Jun 5, 2024

Part of "Bhārata, that is India" series

E-governance Infrastucture

Every design decision is a trade off. The current governance infrastructure of multiple offices or multiple websites to dispense governance is designed primarily for the convenience of the dispensers (government), not of the benefactors (the people). Therefore, people suffer.

• People lack the right information on which offices to visit or which websites and apps to use for a particular need. There are just too many of them with sporadic use cases. Consequently, no one remembers them.
• Even after figuring out:
  • they visit various offices at various levels costing them time, energy, physical inconvenience and sometimes even money (bribes), or
  • the websites and apps have poor user interfaces, inconsistent designs, heavy on client devices, and not inter-operable with other offices.

For these reasons, there is a need to simplify the governance infrastructure without compromising the conveniences of the dispensers. The goals of the infrastructure therefore must be to:

• enable people to benefact good governance conveniently and quickly by just using a portal instead of the usual multiple visits to government office and red tapism.
• enable the government to deliver good governance efficiently and effectively.
• allow elected officials to properly monitor their governance responsibilities and what's happening in the constituency.
• not replace the current offline processes, but only to complement them.

When you consider the massive public adoption of technology, an electronic governance infrastructure consisting of a web and mobile portals, that connects to the existing digital infrastructure in various ministries, departments and offices using an API, presents itself as a good candidate. All processes of the government, judiciary, election commission and other independent bodies, that involves people can be brought under this portal too making this a single window portal.

This portal can and should be the star of the digital India product ecosystem because the benefits are tangible to the people. Upon maturity, India may have the world's best electronic governance system.

Not every planned functionality must be implemented in the beginning. The product strategy is to first include those features that require the least participation of stake holders, test the portal and incrementally add more of them to the portal. The source code can then be open sourced to instil trust among people and to perform public security audits.

User Types

This portal serves 6 types of users with corresponding functionalities or portal features available after logging in.

1. A natural person who is a resident citizen.
2. A natural person who is a non-resident citizen.
3. A natural person who is a resident but not a citizen.
4. An artificial person who is a national.
5. An artificial person who is not a national, but has operational presence in the county.
6. The elected representative.

The first five user types will have portal features that allow them to be easy benefactors of governance. However, elected representatives will have a different dashboard that allows them easy monitoring and tracking of good governance in the constituencies.

Note that the elected representatives will have access to citizen roles too, since they are also citizens.

Core Functionalities

The portal will have the following core functionalities that will be used in various features incorporated into the portal.

1. Repositories to host and share information.
2. A filing system to file applications, complaints, etc.
3. A tracking system to track applications, welfare schemes and public projects.
4. A notification system to be used with other systems.
5. A messaging system.
6. Location based services to funnel the right information to notify to users.
7. A user profile

Although the user profile is is similar to that of any websites, here, it serves a higher purpose. It contains every personal qualification relevant in Indian polity: name, address, family details, id cards, utility connections details, jaati, religion, sect, net worth, ration card classification, etc. These details will be used to better serve other functionalities; such as using the ration card classification to notify a new welfare scheme or the availability of commodities in the outlets.

The following examples illustrate how the above 6 functionalities can be used to create value in the portal.

Example: Filing

This perhaps would be the most loved and most benefiting feature of the portal because people spend more time than needed for filing applications both offline and online. This portal would allow people to apply for driving license, pan card, passport, jaati certificate, approval requests, lodge complaints, raise special requests, lodge general grievances, etc. from the portal itself.

Each filing would be notified to the respective offices for further proceedings, which too, using our tracking functionality, will be updated to the user on the portal.

Using the messaging system, the communications involved between departments with respect to the file will be available to the user for audit and clearer tracking.

For every filing, a ticket can be issued, much like a customer service desk of an enterprise. The tracking functionality can be used to follow this ticket; and the notification functionality can be used to intimate progress with the concerned user.

These filings can be of public or private nature, especially from the perspective of the applicant. Therefore, they can be categorised as private and confidential or to be available in the public domain.

This portal will not handle complaints or file applications with respect public sector enterprises — such as raising tickets about an electrical problem or applying for a government gas connection. It is more effective to call these enterprises directly with such complaints. However, the portal will allow people to escalate existing complaints (such as electricity related) to the representatives after some time.

Example: Identity Protection

Identity theft is easy given the state where IDs are used without further verification. To prevent such ID thefts, a verification system can be implemented for all attempts of using a person's id and address proofs. This functionality in fact requires mandating companies and govt offices to not proceed with any IDs unless it is verified by the user. Therefore, this could be a slow feature to implement; but a necessary feature.

To review one's identity integrity, all utilities and services associated with that person's identity must be listed in a page in the portal for informative and verification purposes. Very often, a person is unaware of phone connections or vehicles taken under his or name through identity theft.

Example: Tax Payment

The currently tax payment system requires you to visit multiple websites: income tax website, GST website, local body website, etc. There are so many of them that people don't even know their addresses and have to search for it on search engines.

A tax payment functionality in this portal will ease up the process for all tax payers, whether individuals or body corporates.

Leveraging user profile and notification functionality, all tax dues including building tax, property tax, luxury tax, etc. can also be notified directly to the user in the portal.

Example: Laws

There are three problems with the current way laws (acts, rules, notifications, circulars, etc.) are published to the public.

1. Apart from the gazette of India, laws are published in India Code (a digital repository for laws) and in the website of corresponding ministries. In the case of India Code, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 cannot be found there as of April 13, 2024. It is only found in the MEITY website. In other case, most acts can be easily guessed to be under a certain ministry, some acts cannot be. For instance, since the benefactors of foreign investments are businesses, it is natural for an entrepreneur to look for the FDI policy on the MCA website. However, it is only found in the MCI website, which too is a concerned ministry. Perhaps, some laws must be hosted by all related ministries.
2. Most laws are published online as documents which cannot be updated upon amendments, thus becoming obsolete at some point in future. Citizens cannot therefore count on these documents for up to date law; thus requiring them to dig into any amendment acts.
3. Documents are not the best format to publish anything online due to their indifference to screen sizes and resolutions; especially when users search for it on the Internet. While it is optimistic to see laws published in HTML format that is up to date with the amendments, the layout and design is not best suited for reading, the rendering heavily relies on JavaScript and all laws are not found in the same platform.

The solution is integrate all law artefacts into the portal with a design optimised for reading and tracking changes to the law. Think of it as an online gazette. Using user profile/location and notification functionalities, new laws can be notified to the concerned users as well.

Example: Schemes and Projects

The government can host all the public projects and welfare schemes that they have rolled out using the repository functionality of the portal.

The tracking functionality can allow users to see what stage a project or scheme is at any given point of time. An entirely new system need not be built for this. The tracking system built for the administrators and ministers to oversee projects and schemes can be leveraged using an API. Various data visualisation techniques can be used in the portal to make it easier for the average public to comprehend the numbers behind the projects or schemes.

The tracking, notification and location functionality can work together to warn users of any upcoming inconveniences due to any infrastructure project, such as the surprise or unannounced commencement of a road construction project.

Leveraging the notification functionality, new welfare schemes can be directly notified to the eligible users judged from their user profile. Using the application functionality, users can apply to these schemes directly without the need of middle men, thus ensuring 100% financial benefits to the beneficiary.

Example: Spending Account

All financial ledgers of all public accounts, except those concerning state security, must be accessible to people. The egovernance portal can make this happen. This will contribute to more responsible spending and less corruption due to public scrutiny of the ledgers. As they say: follow the money and it will lead you to the truth.

Example: Official Communications

Official communications are those that are inter departmental, inter ministerial and inter governmental. Such communication are of two types: those that can be and must be publicly available such as disaster warnings, and those that shouldn't be publicly available such as state or national security related communication. All communication of the former type must be publicly available not just to hold people accountable, but to force action from authorities in case of complacency.

Consider the 2024 Wayanad landslide, where the home minister Shri. Amit Shah asserted that they had warned Kerala government of excessive rain and landslides on July 23, with subsequent warnings on July 24, 25 and 26. Kerala government denies it unconditionally. If the copies of such warnings and any replies were made available in a public domain, such "we did" and "we did not" arguments can be avoided. More importantly, social workers, journalists and NGOs could have picked up the issue and force damage control action well before the landslides.

Most of the official communications are not of secretive nature, and therefore, it is best if they are made public accessible too.

Electoral Advantages

Although electoral advantages aren't the intention of this governance infrastructure, much like every good deed reaping electoral advantages, this too will. Every time people use the portal, they actually live good governance. If this infrastructure is introduced after a change of governance, this will invoke the contrast principle to accentuate competence.

Another electoral benefit of this portal is that it will bring the young and future voters to participate in politics and nation building, and because of experiencing good governance, they will largely lean to party who implements this infrastructure. Most of them, in their own words, have no interest in politics, not because they are unpatriotic, but because it is not their thing. Some others have lost faith in the system. They cannot be wooed by ideological campaigns of nation building. The only way to make them participate is to leverage that aspect that still connects them with the system, which is governance. A properly designed digital governance system will allow them to experience good governance like never before. And this will provoke some thoughts in them. This state of mind is a more receptive state for an ideological pitch.