With the advancement of the information technology, e-governance is receiving prominence and attention like never before in the administration of the government. Technology is being integrated into most of work processes employed by the government to conduct the government administration via e-governance.

The objective of e-governance is to reduce the paper work as part of government go-green and zero paper tolerance office policy and shot in the arm the prospect of enhancement in production of various government departments and quality of work via e-governance.

Electronic governance or e-governance is the application of information and communication technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of information, communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and services between government-to-citizen (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G), government-to-employees (G2E) as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government framework.

As part of its efforts to uplift the e-governance policy, the central government has approved the restructuring of Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA) which is launched on April 24, 2018 with the estimated cost of INR 7255.50 crore – with the objective to build and develop infrastructure at village level via local governing bodies and initiate measures towards e-governance.

The prospect of the RGSA is to steer the initiatives for e-governance under the e-panchayat Mission Mode Project (MMP) and to develop infrastructure with emphasis on training.

All states and Union Territories including Institutions of rural local government in non-Part IX areas (in the absence of panchayats) are covered under the RGSA. 60:40 is the sharing ratio for the state components (excluding the Northeast and hilly states where it will be 90:10).

For field level reporting and monitoring the physical progress of the works employed by panchayats – A mobile application (Action Soft) has been developed. Rural Development Ministry has developed another application (Local Government Directory) to ensure inter-operability across the databases which will be released to all ministries for wider usage.

The central government has recognized the need to encourage and motivate panchayats and individuals and introduced a new award “Gram Panchayat  Development Plan (GPDP)” award which will be conferred on the 3 gram panchayats with best planning across the country.

Earlier awards (Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar, Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar and e-Panchayat Puraskar) at gram panchayat level witnessed wider participation of the gram panchayats to garner the awards is also the factor that contributed to introduction of GPDP award.

The central government laborsto promote e-governance at village level is a welcome measure and locals residing in the villages need to take advantage of e-governance and other related policies and work towards the development of villages to the extent they developed the infrastructure good enough to self-sustain themselves.

It is hoped that with the clean enforcement of RGSA will certainly aid in promoting e-governance at local government bodies and build adequate infrastructure for the develop of villages – diversified incentives initiated by the central government to promote self-centered administration at gram panchayat level will certainly motivate local people for better governance in the villages – ultimately the self-centered and sustained e-governance at village level will shot in the arm the prospect of the overall economic development of the nation.

Research inputs by Paruchuri Baswanth Mohan