E-GOVERNANCE INITIATIVES AND CITIZEN EMPOWERMENT

Research Report

Submitted in the partial fulfillment for the requirement of Bachelor of Journalism

(Mass Communication)

Submitted by

Shubhi Mangla
Student of BA (JMC) 2015-2018
Enrollment Number: 03914202415
Department of Communication Studies
Jagannath International Management School
Vasant Kunj, New Delhi -110070

To

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University

Sector 16C, Dwarka, Delhi- 110078
 Acknowledgement

I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude towards our advisor Dr. Ravi K Dhar who gave me
the encouragement, suggestion, support, help and motivation. I also take this opportunity to thank all
other person as well, who had given us support for the project or in other aspect of my study at
Jagannath International Management School.

I am also thankful to my University Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and my college,
Jagannath International Management School, to give students opportunity to make a research project.

Moreover, I would like to thank all the people who filled up my survey questionnaire and forwarded to
other people. I am also thankful to my parents who were supportive during the research study.

Shubhi Mangla
Enrollment Number: 03914202415
BA (JMC) 5th Semester
 Certificate

This is to certify that the dissertation titled “E-Governance Initiatives and Citizen Empowerment” is
submitted by Shubhi Mangla, student of BA(JMC) 5th semester. It is an authentic work carried out by her
at Jagannath International Management School under my guidance.

The matter embodied in this project work has not been submitted earlier for the award of any degree or
diploma to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature of Advisor

Dr. Ravi K Dhar

(Project Advisor)
 Abstract

To bridge the gap between government and citizens, to provide effective and efficient services, to
increase productivity and to extend other benefits to its citizens, the governments of various
countries introduced e-Governance applications. The citizens are the power of nation and their
satisfaction is ultimate. E-government has been in operation for over last decade but it has failed
to contribute to improved public service delivery. The primary objective of most e-governments is
to better serve citizens. Research done till now show that more than 50% people are familiar with
e-governance initiatives. Though India ranks 118 in UN Global E-Governance Survey, but a large
number of people believe that it is not highly efficient. Various studies have explored the concept
of digital India and the impact of digitalization on government policies, the various e-governance
initiatives and their reach, still one seems to be not fully aware of its full potential and why it‟s not
utilized. Studies have tried to show as to why there are numerous such e-government initiatives
which the masses don‟t even know of. This study aims to explore how much people actually know
about these initiatives, how much they engage in them and if not, what exactly are the reasons
they don‟t use or are dissatisfied. It also explores the concept of Citizen Engagement, which
hasn‟t been covered in many studies till now. To accomplish the purpose of this study, a survey
was carried out amongst 80 members of people residing in Delhi and having „computer literacy‟.
The results were analyzed to explore how much people in that age group use e-governance portals
and what are their views on them. The results showed that majority of people are aware of such
portals but they feel that they have glitches and can be improved, as it slows down the process.
Moreover, they feel that not there is a greater scope of improvement of these online services with
relation to security and technicalities.
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1 15
Figure 2 15
Figure 3 16
Figure 4 16
Figure 5 17
Figure 6 17
Figure 7 18
Figure 8 18
Figure 9 19
Figure 10 19
Figure 11 20
Figure 12 20
Figure 13 21
Figure 14 21
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgement i

Certificate ii

Abstract iii

List of Illustrations iv
Introduction 1

Review of Literature 7

Research Design and Methods 13

Results and Discussion 15

Conclusion 22

Bibliography v

Appendix vi
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The interaction between a citizen and a government agency takes place in a government office.
With emerging Information and Communication technologies it is possible to locate service
centers closed to clients. In all the cases public traditionally look for information and services
addressing his or her needs and in both the cases quality, relevance and efficiency are of
paramount importance. Therefore, the establishment of e-Governance requires a good knowledge
of the needs that exist in the society and that can be offered using ICT. The effectiveness of ICT
in government is closely related with the capacity of government to induce a culture change-
placing network within its institutions as instrumental to transparency and knowledge exchange
and creation.

E-government is defined as a way for governments to use the most innovative information and
communication technologies, particularly web-based Internet applications, to provide citizens
and businesses with more convenient access to government information and services, to improve
the quality of the services and to provide greater opportunities to participate in democratic
institutions and processes. E-government presents a tremendous impetus to move forward in the
21st century with higher quality, cost-effective, government services and a better relationship
between citizens and government.

E-governance is the good usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) to

transform and enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of
informational and transactional exchanges with in government, between government agencies at
National, State, Municipal & Local levels, citizen & businesses, and to authorize citizens through
access and use of information.

E-Governance Models

The three main target groups that can be distinguished in e-governance concepts are government,
citizens, employees and businesses.

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 G2G (Government to Government): When the exchange of information and services is
within the periphery of the government, is termed as G2G interaction. This can be both
horizontal, i.e. among various government entities and vertical, i.e. between national, state
and local government entities and within different levels of the entity.
 G2C (Government to Citizen): The interaction amidst the government and general public is
G2C interaction. Here an interface is set up between government and citizens, which enables
citizens to get access to wide variety of public services. The citizens have the freedom to
share their views and grievances on government policies anytime, anywhere.
 G2B (Government to Business): In this case, the e-governance helps the business class to
interact with the government seamlessly. It aims at eliminating red-tapism, saving time, cost
and establish transparency in the business environment, while interacting with government.
 G2E (Government to Employees): The government of any country is the biggest employer
and so it also deals with employees on a regular basis, as other employers do. ICT helps in
making the interaction between government and employees fast and efficient, along with
raising their level of satisfaction by providing perquisites and add-on benefits.

E-Governance: A Global View

Governments worldwide are faced with the challenge of transformation and the need to reinvent
government systems in order to deliver efficient and cost effective services, information and
knowledge through information and communication technologies. Development of Information
and communication technologies catalyzed and led up to E-government.

For E-governments worldwide, the digital revolution offers unprecedented opportunities for
improving virtually all forms of public revolution offers unprecedented opportunities for
improving virtually all forms of public service delivery. From Europe to Asia to South America
to Africa, countries are taking a more innovative approach to doing business with their citizens.
The use of the Internet to deliver government information and services has become a growth
industry all over the world.

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E-Governance in India

The concept of e-Governance has its origins in India during the seventies with a focus on
development of in-house government applications in the areas of defense, economic monitoring,
planning and the deployment of IT to manage data intensive functions related to elections,
census, tax administration etc. The efforts of the National Informatics Center (NIC) to connect
all the district headquarters during the eighties was a very significant development. Subsequently
there were many initiatives that were launched to support the growth of e-governance in India.
The launch of NICNET in 1987 was one of the driving forces for e-Governance.

Since the beginning of nineties, IT technologies were enhanced by information and

communication technology to expand its use for wider sectorial applications with policy
emphasis on reaching out to rural areas and taking in greater participations from NGOs and
private sectors.

The other significant initiatives include the creation of A Union Ministry of Information
Technology in 1999, identification of a 12-point minimum agenda for e-Governance by
Government of India for implementation in all the Union Government Ministries and
Departments by 2000. The e-seva project whose services include online payment of utility bills,
issuing certificates, issuing licenses & permits, e-forms etc also started in 1999. It was designed
to provide „Government to Citizen‟ services. It delivers services online to consumers by
connecting them to the respective government departments and providing online information at
the point of service delivery.

The project has become very popular among the citizens especially for payment of utility bills.
Success of this project is largely based on payment of electricity bills. It exemplifies the potential
for integration of delivery of Union, State and Local Government services at one point.
However, it also shows that the model based on payment of utility bills could not be rolled out in
the rural hinterland.

FRIENDS (Fast, Reliable, Instant, Efficient Network for the Disbursement of Services) which
was launched in June 2000 is a Single Window Facility providing citizens the means to pay taxes
and other financial dues to the State Government. Its services are provided through FRIENDS
Janasevana Kendrams. This project is a classic case of achieving front end computerized service

3
delivery to citizens without waiting for completion of back end computerization in various
government departments.

This project thus tries to avoid the complex issues involved in business process re-engineering in
the participating departments. FRIENDS counters are not even networked with the participating
departments or entities. Print-outs of payments made through the counters are physically
distributed to participating entities for processing.

To remove bottlenecks at the time of processing, a government order was issued to treat a receipt
from a FRIENDS counter as equivalent to a receipt from the concerned government
entity.

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) established in 2006, which set out an impressive
agenda for developing e-Government services. National e-Governance Plan has been launched
with the aim of improving delivery of Government services to citizens and businesses, is guided
by the following vision:
“Make all Public Services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common
service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at
affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man.”
NeGP, takes a holistic view of e-Governance initiatives across the country, integrating them into
a collective vision, a shared cause. Around this idea, a massive countrywide infrastructure
reaching down to the remotest of villages is evolving, and large-scale digitization of records is
taking place to enable easy, reliable access to the internet.

Digital India is the latest initiative which is being coordinated and implemented by the
Department of Electronics and IT, it is a program that aims at transforming the country through
leveraging information and communication technologies in every sphere of economy and
society.

It is centered around providing digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and
services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. This was launched keeping in view
that despite the successful implementation of many e-Governance projects across the country, e-

4
Governance as a whole has not been able to make the desired impact and fulfill all its
objectives. Further, with a vision to transform e-Governance for transforming Governance and
keeping in view the need to utilize emerging technologies such as Cloud and Mobile Platform
and focus on the integration of services, the Government has proposed to implement “e-Kranti:
National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) 2.0” under the Digital India programme.

Some of the projects which have already been implemented or are in the process of being
implemented in the Digital India initiative are:

 MyGov.in which is a platform that has been implemented for citizens to interactively
engage within the government.
 An Aadhaar based biometric attendance system is being implemented in the central
government offices in Delhi to begin with.
 JeevanPramaan Portal: A portal which allows pensioners to submit their life certificate,
which can later be disbursed to the agencies for necessary processing.
 e-Greetings a portal for government greetings
 www.ebasta.in which is an eBook Platform has been developed; this can be used to
upload e-books.
 eSAMPARK which is operational is an IT Platform for Messages to Elected
Representatives
 Digital Locker
 Revamping of Mission Mode and Other e-Governance Projects like Transport, PDS, e-
Prisons, National Scholarship Portal, Payonline, Checkpost online, etc.

Citizen Empowerment through E-Governance

E-government can be used by governments to empower and include citizens. Individuals and
their democratic governance systems as a whole, stand to benefit from better access to
information and services, and from more opportunities for their voices to be heard by decision
makers.

5
With the increase in Internet and mobile connections, the citizens are learning to exploit their
new mode of access in wide ranging ways. They have started expecting more and more
information and services online form governments and corporate organizations to further their
civic, professional and personal lives, thus creating abundant evidences that the new „e-
citizenship‟ is taking hold.

Openness and improving transparency are two of the cornerstones of E-Government policies.
Transparency is often seen as a powerful tool to transform government. Often realized through
open data policies, transparency is often seen as being a panacea for all kinds of issues, such as
low citizen trust, corruption, bad performance, low accountability and power abuse by public
officials. Open data policies remedy these „diseases‟ by revealing the business of government to
all. E-government has made information from legislative meeting minutes to budget proposals to
map-based information available to the public.

These initiatives will empower the citizen, creating an environment where others are equipped
and encouraged to make decisions in autonomous ways and to feel that they are in control of the
outcomes for which they have accepted responsibility. Hence, many governments have enhanced
their national and ministerial websites to incorporate interactive tools to strengthen citizen e-
participation. As citizens are empowered, they create a different relationship with their respective
governments, characterized by enhanced effectiveness, as government are able to respond to the
needs of citizens in a more direct manner.

There is a growing global trend towards listening to citizen‟s voices and engaging their
participation. This trend is likely to continue and expand in the next few years and beyond.
Citizens are employing more e-participation tools. Politicians and decision-makers seem to be
inclined to listen to the citizens. Although this movement is primarily taking hold in high-income
countries, middle-income countries are not far behind. Governments are now creating portals on
social networking sites in order to reach out to citizens and promote their programmes, messages
and policies. Citizens using e-participation tools have influenced several major presidential
elections in recent years.

6
 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Traditionally, the interaction between a citizen and a government agency takes place in a
government office. With emerging information and communication technologies, it is a possible
to locate service centers closer to the clients. Such centers may consist of an unattended kiosk in
the government agency, a service kiosk located close to the client outside the government
agency, or the use of a personal computer at home or office. In all the cases the public
traditionally looks for information and services addressing his or her needs and in both cases
quality, relevance and efficiency are of paramount importance. Still in some of the conditions, e-
Governance lags behind in understanding the buyers and sellers needs precisely.

Among the studies that have been carried out on the subject is the one by N. Swapna 1to study
the performance of E-Governance in agricultural, sector, rural development and promoting
welfare. For this purpose, a descriptive research design has been used and some interviews and
group discussions with knowledgeable people in this field were held to obtain a better
knowledge. The research assessed the National E-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGP-A) for
a more focused implementation of E-Governance activities in agriculture sector. Under this
project, there was implementation of kisan call centers, launch of 40 websites and four portals
and AGRISNET (a state mission project) project which aims at providing improved Government
services to the farming community with the help of ICT. In May 2004, the Ministry of
Panchayati Raj was formed as the Nodal agency looking after the empowerment of Panchayati
Raj Institutions in the rural areas of our country. The use ICT has made this challenge more
convenient. E-Governance is also used for social welfare by empowering women through the
NeGP Common Service Centers which provides Digital Literacy to 2500 women. However, the
study did not reveal the impact of these services on their respective audience.

1
N.Swapna 2012, ‘Performace of E-Governance in Indian Economy’. Available at URL:
http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/internet/documents/S4IN12%20Performance%20of%20EGovernance%20in%20
th
Indian%20Economy.pdf Retrieved on 10 September, 2017.

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Another study carried out on the subject is by Poonam Mallik, Vijay Gupta and Priyanka Dhillon
2
The paper examines the key factors that influence e-government service adoption; reviews
limitations of the research methodologies; discusses the importance of 'citizen characteristics'
and 'organizational factors' in adoption of e-government services; and argues for the need to
examine e-government service adoption in the developing world. It also discusses citizens‟ e-
government adoption especially considering trust and risk issues. This paper draws attention to
the importance of individual characteristics of adopters like socio-economic characteristics,
personality traits, and communication behavior and lays emphasis on its significance. Apart from
demographic characteristics such as; race, income, and education; non-demographic
characteristics of an individual such as 'civic mindedness' play an equally important role in
adoption of e-government services. It concludes that individual characteristics of citizens are
important to study the factors that influence e-government adoption and understands to address
the needs of citizens.

The study conducted by H.M Jha and Ashish K. Srivastava3 explores citizens‟ perspectives of e-
government through survey of a Taluka of our country and compares its findings with similar
studies elsewhere in the world. The paper brings to the fore various key issues including social,
cultural issues that inhibit the adoption process of e-governance in a developing country like ours
unlike just its perceived usefulness observed by citizens of other countries. A sample of 250
respondents drawn from local engineering and other colleges, government offices and local
habitats was drawn which was introduced a well-structured questionnaire dealing with eight
variables of electronic governance for the chosen eight e-services that are easily accessible by
people here. The eight variables were awareness, accessibility, use, language barrier, non-
availability of e-services under one-roof, complexity, relative advantage, and compatibility. The
study covered respondents of varying age groups with different educational backgrounds, income
and social profile, and occupational traits. Results showed that Citizens of the Taluka under
study are not enthusiastic about using e-services even though there is awareness about it amongst

2
Poonam Mallik, Vijay Gupta and Priyanka Dhillon, 2014’ Citizen-Centric Approach For E-Governance: Looking At
The Service Delivery Though The Eyes Of The Citizens’. Available at URL: http://www.cibtech.org/J-ENGINEERING-
th
TECHNOLOGY/PUBLICATIONS/2014/Vol-4-No-2/JET-012-020-POONAM-CITIZEN-SERVICE.pdf Retrieved on 10
September, 2017
3
H. M. Jha “Bidyarthi” and Ashish K. Srivastava, 2012 ‘Citizens’ Perspectives of E-Governance’. Available at URL:
th
http://www.csi-sigegov.org/egovernance_pdf/9_69-76.pdf. Retrieved on 10 September, 2017.

8
them and all the chosen e-services are accessible by them any time. They are comfortable with
their ongoing method of receiving these services.

Alaa-Aldin Abdul and Rahim A. Al Athmay 4in their study aim at finding users‟ satisfaction with
three chosen dimensions of e-governance, namely: openness, collaborative governance, and
participation. For this purpose, a quantitative approach was adopted. A study of 900 users of e-
government in was undertaken to examine how gender, age, education, nationality, and
employment affect their satisfaction with e-governance. The purpose of this paper is to further
understanding of citizens‟ perceptions towards e-governance. The study utilized the subjective
indicators to measure citizens‟ satisfaction with e-governance. The citizen‟ subjective evaluation
is adopted in this study due the lack of objective official data on the quality of e-governance
system by the public sector is either not collected or not available to the public. Results indicated
that the overall mean value of the respondents‟ perceptions towards the three dimensions of e-
governance in less favorable. The mean values for the three dimensions range between 2.22 and
2.47. This indicates that the introduction of new system, such as e-government or e-governance
might face a number of barriers for citizens and government. Overcoming these barriers might
present further challenges to government and citizens.

The study conducted by M. Tariq Banday and Muzamil M. Mattoo 5makes an attempt to analyze
current use of social media and their promising advantages for e-governance in government
organizations. It discusses potential issues especially issues related to security and privacy of
individuals, employees, infrastructure and data that impede successful implementation of social
media for e-governance. It examines draft government of India framework for embedding social
media in organizational structure and examines issued guidelines for platform to be used,
authorization to engage on behalf of government organization, scope and extend of such
engagement, etc. It compares these guidelines with similar guidelines of some other nations in

4
Alaa-Aldin Abdul and Rahim A. Al Athmay,2013 „Citizens‟ Perceptions towards e-Governance: Field Study‟.
Available at URL: http://waset.org/publications/16711/citizens-perceptions-towards-e-governance-field-study.
Retrieved on 10th September, 2017.
5
M. Tariq Banday and Muzamil M. Mattoo,2013 „Social Media in e-Governance: A Study with Special Reference
to India‟. Available at URL: http://file.scirp.org/pdf/SN_2013043013362233.pdf. Retrieved on 10th September,
2017.

9
terms of employee‟s access, account management, acceptable use, employee conduct, content,
security, legal issues and citizen conduct and enumerates its merits, demerits and scope for
further improvements. Upon comparison, observations show that Indian government framework
is in tune with other such policies and also includes policy for its multilingual cultural. However,
it does not include guidelines for all identified core elements or does not provide sufficient
guidelines to some of the parameters that a successful social media policy should have. There is
a scope for improvement in each element included in this framework more importantly in the
guidelines pertaining to security controls, acquisition of third party services, risk assessment,
employees training, account management and legal.

Among the various studies conducted by researchers on this subject, the other one was of Veena
V. Raman 6that answers the questions (i) what role can ICTs play in promoting citizen
involvement and participation in government when there are large disparities in access and skill
levels? (ii) Do new ICTs actually serve to strengthen governance and deepen democracy in a
developing country? This study examines these questions through a case study of e-government
initiatives in Bangalore City, the information capital of India. In this study ICT is defined as
computers, software, peripherals and connections to the Internet. The data presented in this paper
is drawn from the analysis of e-government websites, and participant observation and semi-
structured interviews with people participating in PROOF (public record of operations and
finance) and WardWorks initiatives. The findings from this case study indicate a need for
reevaluation of how we define e-governance in the developing world, particularly in the context
of citizen engagement and civic empowerment. If the expectations for e-government and e-
governance are focused around using ICTs, achieving citizen participation through e-consulting
or e-engagement seem impossible goals. This is because a majority of the population has to deal
with issues of physical access to technology, lack of infrastructure such as reliable electricity,
lack of relevant content in local languages and disparate skill levels. If Bangalore is any
indicator, even information capitals in developing countries cannot aim to achieve the goals.

6
Veena V. Raman, 2008 ‘Examining the „e‟ in government and governance: A case study in alternatives from
Bangalore City, India‟. Available at URL: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/437/405. Retrieved on 10th
September, 2017.

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The other study on the subject was by Steven L. Clift 7takes a comprehensive look at the
democratic outcomes that can be sought by government, civil society and others in order to
deepen and enhance participatory democracy online. With a particular focus on e-government
and democracy, the vision for online-enhanced participatory democracy or „e-democracy‟ relies
on an incremental model of development that involves the many democratic sectors and their
institutions across society. Based on online observations and in-person visits to 23 countries, the
potential benefit of ICTs in participatory democracy continues to grow around the world.
Everyday more citizens use the Internet around the world. More are applying it towards political
and community purposes than the day before. Everyday another government adds a new online
feature designed to bring government and citizens‟ closer.

Further study on the subject was carried out by B.B. Chand and Ramesha8 to examine E-
government websites. Study of these websites entails the role of governments in disseminating
information and providing services to the user community. The current study uses 6 key
parameters with 55 indicators to evaluate the performance of 81 central government ministries
and departments. It is found that all the websites are following guidelines related to identifier
with utmost importance, whereas the scores in information, usability and security parameters are
quite acceptable. It is also found that the score with respect to participation and services it is very
low. Correlation analysis shows strong relationship between information and usability and
usability and participation. The study also observes that most of the websites mostly use
Facebook or Twitter for social networking. The information facilitation index shows that
Ministry of External Affairs has the highest score of 0.875 and the lowest score lies with
Department of Agricultural Research and Education. Though information is being delivered
through the websites can be accessed with little efforts, the concern is that when it comes to
citizen participation and service delivery there is quite a lot to be improved.

7
Steven L. Clift, 2004 ‘E-Government and Democracy’. Available at URL: http://www.publicus.net/articl
th
es/cliftegovdemocracy.pdf. Retrieved on 10 September, 2017.
8
BB. Chand and Ramesha, 2017 ‘Indian Government Websites : A Study’. Available at URL:
th
http://122.252.233.35/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/viewFile/10964/6012. Retrieved on 10 September, 2017.

11
The study conducted by Karin Axelsson, Ulf Melin and Ida Lindgren 9, the purpose is to
investigate if, how and what the e‐government field can learn from user participation
concepts and theories in general information systems (IS) research. It aims to contribute
with further understanding of the importance of citizen participation and involvement within
the e‐government research body of knowledge and when developing public e‐services in
practice. The analysis in the paper is made from a comparative, qualitative case study of two
e‐government projects. Three analysis themes are induced from the literature review;
practice of participation, incentives for participation, and organization of participation. The
main results in this paper are that the e‐government field can get inspiration and learn from
methods and approaches in traditional IS projects concerning user participation, but in e‐
government, methods are also needed to handle the challenges that arise when designing
public e‐services for large, heterogeneous user groups. Citizen engagement cannot be seen
as a separate challenge in e‐government, but rather as an integrated part of the process of
organizing, managing, and performing e‐government projects. Analysis themes of
participation generated from literature; practice, incentives and organization can be used in
order to highlight, analyze, and discuss main issues regarding the challenges of citizen
participation within e‐government.

Another study was conducted by Massey and Floyd E10. The purpose of this qualitative study
was to examine how municipalities can use present e-democracy adoption patterns in small-sized
cities to raise user adoption and citizen empowerment. This research found that local government
agencies utilizing companies that specialize in the development of government to citizen
applications for the development of their e-democracy services were easier to navigate and
offered the most services and were accessible and optimized for use on portable devices.

9
Karin Axelsson, Ulf Melin and Ida Lindgren,2007 „Exploring the importance of citizen participation and
involvement in e‐government projects: Practice, incentives, and organization‟. Available at URL:
https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161011081309. Retrieved on 10th September, 2017.

10
Massey and Floyd E,2014 „Citizen Empowerment through e-Democracy: Patterns of E-Government Adoption for
Small-Sized Cities in Missouri‟. Available at URL: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED569068. Retrieved on 10th
September, 2017.

12
Additionally, less than half of the explored cities had a social media presence, a valuable
communication tool that could be used for creating open lines of communication.
Recommendations from this study have been made to improve all three benchmark areas of e-
democracy services; availability, communication, and transparency. The conclusions drawn from
this study extends the body of knowledge on citizen participation through e-democracy services
and could provide supporting data for leaders in local small-sized government agencies to
advocate for and implement government transparency and citizen empowering e-democracy
services as part of an e-government 2.0 program.

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 CHAPTER 3
Research Design and Methods

To fulfill the objectives of this study, a quantitative research method will be used. The
quantitative research design will employ the survey method for data collection and the tool used
for collecting the data will be a structured questionnaire. The quantitative research design has
been used here to know the frequency of usage which can be easily quantified.

The data will be collected from a sample where the sample will be people who reside in North,
West, South and East Delhi (excluding whole of NCR).

Data Collection Tool

Questionnaire

For the first objective that involves quantitative study, a close-ended questionnaire will be e-mailed to
a sample of approximately 80 people from belonging to two different districts of North, West, South
and East Delhi and have „computer literacy‟. The sample will be decided on the basis of
purposive/group method of non-probability sampling. For that purpose, a questionnaire will be sent
through E-Mail or sent to them using Whatsapp.

A closed-ended question generates a limited set of responses that can be coded easily in a database with
some number or symbol that represents a response. Multiple-choice, ordinal, interval and ratio
questions generate closed-ended responses. The questionnaire will have questions related to the
objective of the study and a section of demographic profile of the respondents.

Since, this is a quantitative study, where we want to measure the frequency of use of computer
mediated communication and face-to-face communication; the questionnaire will be the best option.
The survey will include eighty participants. So to keep the comparison of results simple, the close
ended questionnaire will be preferred.

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 CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The survey was conducted amongst eighty five people currently residing in Delhi. Out of these 80
people, 49.5% people who use E-Governance services are of age group, 20-25 years.

Figure 1-Age of respondents

The survey registered the presence of 55% males and 45% females.

Figure 2- Gender of Respondents

15
Out of the eighty respondents, 35% of the people are students, 30% people are working while the
remaining are either housewives or have their own business.

Figure 3-Occupation of Respondents

The respondents were also asked about their annual income but the question was not made
compulsory as not everybody is comfortable sharing the same. The question received 44
responses, out of which the highest percentage of respondents belong to the income group of 1.5-
1.75 lakhs.

Figure 4-Annual Income of Respondents

16
Out of the total population, 67.5% of the people are familiar with E-Governance initiatives while
32.5 % people are not familiar with such initiatives.

Figure 5-Opinion of people on familiarity of E-Governance initiatives

The respondents were then asked whether they use E-Governance portals or not. A total of 60%
of the population answered that they use such portal sometimes, 25% of the population do not
use E-Governance portals and answered „No‟. While only a small percentage of population i.e.
15% use them regularly.

Figure 6-Opinion of people regarding usage of E-Governance portals

17
The respondents were asked about the purpose for which they use E-Governance services. A
number of options were given to them. Percentage of people who use E-governance service for
payment of bills, banking and Aadhar/PAN services is 60%, 55% and 52.5% respectively. 40%
of the people use it for passport/license service. Percentage of people who use E-governance
services for tax payments is 27.5% registration services and Voter ID is 27.5% each. However,
only 8.8% of the population uses them for filing RTI.

Figure 7-Usage habits of E-Governance services

When asked about the efficiency of E-Governance services, 65% of the population believed that
the services could be improved. 27.5% of the population rates them to be satisfactory while only
7.5% of the people consider that these services are not helpful.

Figure 8-Opinion of people regarding efficiency of E-Governance services

18
The respondents were then asked whether they experienced any technical glitches while availing
E-governance services. A large part of the population i.e. 66.7% experienced technical difficulty
sometimes, 17.9% people never experience them while 15.4% of the population always
experience them.

Figure 9-Experience of people regarding technical glitches

55% of the people consider E-Governance services to be more convenient than conventional
methods, 28.7% of the population think that they are better only in some cases and 16.2% people
do not consider E-Governance services to be better than offline methods.

Figure 10-Opinion of people on convenience of E-governance services compared to conventional methods

19
Sometimes a part of the online service requires an offline procedure, the people were asked
whether they experienced the same or not. 35% of the population answered yes, 26.3% answered
no and 38.7% experience this only in some cases.

Figure 11-Experience of offline procedure in availing E-Governance service

42.5% of the population is not always comfortable in sharing their personal information on E-
governance websites, 35% of the population is comfortable and only 22.5% of the population is
not comfortable in sharing their personal details.

Figure 12-Opinion of people regarding comfort in sharing personal data

20
The people were asked whether they are comfortable in making payments on E-governance
websites. 43.8% are partly comfortable in making payments, 41.3% people are fully comfortable
and 15% of the population is not comfortable.

Figure 13-Opinion of people regarding comfort in making payments

The respondents were finally asked whether they think that E-governance empowers them as a
citizen or not. 58.8% of the people answered „yes‟, 27.5% people said „not completely‟ and
13.8% do not think that E-governance empowers them.

Figure 14-Opinion of people on whether E-Governance empowers them as a citizen

21
 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

According to the survey conducted amongst 80 people on the topic „E-Governance Initiatives
and Citizen Empowerment‟, the following trend was observed.

A large portion of the people is aware of the various e-governance initiatives while there are still
some people who are still not aware of them. Most of the people who make use of e-governance
services fall in the age group of 20-25 years. Hence, it can be concluded from the data that usage
of E-governance services is highest amongst the youth.

There is only a slight difference between the genders of respondents who make use of e-
governance services. There existed only a 5% gap between males and females. Hence we can
conclude that both males and females make use of e-Governance services almost equally.

Out of the total population, people who use e-governance initiatives are mostly students or
people who are working in private or public sector. The usage rate was much lower amongst
housewives or people who have their own business.

People who have an income range of 1.5-1.75 lakhs and 5-10 lakhs use e-governance the most.
Hence, people who belong to the middle income group make the highest use of e-governance
services.

A large number of people are aware of e-governance initiatives. However, there is still a part of
the population that doesn‟t even know about the initiatives. Eighty five percent of the population
use e-governance portals but only fifteen percent use these portals regularly and the remaining
use them only sometimes. It can be concluded that a good percentage of people are aware of e-
government services and make use of them.

It was observed that people make use of e-governance services for many purposes. Most of the
people use e-governance services for payment of bills, banking or Aadhar card/PAN card
purpose. A good number of people also use them for banking, registration, tax payments and

22
making of Voter ID. It attributes to the fact that people use e-governance services for different
and multiple purposes.

A great portion of the people believes that e-governance services can be improved. Hence, there
is large scope for improvement of various E-governance services. A meager percentage of people
have an opinion that e-governance services are not helpful for them.

Vast majority of people have faced technical difficulty while availing an e-governance service, it
can be contributed to the fact that why there is a great scope of improvement of e-governance
services stated above.

More than half of the population believes that e-governance services are better than
conventional/offline method of service. A small portion also thinks that online services are better
only in some cases. Many a times, an online government service requires an offline procedure
especially in case of Voter ID, Aadhar or passport services. Therefore, the people were asked
about the same. Majority of people experienced the requirement of an offline procedure while
availing an online service.

There was also a focus upon the matter of security and comfort level of the people while making
use of e-governance services. It was noticed that there was a small gap between people who are
not always comfortable in sharing their personal information on e-governance websites/portals
and people who are fully comfortable. Hence, it can be concluded that there is enough scope of
improving security level.

Almost equal amount of people are fully comfortable and partly comfortable in making
payments on e-governance websites. Only a small portion of the population is not comfortable in
making payments.

Lastly, an overall opinion of the population was taken on whether they think that e-governance
empowers them or not. More than half of the people believe that yes, online government services
does empower them.

23
Interpretation

The objectives of the study are to explore how much people that are residing in Delhi (excluding
NCR) and have compute literacy know about various e-governance initiatives, how much they
engage in them. The study also aims to find out that if they don‟t participate or even if they do
indulge in e-governance services, what exactly are their concerns regarding these services.
Overall, the concept of „citizen engagement‟ is focused upon.

So, as per the results, more than half of the people are familiar with e-governance services and
make use of e-governance portals/websites. It was noticed that people use these online services
for different purposes like bill payments, banking, tax payments, passports etc. Most of the
people use e-governance for multiple purposes. Hence, it is observed that people have good
knowledge of various e-governance services. Most people believe that e-governance services can
be improved which includes people who use these services and a small portion of people who do
not. A huge majority of people have come across technical glitches while availing an online
service, most of the times they have availed a service which is not fully automated and requires
an offline procedure. Not all the people are fully comfortable in sharing their personal data and
making payments on e-governance websites. Hence, it is observed that there is a good scope for
improvement of e-governance services.

On the basis of the overall findings and survey conducted the first objective is clear. A good
amount of people are aware of e-governance services/initiatives and often engage in them using
the respective e-governance portals/websites. People use online services for multiple purposes
which indicate that they are aware of various e-governance services.

The second objective is also quite clear; people who do and do not use e-governance services
have various concerns. They regularly experience technical difficulties and offline procedure
amidst online service. People also doubt before sharing their personal information and making
payments on e-governance websites.

24
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 Appendix

Computer mediated communication v/s face-to-face communication

* Required

1. Email address *

Name *

2. Contact No. *

3. Age *

4. Gender *

5. Occupation*

7. Annual Income

8. Are you familiar with any of the E-governance initiatives?

Yes
No
9. Do you use E-Governance portals?

Yes, regularly
Sometimes

No

10. For what purpose do you generally use E-Governance services?

Payment of bills

Passport/License

Banking

RTI

Aadhar Card/PAN

Payment of taxes

Registration Services

Voter ID

Other

11. How would you rate the efficiency of E-Governance services?

Satisfactory

Could be improved

Not helpful

12. Do you think E-Governance services are more convenient than conventional (offline)
 method of services?

Yes

No

Only in some cases

13. Have you ever availed an E-Governance service wherein a part of the service requires an

offline procedure?

Yes

No, it is fully automated

Only in some cases

14. Do you feel comfortable in sharing your personal information with E-Governance websites?

Yes

No

Not Always

15. Are you comfortable in with making payments on these websites?

Yes

No

Partly
16. Do you feel E-Governance empowers you as a citizen?

Yes

No

Not completely