Evaluating G2C e-government projects in India: indicators and measurement

Abstract

The phenomenon of e-Government, understood broadly as the use of information and communication technology by government agencies for delivering services to citizens (G2C), businesses (G2B) and other government agencies (G2G), is increasingly being seen as a tool for reforming public services worldwide. Recognizing its potential, India also has embraced e-Government by approving the national eGovernance plan, which involved committing large investments and extending political support from the top level down. However, challenges like increasing project success rate and scaling up the projects, must be overcome to transform the vision of e-Government into reality.

To make progress with implementation, evaluation of projects becomes a very important task. Findings from evaluation serve multiple purposes like justifying investments and sustaining commitment, providing lessons for new projects, and identifying projects that can be scaled up. However, e-Government evaluation is in a nascent stage and the existing methods of evaluation suffer from shortcomings like having a limited scope of evaluation, the use of too many indicators, making interpretation of results difficult, application of too many subjective measures, and a lack of attention to drawing lessons for future projects. In view of the indisputable importance of e-Government project evaluation and the above shortcomings of the existing research in this area, this research focused on evaluation of G2C e-Government projects in India. Specifically, the research focused on improving the process of e-Government project evaluation by enhancing the scope of evaluation, by refining existing indicators and by proposing new indicators to measure various dimensions, such that lessons can be drawn from the evaluation studies. The research adopted a mix of methods to address its objectives. The scope of evaluation was enhanced by taking a comprehensive view of evaluation in general and identifying the relevant items and criteria that are of immediate concern to e-Government projects. The scope so delineated focused on aspects of the broad areas of outcomes, outputs and risks in e-Government projects.

Thereafter, a case study of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) e- Government project was undertaken to propose and also to demonstrate the use of indicators that covered the aspects of outcome and output evaluation. This involved the collection of primary data and the use of analysis techniques, both qualitative and quantitative. The indicators were applied to another e-Government project namely the land records computerization in Orissa to ascertain their applicability in different contexts.

Identification of project risks was done using a different method, as a case would not reveal all the possible sources of risk. To identify indicators for risk, a large pool of risk items were generated by examining secondary data from case documentations that are available in public domain, and review of literature on information systems project failure. Survey of public managers involved in e-Government projects in India was thereafter undertaken to ascertain the importance of the risk items in the Indian context. Subsequently, reliability test and factor analysis of data was conducted to examine the pool items for better identification, and understanding of risk.

With regard to assessment of project outcomes, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was proposed to measure the overall service quality improvement. Its application to AMC was demonstrated and the results interpreted. Corruption was also seen to be impacted by e Government projects, and indicators in terms of service delivery time, and number of visits, were proposed. Impact on agency revenue was measured by realized revenue as a percentage of potential. In some case new sources of revenue were also identified, e.g. user fees in the land records projects.

With regard to project outputs, process effectiveness was found to comprise of three dimensions; service availability, service simplicity, and rule based service delivery. Indicators to assess these aspects of process effectiveness were proposed. Effectiveness of information was seen to be captured by quality of information for citizens, and satisfaction with information for the agency. The main uses of information and the completeness, relevance, accuracy, timeliness and convenience of such information are the measures for effectiveness for citizen. User information satisfaction scale was used to measure information effectiveness for agency.

Risks in e-Government projects were found to comprise of seven underlying factors, viz. general factor, top management apathy, operational risk, inadequate citizen awareness and access to project services, maladapted staff, diminishing power of employees and non-transparency in organization.

Besides addressing the challenge of evaluation of e-Government projects, this research advances the knowledge of risks in e-Government projects, demonstrates the application of established analysis techniques in new contexts, and brings forth the role process reengineering can play in combating corruption. Thus both the practitioner and the academic are expected to benefit from the methodology and findings of this research.