Interactive Services Model, Digital Governance Initiative: egovernance / electronic governance in developing countries

Interactive-Service model is a consolidation of the earlier presented digital governance models and opens up avenues for direct participation of individuals in the governance processes. Fundamentally, ICT have the potential to bring in every individual in a digital network and enable interactive (two-way) flow of information amongt them. The potential of ICT for the governance is fully leveraged in this model and leads and can bring lead to greater objectivity and transparency in decision-making processes.

Under this model, the various services offered by the Government become directly available to its citizens in an interactive manner. It does so by opening up an interactive Government to Consumer to Government (G2C2G) channel in various aspects of governance, such as election of government officials (e-ballots); online grievance-redressal; sharing of concerns and providing expertise; opinion polls on public issues etc.

Applications

This model could be applied in the following possible ways:

To establish an interactive communication channels with key policy-makers and members of Planning Commissions.
To conduct electronic ballots for the election of government officials and other office bearers.
To conduct public debates / opinion polls on issues of wider concern before formulation of policies and legislative frameworks.
Filing of grievances, feedback and reports by citizens with the concerned governmental body.
Establishing decentralised forms of governance.
Performing governance functions online such as revenue collection, filing of taxes, governmental procurement, payment transfer etc.

Example of organisations / projects based on Broadcasting Model

India: Gyandoot Gyandoot is an intranet in Dhar district connecting rural cybercafes catering to the everyday needs of the masses. The site has following services to offer in addition to the hope that it has generated by networking, the first district in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India
- Commodity/ Agricultural Marketing Information System
- Copies of land maps
- On-Line Registration of Applications
- Public Grievance Redressal
http://www.gyandoot.net/gyandoot/intranet.html

(Parent Site : http://www.gyandoot.net )
Philippine Customs Reform : Using an "off-the-shelf" customs application package as the main building block, the Philippines Customs Bureau has developed an on-line system to process clearance of imports, payment of duty, and delivery of release orders for shipments to leave the docks. The new on-line system has lessened the cost of trade for businesses, reduced opportunities for fraud, and helped the Bureau to maximize revenue collection.

http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/philippinecustomscs.htm

Central Vigilance Committee (India) - pioneering initiative toward e-vigilance. It provides free-access information to citizens about government officials who have been indicted on judicial charges relating to corruption and have been advised penalty. People can also file complaints against any public servant who fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission.

http://cvc.nic.in
- Procedure to lodge a complaint through e-mail
- Web-list of officers advised Major Penalty

Discussions

The model firmly relies on the interactive applications of ICT and therefore is a technology and cost - intensive model which will require a transition period before being adopted on a wider scale, especially in the Developing Countries. It would also require elemental familiarity of ICT among the citizens to fully benefit from this model. Nevertheless, the diminishing costs of ICT and the advantages offered by this technology would certainly catalyse the penetration of this model. Intermediary organisations and Knowledge Networkers will have a tremendous role to play in widespread replication of this model.

comments and feedback: vikas.nath@gmail.com or v.nath-alumni@lse.ac.uk

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