Integrated delivery of e-services

The delivery of online services is a key parameter for measuring the success of e-governance. The spread of internet services has facilitated the central, state and union territory governments to enlarge the list of services under the ambit of e-governance. The National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) is a framework for benchmarking the e-governance services to help government review various parameters and take effective steps to improve them. The NeSDA 2021 report has brought to light that there has been a significant rise in mandatory e-services from 872 in 2019 to 1400 in 2021 which is indicative of the expansion of e-governance in the country which is good news. The report highlights that the overall score of services portals has increased for the majority of the States under North-East and Hill States category and Education, Environment, Finance, and Labour and Employment are the key sectors that have improved in 2021. Nagaland has topped the list followed by Meghalaya while Assam has been ranked third among ten states in this category. The NeSDA framework has assessed all the State / UT / Central Ministry Portals on four key parameters - accessibility, content availability, ease of use, Information Security and Privacy. The Services Portals have been assessed on an additional three parameters- end-service delivery, integrated service delivery, status and request tracking. In 2021, the NeSDA framework covered G2C (Government-to-Citizen) and G2B (Government-to-Business) services across seven sectors- finance, labour and employment, education, local governance and utility services, social welfare (including health, agriculture and home security), environment (including Fire) and Tourism sectors, states the report. Key takeaways from the assessment are- 65% of all possible mandatory e-services have been delivered by States and Union Territories as compared to 48% in 2019 and 74% of respondents for the nationwide Citizens Assessment Survey were satisfied/very satisfied. These figures also say a lot about the scope for improvement. The Citizen Survey was conducted to determine the satisfaction levels of respondents based on their experience in availing of e-services provided by their respective States and UTs. Awareness of e-Governance services, usage, identification of e-Services availed, channels to avail e-services, the choice between e-service and manual service and trust in e-services were some of the focus areas of the survey. The Citizen Survey brought out some interesting findings for governments in states in UTs to take note of and initiate steps accordingly. Portals that have higher satisfaction levels are those which implement features such as – the online payment facility of the portal, password recovery and reset facility on the portal, ability of the portal to support multiple languages and access to the portal through multiple devices. About 87% of respondents agreed that e-governance services can be used to deliver better services to citizens and over 90% of respondents stated that e-services are better than manual services for cost, time and effort. The top five used e-services among the respondents' sample were – online applications for caste certificates, income certificates, domicile certificates, e-payment of electricity bills and online applications for the scholarship. The report states that around 30% of respondents across all States and UTs are those who have not availed of e-Services various reasons for not availing the e-services were: not familiar with online services, no regular access to the internet, security or privacy issues /concerns, online service portals are not user-friendly and no gadgets / electronic devices to access online services. These findings point toward the digital divide and lack of digital literacy that continue to pose stumbling blocks to the desired pace of expansion of e-governance. A key recommendation from NeSDA 2021 is the adoption of Integrated Service Delivery through the political and administrative will that allows for collaboration across departments and between levels through institutional arrangements which create a robust system of holistic, synergistic and coordinated delivery of public services. Ease of Doing Business (EODB) portal of Assam Government that integrates online services of 21 departments finds a place among ten "notable integrated portals" implemented by States and UTs. Over the past three years, the EODB portal of Assam received 10.23 lakh applications of which 10.12 lakh have been disposed of (about 98%) which is indicative of growing popularity and trust in e-governance due to the integrated approach. The rationale behind the recommendation for the adoption of integrated portals is that they enable the delivery of better services by seamlessly integrating services across departments and jurisdictions and providing a unified access point for a variety of services. "Integrated delivery of services is a core tenant of the NeSDA framework and strengthening such portals will enhance the digital empowerment of citizens," states the report underscoring the need for states and UTs to adopt more integrated portals for improvement in access and delivery of e-services. Leveraging the integrated approach will facilitate governments achieving the core objective of empowering the citizens through e-governance, which is transparent, faster, and responsive. Easy and affordable access to digital technology is crucial to ensure that the benefits of integrated delivery of e-service reach every citizen.