Assessment of e-Governance Projects

Abstract

This study presents an integrated framework for assessing the performance of e-governance projects. The integrated framework has been developed based on review of literature exercise as, a total of 922 studies were initially obtained from SCOPUS of which 64 studies were selected using focused exclusion and inclusion criteria. The review highlighted that citizens were the dominant user groups being studied while other stakeholders (like government, firms) were rarely covered in such studies. The review identified a total of 126 constructs which were further clubbed in to groups like people, technology, policy, institution and economic. An integrated framework for assessment of e-governance projects is developed. This integrated framework had identified dominant constructs. For people group, these are ease of use, usefulness, user awareness & satisfaction, adoption and social benefits & influence. For technology group, these are accessibility, infrastructure, reliability and website maturity. For policy group, these are laws & policies, privacy & security, transparency & user trust and effectiveness & empowerment. For economic group, these are affordability & cost of service and funding sustainability. For institution group, these are availability & performance, management support, quality (system, service and information) and operational efficiency. Validation of the relevance of this framework was done through qualitative case studies. One such study is the Passport Project of Ministry of External Affairs (a central government initiative, for citizens). Another such study is the Excise Supply Chain Information Management Systems for Liquor distribution in Delhi (a state government initiative for businesses). The relevance of the conceptual framework is explored using these case studies.