l What is your perspective on the current e-governance scenario in India?
E-governance is an evolving subject area not just in India but in all developed and developing countries. Efforts are being made to identify the issues that need to be addressed as well as the means to address the issues. Today many things are possible at the click of a mouse or on pressing a few keys. License are available on the same day of filing an application, people are able to file IT returns themselves, the budget speech is available almost on completion of the speech by the finance minister, these are a few examples of implementation of e-governance. Given the size and varying levels of literacy and access to infrastructure in our country, taking the benefits of e-governance to everyone would require quite a bit of effort and resources.

The possibilities are enormous. Take the case of the automobile industry for example: could you have expected,
a few years back, cars to be affordable and available in such a variety as today? Similarly, though the current e-governance scenario may not be what it should be, comparing it with what it was would present a more positive picture.

l Has e-governance in India even partially achieved what it had set out to accomplish in terms of mitigating corruption in public life?
Mitigating corruption is just one of the many objectives of e-governance and definitely not one of the most important ones. Easy accessibility, convenience, speed of response and transparency in operation are much more important and relevant objectives for the implementation of e-governance, which in my view are being accomplished. However, as far as corruption is concerned, we can only block avenues of corruption.

l What, according to you, should be the guidelines an e-governance initiative should follow to be successful, based on your Mahiti Shakti experience?
Following are some of the key issues any successful e-governance initiative should implement:

n Committed and dynamic project leader (most likely an IAS officer) who can selflessly drive the project and take correct and fast decisions for the benefit of the project
n Involvement of all stakeholders for every aspect of the project
n Private participation for development, deployment and maintenance
n Readiness for re-engineering of processes wherever required (eg NOAPS)
n Continuing tenure and involvement of all relevant government officials
n Institutionalization of project activities to enable smooth takeover by successors

l What are the lessons that emerge from the Mahiti Shakti experience?
This project can go a long way in providing easy access to information on various schemes and programs introduced by the government from time to time. This will empower the poorest people of the district and lead to their balanced growth and development. Once the task of providing access to people of all districts through Mahiti Shakti is in place, then the true value can be derived by increasing the scope vertically and horizontally; by increasing the scope of services as well as by performing business process re-engineering to current procedures and practices. This, in turn, would create a convergence of both G-C and G-G applications through the project. Also, this project would greatly enhance the speedy fulfilment of the objectives of the Citizen Empowerment and Right to Information project, as envisioned by the state government.

l What have been the key successes of the experiment?
n Electronic/online form submission, transactions and information exchange
n Immediate access to information on schemes and subsidies
n Continuous monitoring and transparent working of government machinery
n Enhanced and effective citizen-to-government interaction
n Dissemination of useful citizen-centric information, transaction and services
n Additional revenue for the Mahiti Shakti operators

l What do you see as the future of e-governance in India?
There is a lot to be done in terms of achieving e-governance in all its forms namely G-G, G-C and G-B.

Even if we start with the most critical applications and services like land records, tax payments, transfer of property, education and health care before moving towards the less important and sparingly used services like death certificates, it would make life much simpler for all categories of citizens. There is tremendous scope for products and services that offer simple, moral,
accountable, responsive and transparent (SMART) solutions for people.