Digital Goa Issue 91 December 2013 Dec 2013 | Page 11

www.digitalgoa.com

1 to 31st December 2013

E-governance in Goa still in its infancy
Mr. Tejinder Singh

system. This does save on time but is not an
optimum solution.
What if?
The school had a web interface where they
could directly get access to the childs birth
certificate and the payment of the fees (Rs.10/) for the birth certificate could be added in the
admission fees itself and the institute could hand
over the same after all the admissions to the

T

here are many definition and many studies that can be read on the internet about
implementation of e-governance services
in the world. But what really needs to be understood is that e-governance in people centric and
not system centric. We just cannot do something
just because some other country and state has
done the same. It is very important to understand
that the success of e-governance is not on the
basis of how many services are available for the
citizens but the usage of these services.
The method of implementation of e-governance services cannot be PUSH. It should
always be POP.
PUSH: The government forces people to use
its electronic services.
POP: The people want services at their doorsteps and the government obliges.
What do people really require?
People are not interested in visiting departments just because they have a lot of time at

It is important to understand that
the user visits the portal to get his
work done and is not interested in
solving a jigsaw puzzle.
their disposal. They are interested in getting
their work done with as much speed and as
much transparency as possible. That is where
the e-governance services come handy. So, what
is important is not Government departments but
the task to be performed.
Let us take a simple example.
Admission process of a child for standard
one.
The process requires the parent to submit the
original of birth certificate of the child. There are
two ways of getting the birth certificate.

Venkatesh Prabhu is the founder of ThyWay
Creations, and a creative Director at India
Business Foundation . He is also a visiting
faculty at Dept of Computer Science, Goa
University.
1.

Go to the res pective municipality / panchayat
etc and get it.
2.
Ask for the certificate using
the government of Goa e-governance portal.
In either case you have to visit
the municipality/panchayat to get
the copy. And pay a sum of Rs.10/as fees for the same. Now let us
calculate the hidden costs.
1.
Fuel cost of going to the
municipality to collect the
certificate.
2. Time that is spent in travel and standing in
queues.
And in certain cases if things don’t fall in place...
one ends up visiting the municipality/panchayat
more than ones.
What has essentially happened is that the manual
system has just been converted into an electronic

Recommendation for
E-Governance Portals

Focus - Department-centric to servicecentric portal
Big picture - For processes and transactions the entire process needs to be described
for the user before he/she uses the E-process in terms of steps, duration, payment,
documents, manual steps (this will require
intelligent integration of citizen charter and
forms and processes)
Provide clear information about what
documents to be uploaded - Format, size
limit, sample copies

Provide Save & resume later options
Provide appropriate Feedback using different modes of communication Phone/mobile/email/contact person/helpline
Establish a once for all citizen registration facility
Payment - Provide integration of payment mechanism
Source - e-Services Portal of Goa Govt:
Heuristic Evaluation of Two Services - by
Ramrao Wagh, Goa University and Venkatesh Prabhu, Thyway

It is not just enough to computerize
the government departments but to
put a system in place that will make
all the government departments
disappear for user.
Municipality/panchayat.
In such a scenario imagine the amount of time
that is saved. Every year approximately about
10,000 children take admissions in schools.
Considering that a parent spends 10 minutes to
get the birth certificate of his/her child. Another
5 minutes are spent by the staff
who furnishes the birth certificate. So, approximately 1,50,000
minutes of National Resource is
wasted only on birth certificates
for admissions.
So, what we see is that it is
not just enough to computerize
the government departments but
to put a system in place that will
make all the government departments disappear for user. The
entire services should be task centric and not
department centric as it presently is. Again it is
important to understand that the user visits the
portal to get his work done and is not interested
in solving a jigsaw puzzle.
In conclusion it can be said that Goa has still