Which of the following statements are correct regarding ICT based e-Governance ?
1. e-Governance reduces the transparency of Government.
2. e-Governance reduces the cost of Government.
3. e-Governance

Question

Which of the following statements are correct regarding ICT based e-Governance ?
1. e-Governance reduces the transparency of Government.
2. e-Governance reduces the cost of Government.
3. e-Governance increases citizens input into Government.
4. e-Governance increases bureaucratic red tapism.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, 2 and 3. The item is built so that statement 2 appears in every single option, which means the whole question is decided by rejecting statements 1 and 4 — and both of them are inversions of the standard case for e-Governance. Statement 2, that e-Governance reduces the cost of government, is accepted: once a service is re-engineered as an online transaction, the marginal cost of each additional application, licence renewal or land-record copy falls sharply compared with a counter-based, paper-file process, and the citizen's own cost of travelling to an office repeatedly disappears as well. Statement 3, that it increases citizens' input into government, is also accepted: grievance portals, online consultation on draft rules and policies, feedback and rating built into service delivery, and open data all give the citizen channels of input that a purely counter-based administration never offered. Now the two that are wrong, and wrong in a way the examiner has deliberately made symmetrical. Statement 1 claims e-Governance reduces transparency. The entire justification for ICT in administration runs the other way: publishing rules, forms, tender documents, application status, beneficiary lists and land records online removes the discretionary gatekeeper who once controlled access to information, and it is the same instinct that Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 codifies when it obliges every public authority to disclose information suo motu, as far as possible through electronic means. Statement 4 claims e-Governance increases bureaucratic red tapism. Again the reverse: the point of process re-engineering, single-window portals and workflow automation is to compress the number of desks a file must cross and to make delay visible and timestamped rather than invisible. So statements 2 and 3 stand, statements 1 and 4 fall, and the answer is (b). A fair caveat for the thinking student: these are the intended and generally documented benefits, and the exam is testing that intent — not a claim that every e-Governance project in India has delivered them.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Keeps the correct statement 2 but adds statement 4, that e-Governance increases bureaucratic red tapism. That is the opposite of its purpose. Red tape means multiple layers of approval, repeated paperwork and unaccountable delay; automating the workflow, moving to a single-window online application and timestamping each stage attacks precisely those layers. A student may notice, quite fairly, that badly designed portals can create new frustrations — but that is a criticism of implementation, not a defining feature of ICT-based e-Governance.  (c) This is the tempting near-miss, because it correctly includes 2 and 3 and only adds statement 1. But statement 1 asserts that e-Governance reduces the transparency of government, which reverses the central claim made for it. Putting government records, entitlements, tender documents and application status online is what makes administration visible; transparency is the first argument advanced for e-Governance, not a casualty of it.  (d) Correctly includes 2 and 3, then spoils the set with statement 4. If you can identify that red tapism is reduced rather than increased, this option is eliminated instantly and you are left with (b). Note the structure of the item: statement 2 is common to all four options, so a candidate short of time should spend the seconds on statements 1 and 4, which are the only ones that discriminate.

Concept: e-Governance is the use of information and communication technology to deliver government services, exchange information and carry out transactions between the government and citizens (G2C), businesses (G2B), other arms of government (G2G) and its own employees (G2E). It is not simply computerisation of existing files; the substantive part is process re-engineering — redesigning the procedure itself so that the citizen deals with a single window rather than a chain of desks. India's institutional push came through the National e-Governance Plan approved in 2006, built around a set of centrally, State and integrated mission mode projects, and later through the Digital India programme launched on 1 July 2015.

State PCS 2024 Q123 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q123 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer