Internet for governance

GOVERNMENT @ NET — New Governance Opportunities for India: Kiran Bedi, Parminder Jeet Singh, Sandeep Srivatsava; Sage Publications, India Pvt. Ltd., M 32, Market, Greater Kailash, New Delhi-110048. Rs. 295.

TWO POLICE officers and an information technology expert demonstrate in the book under review that the Internet is not all about E-mail and dotcom only, but has immense potential for better governance. They attribute our inadequacies not necessarily to shortages in supply, but to a weak delivery system. This explains the paradox of plenty with pockets of scarcity alongside.

Leakages and wastages in the delivery of government services are more due to lack of information on both sides. Once we, with the help of Internet, integrate information with delivery systems, it should be possible to reach government's services better and wider, benefiting larger number of citizens.

When the Internet is fully used, local community and neighbourhood can retrieve more information about government without official help. And once people's awareness is enhanced, the government cannot afford to be impervious to their aspirations.

There are separate essays on how, by linking different networks of computers, the government can ensure easy information exchange, crime prevention and detection, sound healthcare through telemedicine, better tax collection and quicker redress of public grievances. Appropriate illustrations from Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom are given to highlight the usefulness of the Internet.

India is the twelfth country to adopt laws validating and protecting online transaction. The new IT Act legalises information in digital form, recognises digital signature and prescribes strict penalties for breaking into an information system as well as for damages to, theft or misuse of private information. The Panchayati Raj Act and the Right to Information Act — the latter yet to be enacted by some states — empower the local community as never before and make the rulers more and more alert and alive to their legitimate needs.

The authors perceptively point out that information technology revolution should not be looked at as a mere source of revenue generation and jobs. They quote economist, Jagdish Bhagwati to say that only when we export information technology competencies after having made their best use for our benefit, it will make real economic sense. Once the local community's views on important matters of district, state and nation, are put on the web, and when they develop regular online structures of lateral communication with other communities, they emerge as powerful opinion lobbies. In this context, the example of the U.K's Ruralnet, a government body, is commended to India.

Dismissing fears of retrenchment as exaggerated, the authors reason that better and faster delivery of services would result in greater revenue and eventually higher remuneration to the staff.

They feel that only an intelligent redeployment would do. But it is also necessary for the staff, used to uncritical and clerical routine work, to come out of their cocoons and get themselves trained.

An example of how the postmen can be gainfully employed as knowledge workers is given. There is a caveat also about software obsolescence and need for online security to ensure confidentiality and authenticity.

The book gives us a very rosy, almost romantic, picture about the contribution of the Internet to better governance.

It is so promising that even the most phlegmatic will be nudged to give it a try. But, can we wish the wrench of large illiteracy and cussedness of the employees away?

A. S. PADMANABHAN

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