A framework for unified digital government: A case of India

Most governments around the world started their e-Government initiatives with a focus on providing information and services to the citizen while service delivery platforms remained separate and parallel across various government agencies UN, 2008. Many researchers have noted that past evaluation studies have not used a common framework or methodology by the public sector in developing countries. To achieve this, the government needs to ensure the use of a common platform across different initiatives, as this may help integrate different functionalities Horizontal and Vertical to avoid duplicities. Hence there is an urgent need to develop a frame work for a Unified Digital Government UGD which will be a single view of the Government, Employees, Citizens and Business. The objective of this paper is to study the current scenario and need for common and core applications for e-Government and proposed a framework for a UGD. It will be an integrated solution architecture covering all functional areas and activities of the government. This is a hybrid frame work to bring all services under a single roof. The First approach is Centralized: In this approach all common unified applications such as, Document management, Knowledge management File, management, Human Resource Management G2E, Grievance management etc will be a single entity by all departments so that can eliminate to collect the same information by different departments in different ways and identify them differently. The Second approach is Decentralized: In this approach Core Departmental specific applications such as Land Registration, Building Plans, Vehicle registration, Criminal and Crime information etc, this approach is not only gave the government department's autonomy but also accelerated the enabling of services by the respective departments. This frame work was compared and analyzed through a extensive case study in E-Governance initiatives of various State Governments and Central government of India and discussed on key findings and observations followed by recommendations and conclusions. This paper explores how to improve access to government Common and Core services through better use of the ICT at any government level such as National, State and Local.