Recipient Institution:
IT for Change, India

Project Leader:
Parminder Jeet Singh

Amount: US$ 8,888

Abstract of Project
Many governments in India are in the process of using the new ICT opportunities for providing integrated delivery of services to citizens. However, their attempts have reached a stalemate: while governments are able to address simple information based transactions through their e-governance efforts, such efforts have not delivered on services that require complex organizational processes. Currently, services concerning payment of bills, information about government services, applications forms, identity and other record authentication and entries into governmental records are delivered on e-governance platforms. However, present e-governance structures have not been able to address services requiring cross-referencing, discretion, evaluation and judgment. Such complexities are implied more in delivering welfare services to disadvantaged sections, and thus most e-governance efforts presently bypass the disadvantaged.

To deal with delivery of such services, more far reaching process re-engineering is needed. Already, many e-governance initiatives in India use some kind of front-end agency common to many departments. However, what is needed is to have a horizontal specialized department that front-ends on behalf of vertical service producing departments, on the basis of Service Level Agreements (SLA). This government department or the specialist front-end agency will also reach the services out over Internet and other ICT platforms to far-flung areas using NGOs and private agents.

The present research will study six initiatives in India, to develop a roadmap for process re-engineering in government departments that are using ICT opportunities for integrated service delivery, to enrich their e-governance efforts and improve their reach to the disadvantaged. In addition, it will also draw on the experience of Centrelink, which is a specialist department of Government of Australia exclusively front-ending the service delivery of several departments producing services needed mainly by the disadvantaged.

The outcomes of the research will be developed into a policy brief for governments, and guidelines for implementing officials and departments involved with setting up front-end agencies for e-governance services.