Raising The E-Governance Bar

WITH TECHNOLOGY BEING central to citizen services delivery and internal processes, governments can't afford to stay behind. There are sustained efforts to raise the bar of focus and adoption of emerging technologies.

- Mohit Rathod

Each passing year, with the introduction of new technologies in India – in pace with international standards – there has been a constant push by the central and state governments to raise e-governance focus to new levels. In order to achieve these levels, the government has also developed several mechanisms to help ministries, PSUs and state governments in this direction. J Satyanarayana, Chairman UIDAI and Advisor, Government of Andhra Pradesh (eGovernance, Electronics and IT), opines, "To raise the bar of e-governance, we need to think beyond systems and create ecosystems; an enterprise and global thinking is needed. Any organisation government or private - is today all about services, so the need to create digital service standards. We also have to adopt a host of new technologies impacting us everyday; we need to create an architecture which is not shaken everytime when a new technology emerges. We need an architecture that aligns itself with these technologies and leverages them. Lastly, the digital transformation teams are crucial."

Creating ecosystems

Satyanarayana explains the need for national ecosystems in the areas of digital ID, digital payments, healthcare, education, primary sector, smart cities, e-commerce, jobs and logistics. These ecosystems must provide scope for organic growth and permit expansion on its own, without special efforts. For instance, in the digital ID space, Aadhaar has not created just a tool, but has paved the way for formation of an entire ecosystem; it allows other systems to interoperate with itself and derives synergies. Similarly, digital payments is another area where this has been done. Likewise, in the healthcare space, Ayushman Bharat scheme is making big strides. Whereas, in taxation, GSTN is growing exponentially.