Recent World Bank study shows that a 10% increase in mobile phone subscribers is associated with a 0.8% increase in economic growth while 10% increase in high speed Internet connections is related to a 1.3% increase in economic growth. Development of ICT infrastructure attracts foreign direct investment, generates fiscal revenues and creates employment opportunities especially for youth and women. Political, Cultural, Socio-economic developmental and behavioral decisions today rests on the ability to access, gather, analyze and utilize information. These remarkable advancements in technology and understanding of how it affects growth highlight a strategic shift in the way ICT can influence development. The distribution of this tool of wealth creation and knowledge are highly unequal amongst countries of the Globe. At the current rate of technological advancement, such disparities in access to ICT related developments are large and likely to become larger in adoption amongst the countries around the Globe. As more of the services in an economy come online, those without access to this technological advancement will be marginalized. The ubiquitous presence of Internet has penetrated every aspect of daily life. This chapter discusses the role of e-Governance in citizen centric e-Government as well as the various issues and challenges of implementation of e-Governance in general. The last part of the chapter is about the e-Governance in Indian context. This chapter is likely to give the reader an overview of e-Governance and the related issues.
TopIntroduction
Social computing is playing a leading role in educating and sharing the views and opinion of the masses in an area of their interest both political and apolitical. Presently social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, YouTube etc has shown a phenomenal growth in number of users specifically in sharing their views in various contemporary issues. There has been an explosive growth of social networking for a variety of business functions including sales, marketing, customer service, entertainment, politics and government. The public sector, even though slower in adopting social media, is now accepting its potentials which can play the role of communications channels between government and users of government services.
The benefits gained in the different stages of usage of social computing are relative to the system complexity and effort that has to be made in order to advance e-Governmental processes by utilizing the benefits of ICT. Even though ICT is not substitute for good policy, it empowers the citizens to question the actions of regulators and brings systemic issues to the forefront.
Integration of e-Governance and ICT contributes to:
This chapter discusses e-Democracy, Ethics in Governance and e-Transparency as well as the role of ICT for implementation of these three pillars of the democratic Governance for implementation of citizen centric e-Governance as well as the various issues and challenges of implementation of e-Governance, specifically in underdeveloped and developing countries. Another emerging e-Governance technology m-Governance (Mobile Governance) is also introduced in this chapter. Last part of the chapter is about the e-Governance in Indian context. Sufficient references are included for the benefit of advanced reader on e-Governance and G-Cloud (Government Cloud). This chapter is likely to give the reader an overview of e-Governance and the related issues.
TopRole Of Ict In Citizen Centric Governance
ICT can augment government transparency and reduce corruption as well as build the foundation of e-Democracy. Transition from democracy to automated governance takes a revolutionary ICT development approach. In the following subsections, we discuss e-Democracy, Ethics in Governance and e-Transparency.