Electronic governance is a government initiative to provide platforms that help citizens connect directly with the government. It promotes government schemes, integrity, transparency, flexibility, security, good governance and empowerment.
The boom in the IT sector led to the initiative with a user-friendly interface and better administration for the government. E-governance evolved in the 70s. Now it is spreading throughout the country to help the population. However, there are many challenges to e-governance.
Challenges to E-Governance
The various issues faced by e-governance are listed below:
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Technical Issues
- Security: Internet transactions are a major concern due to a lack of security. Insurance, banking, and utility bill payments are all handled by e-government platforms. Loopholes in the system provide a poor experience to the individual.
- Privacy: Misuse of personal data is another aspect that has proved challenging.
- Interoperability: Coordination between the ministries, communication gaps, and data transfer limitations.
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Economic Issues
- Cost: Implementing e-governance operations and maintaining services is very costly.
- Reusability: Any government-developed model must be reusable. E-governance is a nationwide plan that should include software or programs that government agencies can use.
- Maintenance: The government needs to constantly maintain such platforms and introduce new software to meet citizens’ current demands.
- Portability: Providing technologies independent of heavy immovable hardware.
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Social Issues
- Accessibility: Many people in rural areas cannot access such a portal due to language barriers, insufficient infrastructure, etc.
- Illiteracy: Illiteracy is a major factor that renders such platforms useless.
- Language: A major chunk of the population can’t understand English. The government must meet the gap and add different languages to their portals.
- Awareness: Informed citizens, concerned institutions, and government departments should take it as a responsibility to spread the information and promote e-services.
- Trust: Increasing cybercrimes such as spoofing, data tampering, data leaking, transactional frauds, etc., are posing problems for e-governance. Such activities create trust issues for citizens and limit the use of such platforms.
- Inequality: The unequal distribution of technology limits users and bars people from availing the perks provided under schemes of e-governance.
- Security: To protect citizens’ information, the government needs to have a high level of protection.
- Infrastructure: Better infrastructure can provide better connectivity to remote areas and help the overall development.
Conclusion
E-governance is one important initiative taken by governments worldwide, enabling them to handle and carry out their duties. E-governance aims to provide services so that everyone can benefit from them. The boom in the IT sector helped enhance the working of e-governance. While working towards citizen welfare, these platforms face various technical, social and economic challenges, such as increasing cybercrimes, expensive maintenance, lack of infrastructure, illiteracy, etc. The government must address these issues and provide a better service to its people. The government must ensure proper infrastructure and awareness programmes are put into place. These measures can help people from the fringes of society benefit from the various e-governance schemes.