Enhancing Citizens’ Participation in the
Processes of Governance: Digital India and MyGOV
by Charru
MALHOTRA, Associate Professor (e-Governance and ICT) at Indian Institute of Public Administration
(IIPA).
Digital India
Program (DIP) is an ambitious umbrella programme of
Government of India. It weaves together a large number of technologies with
governance processes and services to empower Indian citizens around its three
vision areas viz. “Digital Infrastructure
as a Utility to Every Citizen”, “Governance and Services on Demand”, and “Digital
Empowerment of Citizens”. These key areas of visions rest on nine pillars of
Digital India ranging from provision of “Broadband for all” to its forty-four
mission mode projects related to governance services under “e-Kranti” pillar to “IT for Jobs” and “Digital
Literacy for All” and so on[1].
DIP is not merely a great opportunity to develop the digital backbone of the
country but also promises to deliver a real improvement in the quality of life
of Indians by offering an on-demand easier access to governance and services
using Internet, Mobile, Cloud based Digi-lockers, Common Service Centres-CSCs,
Post offices, public Wi-Fi hotspots and much more. In fact majority of the
activities and services delineated under government-to-government (G2G),
government-to-businesses (G2B) and government-to-citizens (G2C) categories have been proposed to be delivered using technology through
the aegis of DIP by means of innovative implementation models such as 4P
model (Panchayat-Public-Private-Partnership). The proposed actions and services are
further expected to be refined by all the stakeholders in an open and
interactive manner using digital mechanisms such as portal of MYGOV[2].
Further, DIP is also expected to bring all the digital activity to India by
ushering in other related concepts such as Smart Cities and therefore lead to a ripple effect business opportunities in all the related
sectors such as Software, Support, Hardware, Government Services and
Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES). The ultimate mission of
DIP is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge
economy by leveraging information technology (IT) as a growth engine of new
India.
Opportunities unleashed
by DIP are enormous but how can any
innovative scheme / product be bereft of challenges and concerns? To deem it as
a successful program, DIP first needs to be pragmatically evaluated from a citizen’s prism of
availability, utility, affordability, accessibility, and adaptability. As already
understood, DIP has many components and each one has to be addressed to make
the big vision a reality. The real tantalizing part,
therefore, lies in demystifying the challenges couched behind the attractive
Digital India Program. Let’s try to unravel and
address some of these in a constructive manner.
Infrastructure as a
Utility’ is the first vision of DIP; the moot question is whether the provision
of broadband/ mobile connectivity or cloud spaces by itself assures the
capability enhancement of Indian citizens (even if it is well coupled with its
other two vision statements of DIP viz.
e-services and e-literacy)? Though connectivity does stay as the backbone for
any ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development) agenda
especially in the wake of the fact that India has been recently
ranked quite poorly at position of 131 out of 167 countries in ICT Development Index-IDI (ITU, 2015)[3] but let us also not lose sight of the fact that as per
World Happiness Report (2015)[4],
India ranks abysmally lower at 117 out of 158 nations on global happiness index, which is a far more dismal
reality for India than the former one of being at a poorer position in IDI rank
. The underlying fact is that the achievement of a 100% Digital India in the present situation and
scenario is still a long drawn and distant (but
not unattainable) target. Till then, the planned heavy investments in digital
infrastructure might usurp a lion-share of not just all the erstwhile budgetary
provisions but also the governance focus as well as administrative
capacities of our service delivery agencies. For
instance, provision of rural broadband connectivity should not elbow out the
overall governance focus on provision of legal infrastructure, pucca roads,
clean water, sanitation provisions, regular electricity supply or equal number
of investments in provision of logistic support to smoothen “ease-of-doing-business”
in rural regions. To learn the balancing act, maybe India could take a cue or
two from holistic development of “Taobao” e-commerce villages of China that put an equal
emphasis on both online aspects and regional development issues.
The
next logical query that could rankle a social scientist (or any well-meaning
Indian) is whether the technological infrastructure development envisioned
under DIP[5],
based on Indian innovations, would it entail imitation/ replication of “imported”
technologies or non-contextual implementation strategies? The forecasted
financial estimates are that by the year 2020, India will be spending almost
$320 billion (Rs 17 lakh crore) on hardware imports (Business
Standard, 2011)[6] .
To understand it better, let us look at DIP a bit closely. There is “Mobile
First” Insistence in it. It is a well-known fact that most of the components of
mobile phones in India are still being imported or are purchased from the “grey”
market; this trend has to be minimized to ensure success of the proposed
m-governance initiatives or “mobile-first” processes in Indian context. This
further entails establishment of a lucrative ecosystem for local manufacturers,
entrepreneurs and startups who are working towards Indianisation of m-content.
A quick review of some of
the Digital India reference material[7]
has indicated lack of explicit imperatives or policy insistences for the same.
As an instance, disregard of indigenous ICT solutions in the
proposed implementation of ICT based education projects such as e-Basta[8]
could make such Digital India projects unsustainable in the longer run.
Since there is poor ICT infrastructure in the rural areas, for e-Basta to be
popular and hence more inclusive and sustainable, it should be based on indigenous technological innovations/ free and
open source software/ localized ICT solutions such as Akash, Simputer, Infothela
or Gobar gas-based power supplies. Of course, glorious references have been sighted
elsewhere, under the banner of “Make in India”. However, in a hurried
desperation to churn out quantity, do we really need “copy-paste” models,
lifted from Occidental setups or do we instead incubate more of our own
technological innovations (jugaads) that use available Indian resources and indigenous
knowledge? We also need to wean away from the traditional planning and policy-making
structures of governance and encourage a healthy streak of creativity—both
within the government setups and amongst our citizens. To assure this, more
congenial spaces have to be created: “Innovate for Digital India Challenges”[9] is
a case to the point. Such attempts would make e-governance solutions offered by
DIP more and more responsive to the needs and aspirations of Indian citizenry.
Parallel to the Digital India Program, MyGov
(mygov.nic.in) too is an important digital initiative expected to create responsive ecosystems for participatory and transparent
governance in India. However, if digital
consultation processes stay as the sole mechanism to build collaborative
decisions then it might not be truly representative of the majority of Indian
communities. With only 20% of Indians having access to the Internet at
least occasionally and a mere 14 per cent owning a smartphone (Poushter. Bell and Oates, 2015)[10], a
unidirectional focus on public engagement through only digital tools, might
further dissociate the governance tools from those who have no access or
ability to access such tools; while the paradox is that, it is these
communities only who beseech more equity and attention from governance gear.
A Buffet and not a la’ Carte: It is quite
understandable that MYGOV had never intentionally intended to alienate the
disempowered ones further away from voicing their opinions in the processes of
Governance and that our citizen collaboration choices must not be restricted to
binary options of “voices of elite on digital channels ” or “no digital channel
and no voices”. Instead, we must expand them to capture “all voices from all
channels”. This is possible, only if we consider a multi-channel strategy of
citizen participation in the processes of Governance. This would empower each
and every citizen of the country to voice their opinion using channels that are available, affordable and convenient
to use, as per their respective realities. India has seen some of them, albeit
not in a very sustained and systematic manner.
Some of the collaboration options[11]
that could be mixed and matched, are listed herewith:
– 1. the Internet-based collaboration channels/
mechanisms: These could include digital portals, digital collaborative
platforms including social media[12], crowd
sourcing, mobile apps, push/ pull sms services
(compatible to smart and non-smart phones as well), multi-site
video-conferencing, etc.
– 2. Non-internet collaboration channels/
mechanisms: Some of the good examples to this are FM channels a la’ Mann
ki Baat, Community
Radio etc.
– 3. Non-electronic
collaboration channels/ mechanisms: The options under this are several
including deliberative polls, social audits, Community of Practices-CoPs, round table meetings, citizen consultation
rounds-CCRs a la’ conducted in IIPA
in 2009 called as Nagrik Paramash Daur, regular
local jantaa
darbars, ward councils, Area Sabhas, opinion
surveys, print-media responses from local dailies, Participatory rural
appraisal etc.
In India, we can’t
afford governance instruments wherein only ‘the stronger ones communicate,
muffling the strained whispers of masses’! The point here is not just to resort
to a combination of these channels for public participation but also to collate
the inputs provided from each in policy formulation. Also such a multi-channel
strategy shall bring governance closer to the masses and also help to bring
communities closer to each other in resolving governance issues at the local
level.
As a first
step in the use of multi-channel strategy, suitable channels and mechanisms
must be identified depending on the context, range (local, state or national),
priority and nature of governance issues being discussed. Each of the
identified channels, then be accorded equal importance
in the policy formulation mechanisms. After this, the identical governance
issue may be broadcasted and responses[13] from
each of these identified channels may be collected in the same stipulated time-frame. Subsequently, all these responses could be
collated and then evaluated using Big Data technologies and related
knowledge analytics techniques. The “results”, hence arrived, could then be
beamed back to all these channels, making sure that a healthy feedback loop
prevails (as propounded in systems theory) for awareness, reconsideration or
further debate by the masses. Finally, let these “results”, derived from data
collated from various channels, serve as policy inputs to the respective
decision support systems of national/regional/local importance. The simple
theoretical presumption of the proposed model is that in a diverse and developing country like India, processes of governance and public
engagement must be supported by different tools and mechanisms to be deemed
truly inclusive. Provision and popular usage of such collaborative
mechanisms (and not just “digital”, “single-windows”) would also ensure that
governance truly comes closer to the doorsteps of the citizens.
On a
conclusive note, one could say that the first (and may not be the only one)
mistake we are making in this whole Digital India Program is treating digital
tools to be the sole savior to governance malaise. This might lead to blinkered
decision-making or skew our understanding of “popular public opinion”. A technocrat might still argue that creation of
technological infrastructure is the first step in our journey towards being an
empowered knowledge economy but a conscientious citizen would always aver that
such technological provisions can never
instantaneously translate into digital empowerment of masses.
In a diverse and developing
country like India, it is expected to be a gradual journey requiring sustained
inputs and pragmatic timeframes. Until that time we need to reengineer our
existing administrative services and governance
mechanisms with innovative homegrown solutions as well as by promoting
institutional innovations at the local level. Such
an all-rounded strategy will ensure that the benefits of Governance supported
by Digital India Programme are accrued by one and all
especially the minorities, marginalized communities, and geographically
alienated setups. After all, it is not lopsided
emphasis on digital investments but a balanced distribution on achievement of
governance outcomes that can spur sustainable development in India, catalyzed
by technology.
This paper would not have been possible without the ingenious inputs
of the brilliant Digital India researchers at IIPA—Ms. Rashmi
Anand, Mr. Pushkaraj Gavali and Ms.Shivangi Goswami. Indeed warm gratitude for their support and
dedication to the cause of “Digital India”.
[1] http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Digital%20India.pdf.
[2] https://mygov.in/.
[3] Measuring the Information Society Report (ITU- International Telecommunication Union, 2015): Released on 30 November,
2015, the report ranks countries on their level of information, communication
and technology (ICT) access.
Source: http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2015/57.aspx#.VmABCHYrKVM; Accessed on Dec 3, 2015.
[4] World
Happiness Report, 2015: report takes into account GDP per capita,
life expectancy, social support and freedom to make life choices as indicators
of happiness. India's rank is lower than several other developing
countries such as Pakistan (81), Palestine (108), Bangladesh (109),
Ukraine (111) and Iraq (112) and India has dropped
six notches from the 2013 report,
when it was on the 111th spot.
[5] Pillar 1: Broadband Highways, Pillar 2: Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, and Pillar 3: Public Internet Access Programme.
[6] http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/it-hardware-import-bill-to-surpass-fuel-import-costs-by-2020-fears-govt-111053100075_1.html.
[7] http://deity.gov.in/content/digital-india-book.
[8] e-Basta,
in line with the government's Digital
India initiative, is a project that has created a framework to make
school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops.
[9] http://www.indianweb2. com/2015/05/26/intel-dst-call-for-entries-for-the-innovate-for-digital-india-challenge/.
[10] J. Poushter, J. Bell, R. Oates, Internet Seen as Positive Influence on
Education but Negative Influence on Morality in Emerging and Developing Nations,
Pew Research Center, pp. 24-26. Retrieved from http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/03/Pew-Research-Center-Technology-Report-FINAL-March-19-20151.pdf
[11]
Each of these could be elaborated and debated, which is beyond the scope of
this study.
[12] Of course, there
are issues within this issue- social media must be used with discretion as
majority of the popular ones are on proprietary platforms.
[13] Issues
within issues – let the citizens’ identity be masked.