Electronic
delivery of services in India (e-delivery of services in
India) is in really bad shape thanks to the myopic attitude of our
Indian government and its committees. As on date we have no mandatory
framework for e-governance services in India.
This is a clear case of denial of digital
empowerment of Indian citizens by the Indian government. The
information technology act 2000 (IT Act 2000), which is the sole
cyber law of India, carries few provisions pertaining to e-governance
in India. However, the IT Act 2000 expressly put an embargo upon
mandatory e-governance services in India.
It is really surprising that after more than 12
years of enactment of IT Act, 2000 the parliamentary standing
committee on information and technology still believes that states
would not be able to meet the e-governance needs of India. If a
country cannot put in place e-governance services for 12 years and is
still insisting upon more years, it puts a question mark upon the
capabilities of that nation.
No doubt India is really poor at e-readiness and
e-governance in India is dying.
Indian government is presently facing a “technology bankruptcy”
and “ICT
emergency” vis-à-vis cyber crimes, cyber attacks, cyber
security and other related issues.
There is nothing wrong in enacting a good law in
this regard but there is everything wrong when we make excuses for
not enactment of such law at all. We need time bound enactment
exercises and by allowing unlimited time to enact such laws, we are
doing no good to India. It is high time for us to ensure e-delivery
of services in India.