Mandating e-services by govt might be a long haul

The government might have to first pass the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) Bill before it can order all departments to deliver government services online. The long-pending legislation, which was first drafted in 2011, has lapsed in Parliament after change of government. According to the rules, it will need to be cleared by the Cabinet once again before being reintroduced in Parliament.

This could delay roll-out of the ambitious Digital India project. Online delivery of government services is a key component of the project that was cleared by the cabinet recently. A government official who is close to the development said getting the Bill passed might not be completely in the hands of the department of electronics and information technology.

The government had directed officials to harmonise the ESD Bill with the Citizens' Charter Bill. "It means that the latter will have to be passed first by Parliament, before the ESD can be introduced," said the official. Another official said the Citizens' Charter Bill, which is officially known as the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011, might be scrapped.

It could not be independently confirmed if the Citizens' Charter Bill, which mandates all government departments to publish a citizens' charter specifying the category of goods supplied and services offered and the timeframe within which these shall be delivered, would remain or go.

Both the pieces of the legislation overlap in the area of the mechanism which can be used by the citizen for grievance redressal in case he/she is denied a service.

Neel Ratan, executive director of PwC India, said the government was likely to push the project along with the Act. "Why is the legislation needed so much, nobody passed a Bill to make sure that the Income Tax department mandates that all returns have to be filed on the Internet," Ratan said. He added that implementation of the project was more important than the legislation in this case.

In the past several years, various government departments have digitised their services. A majority of these are also offered online. However, currently departments only offer some of their services online and not all. Plus, services are not completely digitised with portions of them requiring physical intervention. The Bill would have made it binding on all services to be automated so that they could be availed end-to-end digitally. It had proposed a deadline of five years for all departments to computerise themselves.

The blueprint for the Digital India programme envisages all government services be delivered electronically even before - that is by 2018. The project will also provide "high-speed internet as a core utility" down to the gram panchayat level which will ensure that people can avail of these services. According to the press release, the project will ensure that "governance and services on demand" are seamlessly integrated across departments or jurisdictions to provide easy and a single window access to all persons. They will also be available in real time from online and mobile platforms and will be on the cloud to ensure easy access.

Services will also be "digitally transformed" for improving ease of doing business. India currently ranks among the lowest when it comes to being a business friendly nation.