Accessibility of e-governance in rural India: a critical view point

Abstract

e-Governance has been embraced by almost all the countries which aim at modernizing public administration by trying to improve information and service delivery, and making government more accountable, transparent, responsive and effective. In a country like India, though there has been a political will for the successful implementation of e-Governance but accessibility of e-Governance in rural India has been a daunting task. Rural India constitutes a major portion of the country to be covered under the e-Governance mission plan. But, due to disadvantaged geographical positioning most of the rural areas are either inaccessible or poorly connected as far as ICT is concerned. As a result, people living in such areas have little access to many of the e-Governance services. Besides this, due to lack of education and inability to cope with ICT, the rural mass has lagged behind their urban counterparts in taking advantage of e-Governance services. In this paper, we analyze the factors that have an impact on the accessibility of e-Governance services, especially in rural India. This study can provide an insight into the actual requirements of the marginalized section of the society which must be suitably addressed in order to improve their accessibility to different ICT enabled services, thereby help achieving the mandate of inclusive e-Governance.