring the effectiveness of gram panchayats is to assuring the presence of all relevant members. Here the role of information and communication tools is vital. Administrative and technological improvements in communicating and conveying of Gram Sabhas along with certain other points would increase their operational efficiency. Integration of ICT in the grassroots level governance would empower all the stake holders. At the villager level, it would give more teeth to the villagers as they will now be more aware of their entitlements and will be beneficiaries of the transparency and accountability that comes with e-governance. For the heads of the institutions, e-governance will make administration 10 Supra note 1 11 Supra note 8 12 Supra note 1

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and the herculean task of dissemination of information much simpler. And finally, for the Central and State Governments, they will be able to now track the progress of the implementation of the schemes of the panchayat raj institutions and monitor if the funds disbursed are used for the assigned purposes.

Current Forms Of E-Governance E-Governance facilitates interaction between different stake holders in governance. 13 Government has undertaken many projects for the benefit of rural India. Many of these projects have been successful. Still more initiatives can be taken and the one which are currently working can be improved further keeping in mind the problems being face by the people in accessing these projects.14 Some interactions to improve the life of villagers are presented here.15 E-panchayats In this 2,50,000 panchayati raj institutions at the gram panchayat, block and zila parishads were identified which were to be joined with ICT. NIC developed e-panchayat for Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. All the information of the gram panchyats was collected and based on that the e-panchayat was initiated. The e-panchayat was based on providing the information to the villagers on various products like agriculture, irrigation, fisheries etc. and also on other problems relating to loans from industries, housing, water etc. It also dealt with various other services like property tax, registration and issuance of death and birth certificates, disbursement of old age/widow and disabled pensions, building approvals for residential purpose etc. An important feature in this was the grievance redressal where any grievance could be registered and also later on monitored for solution. Thus the project caters to all aspects of panchayat’s functioning including planning, monitoring, implementation, budgeting, accounting, social audit and delivery of citizen services. Health management information services It provides efficient and quality health services through IT application. It provides standard clinical & diagnostic tools, hospital management tools and integration of management information at the state level so as to ensure online review & monitoring. 13 Supra note 1 14 Nidhi Srivastava, E-Governance in Rural India, , International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol. 6 (1) , 2015, 741-744, http://www.ijcsit.com/docs/Volume %206/vol6issue01/ijcsit20150601165.pdf 15 Supra note 1

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E-dhara E-Dhara enhances complete Computerization of Land Records across the state. Elimination of Manual Records, computer controlled mutation process and self sustainability are the leading objectives of e-Dhara system. E-choupal E-choupal is an initiative of ITC Ltd. This project is a success and has benefited the farmers a lot. In this a trained villager called Sanchalak was appointed to run the ITC internet kiosk. Echoupal contains information about the latest farming techniques, weather forecasts, crop insurance, etc. through which the farmers remain well informed. E-gram viswagram E-Gram Vishwagram Project has been launched from Haripura. This Project Initiates e-Gram Project connecting 13716 Gram Panchayats and 6000 Citizen Common Service Centres as a part of the e-Gram connectivity Project. Some features of e-Gram Project are Video conferencing facilities at all villages, issuing the documents and certificates, application forms for various development and welfare schemes. Gyandoot Gyandoot is a government to citizen intranet based project which made use of IT for benefit of rural areas where people do not have the facilities as those in cities. For this 21 soochnalayas were set up which had computers. Each of these soochnalayas/kiosks catered to about 20,000- 30,000 villagers. They charged Rs.5/- for providing information about the agricultural produce. A fee of Rs. 15/- per extract is charged for providing documents related to farmer’s land which is considered valid by banks. Rs. 10/- is charged for submitting applications for obtaining certificates as and when required by the villagers. A charge of Rs. 10/- is taken for lodging any complaint like mid day meal etc. Auction facility is also provided. For a charge of Rs. 25/- for 3 months anyone can put the commodity on sale. Further, Rs. 10/- is charged for viewing all the salable commodity. Of the total earning the soochak pays 10% of income as commission to the zila panchayat. So, the scheme is selfsustainable.

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Case Studies Rajasthan Plan and Strategy The vision of the Government of Rajasthan in terms of e-governance as articulated in the detailed project report is that “the government of Rajasthan would leverage information technology not only as a tool for improving governance and employment opportunities, but also more significantly as a means to enhance the quality of life and bridging the socioeconomic divide in the state ensuring that skew in the development in society is minimized and the underprivileged sections of the society are brought at par with the more privileged sections.”16 It is with this vision in mind that the roadmap to e-governance has been constructed. It can be thus be derived that Rajasthan’s e-governance plans would centrally revolve around the following three ideas.17 First being that the using ICT to pave way for more employment opportunities. Secondly, improvement in the quality of life of citizens and lastly using IT as a tool of socio-economic equality. The blueprint18 of the plan depicts the two way flow of various policies such as Meta Data Standards, Access Control, Business Continuity, PPP, etc. via a route of applications. These applications have been classified into group applications, Core applications and department applications, these applications together form the e-governance gateway. From the gateway it flows to the access channels such as the Kiosks, Call Centers, Mobiles, etc. and finally the users – the citizens and the businesses. The plan also lays down projected outcomes and targets. Increased customer focus and integration of government departments are the desired outcomes. Beginning from 2006 where the target was a humble access to downloadable forms and a grievance redressal system. By 2010 the target became more ambitious, they targeted being able to provide for the electronic delivery of all services fully or partially.

16 Detailed Project Report, Rajasthan: An Initiative of the Government of Rajasthan under the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP), PriceWaterCoopers, http://www.doitc.rajasthan.gov.in/administrator/Lists/Downloads/Attachments/17/DetailedProjectReport.pdf, Detailed Project Report 17 Ibid. 18 E-governance blueprint for Rajasthan, Ibid.

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Major Projects In 2002 the LokMitra and JanMitra projects which were “launched to bring together all the departments under one single umbrella and give citizens of the State a ‘multiservice’-‘single-window’ experience.”19 Some of the objectives were to provide for hassle free one-stop solution to the citizen, minimize multiple interaction points for the citizen and hence reduce the wastage of valuable time, implementation of the RTI programme, etc. In 20042005 these two projects were integrated under a single umbrella called ‘e-mitra’20 E-Mitra, is an ambitious E-governance initiative of Government of Rajasthan which is being implemented in all 32 Districts of the state using Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for the convenience and transparency to the citizen to deliver the services almost at their door steps. These projects have significantly contributed to improved overall productivity of citizen because of the facility of anytime, anywhere services and information. Current Status Till date the Project has been implemented in al the 32 districts and by February of 2007 there were 778 kiosks in the state when in June of 2006 there were only 268 functioning kiosks. 21 The e-governance in Rajasthan has thus been functioning on a pretty up-scale level. In fact recently chief Minister Vasundhare Raje in the annual state budget 2015-2016 announced 22 that under 'Digital Rajasthan and Good Governance' segment, the Primary Agriculture Credit Society (PACS), Large Agriculture Multipurpose Society (LAMS) and 15,000 E-Mitra centres will be made business correspondents and further new IT and e-governance policy, video conferencing at all ATAL Sewa Kendras and establishment of District Level Officer of IT. The government has shown great interest in extending support to enhance the 4G mobile network in the state whereas Wi-Fi facility at specific places in Jaipur will also be provided. Further, the cabinet recently gave approval to the Rajasthan e-Governance and IT/ITeS Policy 2015, which aims to establish 7 smart cities in Rajasthan by 2020 and to provide employment to 5 lakh people in the IT sector by 2025.23

19 Government of Rajasthan, http://www.cscmis.emitra.gov.in/upload/rfp15.pdf 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Rajasthan Annual State Budget 2015: New IT and e-governance policy proposed, Indiatoday.in New Delhi, March 10, 2015, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/rajasthan-annual-state-budget-2015-new-it-and-egovernance-policy-proposed/1/423043.html 23 Rajasthan to repeal redundant laws, Jaipur, 3 September, 2015, http://www.thestatesman.com/news/latestheadlines/rajasthan-to-repeal-redundant-laws/87442.html#w4hgsmo3Ufc9lpyt.99

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However, services delivery through various channels & level of “computerization of deliverance”,24 insufficiency, less security, departmental co-operations, cost of infrastructure are still major causes for concern. Orissa Plan and strategy Odisha state was attempting to revitalize their public administration and make it more proactive, efficient, transparent and especially more service oriented. It was in this light that the use of ICT played a crucial role in advancing the goals of the public sector and in contributing towards an environment of social and economic growth. Odisha recognized Information Technology (IT) as an effective tool in catalyzing the economic activity, in efficient governance and in developing human resource. They have, therefore, made significant investments in it and successfully integrated it with the development process, thereby reaping the benefits to their society. In Odisha also these developments have impacted the industrial, education, service and Government sectors and their influence on various applications is increasingly being felt of late. As the era of digital economy is evolving, the concept of governance has assumed significant importance. Keeping in line with the increased thrust on e-governance across the country, the state also took initiatives to computerise various departments, which started in mid 80’s with a few isolated initiatives. But since year 2000 the state has taken up statewide planned initiatives, which includes policies, infrastructure and software application development specifically to create an ICT enabling environment to enable citizen centric service delivery In the year 2004 the government came out with the Information Technology & ITeS Policy. The e-Governance roadmap of Odisha was released on 14th June 2006 which compromised of governance Vision, governance Strategy & Blue print and Capacity Building road map.25 “15 Departments were identified to provide more than 200 services under the Mission Mode Programme (MMP) of National eGgovernance Programme. The eRegistration Project has also been included into the ambit of MMP. The state Government has implemented the 24 Sanjay Tejasvee And Dr. S.S. Sarangdevot, Integration Of Ict And E-Governance In Rajasthan, Indian Journal Of Computer Science And Engineering, Vol. 2 No. 2 Apr-May 2011http://www.ijcse.com/docs/IJCSE11-02-02-55.pdf 25 Lalit Sharma & Priyadarshi Patni., Initiatives and implementation of e-Governance Programmes: A Case Study of Odisha, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 3, Issue 10, October-2012, http://www.ijser.org/researchpaper%5CInitiatives-and-implementation-of-e-Governance-Programmes-A-CaseStudy-of-Odisha.pdf

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eRegistration Project on PPP (Public Privat Partnership) and successfully implemented at 180 Registration Offices. Further to enable access to public utility services at citizen door step, establish of 8558 number of Common Facility Centre has been initiated and the much need Citizen Centric Services will be provided through these facility centres”26 Major Projects Some of the major projects in the state are e-dhaRani which provides computerized registration of 64 kind of deeds resulting the fast document delivery to citizens, BETAN which is a web Based Payroll package has been implemented in all 314 Blocks, 30 DRDAs, along with Odisha Secretariat and other state Govt offices, e-shishu which is the first of its kind in the country. The project has two components – Child Tracking system (CTS) and Intervention monitoring & information system (IMIS). Under CTS, a comprehensive database of all children below 14 years has been created which includes their socio-economic as well as demographic details. Under IMIS, all the 14 interventions under Sarva Shiksha Aabhiyan are monitored online Current Status E-governance has been responsible for the progression in technology of developing countries and in this context Odisha has implemented some good projects in the state. There are criticisms that most of the projects initiated by government departments, are dysfunctional, outdated, have ineffective links, and do not encourage interactive communication with the population. In nutshell, for implementing a concept like e-governance, there is a total transformation of the public systems and procedures led by a change in the administrative mind-set. Recently the Odisha government announced27 that the government will be spending two per cent of the Annual Plan budget of various departments for providing services to the citizens on the electronic platform. The total spending by the government departments for providing public services on electronic platform would be around Rs 800 crore annually. As per the resolution, the departments are needed to publish their annual e-governance action plan, monthly e transactions and milestones containing details of investment planned in the IT infrastructure, application development, business process re-engineering, capacity building of

26 Ibid. 27 Odisha to spend 2% of Plan Budget on e-governance, Bhubaneswar August 23, 2015, http://www.businessstandard.com/article/economy-policy/odisha-to-spend-2-of-plan-budget-on-e-governance-115082300723_1.html

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the personnel at different levels that would make the department's e-governance initiatives sustainable. In early 2014 Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) was chosen for a major e-governance project of the Odisha government. The project, costing Rs 13 crore, will be implemented over three years. The aim of the project is to provide various types of public services such as education certificate and trade license through a single web portal, Odisha.gov.in. TCS will develop a state service delivery gateway (SSDG) to perform the application of services, maintain the state portal and will rollout e-forms for various services at district levels. Apart from these district portals, the government has plans to open as many as 8,558 Common Service Centres (CSCs) across the state for providing services at panchayat level. Available data shows, 28 a total no of 5427 CSCs have been set up till Aug 2013. These centres are currently offering services such as payment of electricity bills, booking of railway tickets and online application for college admission.

Concluding Remarks E-governance has become the key to good-governance in a developing country like India. To be at par with developed countries, the Government of India had made out a plan to use Information Technology extensively in its operation to make more efficient and effective and also to bring transparency and accountability. However, for successful implementation of EGovernance, government officials have to realize that E-Governance “is no longer a matter of choice, but an absolute need of the day.”29 Cooperation from government officials and staff will be crucial in realizing the goals of modernizing this nation through E-Governance. Another argument of concern is that “while the developed countries have been able to benefit greatly from the wide use of Information Technology, many developing countries are still grasping to make sense of how IT fits into their problems.” 30 In developing countries like India, where literacy level is very low and most of the people are living below poverty line, it is very much difficult for the government to provide its services to such citizens via means of internet. As explained in the previous sections even the “e-Readiness” Rank of India is very low. Many other factors like privacy and security related to user‟s personal information, digital divide etc. are also huge challenges for the implementation of eGovernance in India. 28 Sadana, TCS bags e-governance project in Odisha after HP exit, Bhubaneswar January 27, 2014, http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/tcs-bags-e-governance-project-inodisha-after-hp-exit-114012700862_1.html 29 Supra Note 5. 30 Supra Note 2.

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India’s path toward an efficient system of e-governance is thus not without hurdles. In the following section the authors will examine these challenges and attempt to bring forward some recommendations. Challenges There are a large number of obstacles in implementation of e-Governance in India. These can be categorized under the following titles: Environmental and Social Challenges, Economical Challenges and Technical Challenges. Environmental and Social Challenges These would include the challenges due to the diversity in languages spoken by people across the country and the fact that English is not spoken by most of the people. Therefore, it “becomes a challenge for the government to write e-Governance applications which are to be implemented for the whole nation in more than one language so that these may be acceptable to the users of a particular language.” 31 Low literacy and specifically low IT Literacy contribute to a large number of problems, this is because illiterate people cannot understand or access e-governance applications. Often these applications have a quite difficult design, thus it becomes even more difficult for non-expert users to use them. Lack of access to internet itself poses a major hurdle, even if the users of Internet are growing but still there is a major part of Indian population which does not have access to internet. Other challenges include the struggle to change, the lack of confidence in technology and lack of integrated services. Economic Challenges Economic challenges are quite obvious in a country like India. In developing cost is one of the most important obstacles in the path of implementation of e-Governance where major part of the population is living below poverty line. E-governance is often treated as an ancillary issue and rarely comes to the fore. Low per capita income, limited financial resources are other aspects of economic challenges. A major cause of concern is the maintenance costs of electronic devices. “As the IT changes fast and it is very difficult for us to update our existing systems very fast.”32

31 Ibid. 32 Ibid.

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Technical Challenges These include issues relating to security, scale of operations, etc. A critical obstacle in implementing e-Governance is the privacy and security of an individual’s personal data that he/she provides to obtain government services. Lack of security standards can limit the development of eGovernment projects that contain personal information such as income, medical history etc. Further, government networks have to go into all areas which are even unfriendly to live. It is, however, costly to wire up all the villages in the country. So the geography of various places often poses problems. Recommendations Cutting Costs Technology tends to get out of date very fast. Our government may not be in position to buy new servers every year. So, it is better and safer to use technologies and products which are tried and tested for longer periods of times than using the latest ones. Applications must be transferrable from one platform to another: e-governance applications must be independent from hardware or software platforms. Therefore, these applications can be used at any platform irrespective of the hardware or software and from one platform to the other platform. These applications may also help on possible reuse by other administrators. Further there must be interoperability- the ability of systems and organizations of different qualities to work together. The e-Governance applications must have this characteristic so that the newly developed and existing applications can be implemented together. All of this could reduce costs and hence prove to be more economic. Most e-governance applications are written in English. That is why e-Governance projects do not get success. Hence, the e-governance applications must be written in local language of the people so that they may be able to use and take advantage of these applications. Users of eGovernance applications are often non-expert users who may not be able to use the applications in a right manner. Such users need guidance to find the right way to perform their transactions. Therefore, government websites must be user friendly so that more and more people can use them easily. Hence, these websites can be more effective. If government websites will be designed in an easier format only then these will be more usable for the users who are not expert users of IT.

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Increasing Literacy and awareness One of the major hurdles all developing countries face is the lack of awareness, IT illiteracy is a major obstacle in implementation of e-Governance in India. So, first of all Indian people must be made aware about the usage of Information Technology. There must be recognition of the eGovernance facilities by citizens the so that they can trust and accept these facilities. Right education is, as the Mahatma once opined, what is needed to make democracy function. It is only when the citizens are educated to understand these applications and functions, it is only then that the e-governance in India can effectuate the progress that we expect and claim.

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Bibliography Articles 

Detailed Project Report, Rajasthan: An Initiative of the Government of Rajasthan under

the

National

e-Governance

Plan

(NeGP),

PriceWaterCoopers,

http://www.doitc.rajasthan.gov.in/administrator/Lists/Downloads/Attachments/17/Det 

ailedProjectReport.pdf, Detailed Project Report Dr. Pardeep Mittal, Amandeep Kaur, E-Governance - A challenge for India, International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (IJARCET)



Volume

2,

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3,

March

2013,

http://ijarcet.org/wp-

content/uploads/IJARCET-VOL-2-ISSUE-3-1196-1199.pdf Jhumur Ghosh, Relevance and use of ICTs in grassroots’ participation in panchayat, Article - 4 Global Media Journal-Indian Edition Sponsored by the University of Calcutta/www.caluniv.ac.in,



Summer

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5/No.

1,

http://www.caluniv.ac.in/global-mdia-journal/ARTICLE-JUNE-2014/A_4.pdf. Lalit Sharma & Priyadarshi Patni., Initiatives and implementation of e-Governance Programmes: A Case Study of Odisha, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering

Research,

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

and

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(1)

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http://www.ijcsit.com/docs/Volume%206/vol6issue01/ijcsit20150601165.pdf R.K.Gera, et al, Improving the Image of Rural India through E-Governance of Panchayat, International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology ISSN (Online):2278-5299



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1

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,May-June(2012)

http://www.mnkjournals.com/ijlrst.htm. Sanjay Tejasvee And Dr. S.S. Sarangdevot, Integration Of Ict And E-Governance In Rajasthan, Indian Journal Of Computer Science And Engineering, Vol. 2 No. 2 Apr-



May 2011http://www.ijcse.com/docs/IJCSE11-02-02-55.pdf Vandana gupta & Ajay Sharma, E-Governance In India: Problems, Challenges and Prospects, Vol 1, No 9 (2012), http://www.theinternationaljournal.org/ojs/index.php? journal=rjebs&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=1110

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Newspapers and Articles 

Odisha to spend 2% of Plan Budget on e-governance, Bhubaneswar August 23, 2015, http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/odisha-to-spend-2-of-plan-



budget-on-e-governance-115082300723_1.html Rajasthan Annual State Budget 2015: New IT and e-governance policy proposed, Indiatoday.in

New

Delhi,

March

10,

2015,

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/rajasthan-annual-state-budget-2015-new

it-and-e-governance-policy-proposed/1/423043.html Rajasthan to repeal redundant laws, Jaipur,

3

September,

2015,

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/latest-headlines/rajasthan-to-repeal-redundant

laws/87442.html#w4hgsmo3Ufc9lpyt.99 Sadana, TCS bags e-governance project in Odisha after HP exit, Bhubaneswar, January 27, 2014, http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/tcs-bags-egovernance-project-in-

Internet Sources  

Government of Rajasthan, http://www.cscmis.emitra.gov.in/upload/rfp15.pdf http://deity.gov.in/content/e-readiness-assessment-reportsodisha-after-hp-exit114012700862_1.html

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