E-governance in India is considered to be a good solution for delivering public services in India. However, it is equally true that e-governance is just a fancy term in India with no actual implementation of practical utility.
This is because e-governance in India is just a political term as no Indian citizen can claim compulsory delivery of services through e-governance. In the absence of mandatory e-governance services, political parties have no incentive or pressure to implement e-governance projects.
I have already covered an interview of Praveen Dalal, Managing Partner of Perry4Law and the Leading Techno-Legal Expert of India on the reasons for failures of e-governance in India and its revival methods and strategies. The same is available at LinkedIn and Ground Report for our readers.
One of the core arguments of Dalal is that mandatory or effective legal framework for e-governance is needed in India. He also maintains that transparency and accountability in the e-governance projects must also be ensured as most of the e-governance projects have themselves become a source of corruption in India.
Dalal believes that India needs to repeal the IT Act, 2000 and enact appropriate and dedicated laws pertaining to ecommerce, e-governance, cyber law, cyber security, cyber forensics, telegraph and other similar fields. Presently all these areas have been stuffed into a single law known as IT Act, 2000. This has resulted in lack of a specialised legal framework for all these fields.
There is no doubt that mandatory or effective legal framework for e-governance is need of the hour. Let us hope that the Modi government would do the needful in this regard as soon as possible.