The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) as part of its overall e-Assessment strategy proposes to list, identify and conduct independent third party assessment of e-Governance and ICT for Development (ICT4D) projects that provide any measure of e-Governance services, across India, in order to understand the impact, utility, sustainability, scalability and replicability of these projects.
DeitY has been undertaking independent third party assessment of projects since 2007.
Framework of Assessment
In order to undertake assessment of project and enable comparision of project performance across projects and across implementation geographies, all projects are assessed on an Assessment Framework which is customised to each project. The broad parameters of assessment – assessing impact on outreach, cost of accessing services, quality of services and overall governance across projects remain the same.
Assessment Framework used from 2007-08 can be accessed HERE. Assessment Framework used from 2009-10 can be accessed HERE.
Based Assessment studies carried out from 2007-10 several key learning emerged:
- The Scope of Impact Assessment needs to be enhanced to include reason for Impact in the Impact Assessment Framework
- Carry out Baseline studies to understand existing status of G2C Service delivery as well create a baseline for doing impact assessment at a later date
- Carry out in depth case studies of large and/or successful projects to understand reasons for the variation in impact as well reasons for their success/failure, sustainability, potential for replication etc.
Accordingly the Assessment Framework was revised to reflect the above. Revised Assessment Framework can be accessed HERE.
Types of Assessment :
Three types of Assessment for the e-Governance Projects are carried out:
Impact Assessment of e-Governance Project
Impact Assessment is carried out for mature projects which have been delivering citizen services for 1-2 years. The broad parameters of assessment are – Assessing impact on outreach, cost of accessing services, quality of services and overall governance cross projects remain the same.
Baseline Study on e-Governance Project
Baseline study is conducted of projects which are either at conceptualisation or at an early stage of implementation. The same framework as the Impact Assessment is applied to the Baseline study. Recommendations made on the basis of this study may be integrated as feedback before actual implementation of computerized services. Also, data collection from the control group (manual users) done before the implementation of the computerised services ensures that there are fewer gaps in the Impact Assessment study, whenever it is conducted since there will be less dependence on recall for the data. The result provides inputs on current problems to be rectified as well as enable projects to set clear goals for targeted benefits.
Detailed Assessment of e-Governance Project
A detailed Assessment is conducted for any of the projects for which Impact Assessment has already been conducted, to understand the reasons behind the impact and/or variation in impact across geographies. This helps us to understand how and why different locations show varied impact even though the overall project objectives and implementation models is the same. The winners of the
National Awards for e-Governance are also chosen across different categories of the awards to study the best practices of these projects.
Selection of Project
The selection of the projects is based on the following criteria:
For state wide projects:
- The project must be delivering definite G2C/G2B services
- Implementation of the project must be more that 1 year old
- The project must cover at least 20% population or 4 districts
For nation wide projects:
- The project must be delivering definite G2C/G2B services
- Implementation of the project must be more that 1 year old
- The project must cover at least 25% identified end user population and deliver services from multiple locations
Till date the following projects have been assessed:
COMPLETED ASSESSMENT
In 2007-08, three national level projects (MCA21, Passport & Income Tax) and three state-level projects (Land Records, Property Registration & Transport) were assessed. (For more detail click here)
In 2009-10, two Impact Assessment Studies (JnNURM e-Governance Reforms, & Computerization of Commercial Taxes) and one Baseline Study (e-District Mission Mode Project) were conducted for the e-Governance Projects. (For more detail click here)
CURRENT ASSESSMENT
In the current phase, five assessment studies on e-Governance Projects are being carried out. The selection of agency is completed and initial meetings with Project Leader and concerned authorities to understand the project and preparation of approach document for the project is in process. (For more detail click here)
