A NOVEL FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSING E-GOVERNMENT PROJECT

1. Introduction:

The importance of e-government stems is based on the potential of ICT to not only increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the government (Heeks 2001: 3) but also on its ability to transcend geographical barriers preventing the government from reaching out to rural and remote population groups in a cost effective manner (Scott & Cecchini 2003: 75). ICT can not only result in faster and cheaper delivery of services by efficient utilisation of scarce resources (Singh 2004: 2) and lowering of transaction costs (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003, 156) but can also result in better and newer services. Moreover, ICT can be used for delivery of more customised services. By making systems and processes rule based and by providing access to information, ICT can act as a powerful tool in bringing about transparency and reducing corruption. By providing access to information it can reduce information asymmetry and can cause major gains in terms of lower search costs, better matching of buyers and seller, and even creation of new markets (Singh, 2004: pp. 6). By improving access to information and permitting a higher level of interaction, ICT can be a vehicle for diffusion of innovation (ibid, 7). Despite its many advantages, the experience of e-government leaves much to be desired. While failure rate is vary high (De, unpublished: 3), replication of successful projects is difficult (Heeks 1998, 11); even successful projects fail to achieve all the project objectives (ibid) and the success is found to be critically dependent on the presence of a Project Champion (). Thus, many projects fail after implementation due to the withdrawal of the project champion (Heeks 1998, 14-15). Problems also exist in user acceptance and conventional services continue to be more popular, even in developed countries (Deloitte 2005, 10). Moreover, the transformative impact is yet to be visible and the objective of making governance more responsive to citizens needs has not been fulfilled (Accenture 2006, 21). While some scholars identify inadequacy of infrastructure (Heeks 1998, 1718), some blame excessive focus on service delivery and ignoring the needs of the people (Snellen & Thaens 2008: 8-9) and some consider absence of user focus (Roggenkamp 2004, 6) as some of the reasons for failure of e-government services. Since all of these factors are related to project design so, there appears to be an agreement on the necessity of finding a way to improve the design of e-government projects. The importance of design has led to the development of a number of different frameworks. These frameworks help us in analysing e-government projects and in finding ways to design better projects. Even then the problems with e-government refuse to get sorted out. While presence of a number of frameworks creates difficulties in choosing the appropriate framework, the possibility of these frameworks ignoring certain aspects of e-government cannot be ruled out. In such case there is a need to identify these missing factors and develop a framework for designing and evaluating e-government projects. Accordingly, the first section summaries some of the existing frameworks. In second section we review the exiting frameworks critically to highlight their limitations and identify important issues. This is followed by development of a new framework for design and analysis of e-government projects. Finally, we apply the framework to a well known Indian case Bhoomi. 2. A study of the exiting frameworks: A number of frameworks are used for analysing e-government projects. While Heeks (2001) developed the IPTOSMO framework for identifying the design reality gaps (Heeks, 2001), the business process re-engineering (BPR) approach is popular due to certain obvious similarities between e-government and business processes (Jansen-Vullers, Netjes and Reijers 2004). However, government processes differ from business processes due to the greater role of political factors (Seetharaman & Chattopadhyay, 2009) and so it becomes necessary to take into account the objectives of different actors. This makes Actor Network theory useful for e-government projects (Stanforth, 2007). While design issues relating to general projects are equally applicable to egovernment, the involvement of technology creates the possibility of diffusion barriers. Thus, technology adoption model (TAM) and diffusion of innovation become relevant. This section presents a brief review of some of the above frameworks. IPTOMSO framework is developed on the premise that design reality gaps is one the most important causes for the failure of e-government projects. As per this approach, inadequate understanding of the existing resources and requirements gets reflected as design-reality gaps. The higher the gap the higher is the risk of failure. It identifies seven factors on which design reality gaps can arise. These factors are (i) Information, (ii) Technology, (iii) Processes, (iv) Objectives & values, (v) Staffing & skills, Vi) Management system & structure and (vii) Other resources (Heeks 2001, 21-22). He further elaborates on the reasons for emergence of these gaps and categorises them into Hard-Soft gaps, Private-public gaps, country context gaps (Heeks 2001, 22). Hard-soft gaps arise due to the interaction between technology and society, private-public gaps arise because the private sector partner involved in design and development has an inadequate understanding of public sector

requirements and country context gaps arise due to import of applications that has succeeded in other countries. Thus, the framework brings to focus some of the important factors involved in making successful e-government projects. BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGENEERING (BPR) is similar to e-government in terms of objectives. While e-government attempts to achieve efficient public service delivery (Misra, 2006:7); BPR aims to bring about dramatic improvement in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed (Muthu, Whitman & Cheraghi, 1999: 1). Thus, advocacy of BPR in e-government [(Misra, 2006: 7), (Jansen-Vullers, Netjes and Reijers 2004, 382)] and use of re-engineering in making government processes more user focussed is common (OECD, 2005: 132). Since, e-governments are similar to business processes in requiring people, data, technical resources and information systems (Scheer & Allweyer, 1999:1) so application of BPR can provide valuable design inputs. It advocates a five step process involving: process identification, defining performance criterion, identifying problem areas, developing a vision, identifying redesign options and implementing the change (Kaplan & Murdock, 1991). This process leads to a better understanding of the sources of inefficiency and ways of overcoming them. ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) as a concept was developed by Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, and John Law during the course of the 1980s as a recognition that actors build networks combining technical and social elements and that the elements of these networks, including those entrepreneurs who have engineered the network, are, at the same time, both constituted and shaped within those networks.is a stable and wellestablished theory that moves away from the technologically deterministic perspective of analysing egovernment through the lens of ICT. Callon (1980) recognized that actors build networks combining technical and social elements and the elements are shaped within the network itself. Technology is continuously shaped and reshaped by interplay of heterogenous forces within the network and in effect our technologies mirror our societies (Bijker and Law 1992). Actors define the relationships between each other by intermediaries: an actor authors an intermediary and often inscribes social meaning into it. Intermediaries both describe their networks and compose them by giving them form (Callon 1991). They are usually found in the form of texts, technical artifacts, monies, or human skills. Overall, ANT is seen as having a potentially wide area of application and being a promising theoretical vehicle for development informatics research (Stanforth, 2007) TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION MODEL deals with different issues relating to diffusion of innovation. Rogers (1983) defines diffusion as the process through which innovations are communicated to members of a social system through different channels over a period of time (Rogers 1983:5). The above definition shows that diffusion of innovation requires two elements: time and channels of communication having mass acceptability. However, involvement of society also necessitates that the innovation be in conformity with socially defined norms. This leads Rogers to identify five factors that are necessary for diffusion of innovation. These factors are: (i) relative advantage over existing processes, (ii) compatibility with value system and experience, (iii) absence of complexity, (iv) trialability and (v) observability (Rogers, 1983:214-232). While the above discussion holds true for diffusion of any innovation, diffusion of technological innovations also requires mass acceptance of the technology. Vrakking (1986) identifies research and development, diffusion, adoption, introduction and incorporation as the six phases of introduction of new media (Figure 1). Working on similar lines, Andriessen (1989) suggests a model that focussed on Adoption, Introduction and Incorporation citing the development of each phase being dependent on different factors. In his model, the Organization is the unit of adoption. The introduction phase takes care of the innovation introduced to the prospective users. Once innovation has been adopted in a mass scale, it becomes a routine. Figure 1

Development

Transfer

Implementation

Research

Development

Diffusion

Adoption

Introduction Incorporation

3. A Critical review of the existing Frameworks

Each of these frameworks looks at e-government from different perspectives and identifies important issues relating to e-government. However, the existence of multiple frameworks also indicates a fragmented approach to e-government. Moreover, each of these frameworks suffers from certain limitations and involves difficulties in applying to e-government projects. This section highlights some of these issues. While the IPTOSMO framework succeeds in focussing on some of the important factors needed to make successful e-government projects it includes an undefined factor called Other. The presence of an undefined item indicates that all factors may not have been included in the framework. Review of literature shows that gap between peoples need and service provided can have strong influence on acceptance of service (Roggenkamp 2004). This in turn can impact the revenue generation potential and sustainability of such services (Snellen & Thaens 2008: 9). Similarly, inequality inherent in society results in unintended consequences due to appropriation of benefits by some people (Gardener and Lewis 1996, 79). The existence of digital divide is the clearest manifestation of such inequality. Similarly, it does not take into account the existing gap between the government and citizens. In a country like India where bureaucracy is dominated by persons belonging to a social stratum different from the rural masses, the gap between government and citizens is not only due to difference in power but also of culture. This may be one of the factors leading to inadequate understanding of the user requirements. Moreover, the utility of the framework is limited to the identification of design reality gaps. It does not show the means through which such gaps can be reduced. For this we need to apply other tools and frameworks. In case of BPR, the application of the framework in designing of e-government projects becomes problematic due to a number of factors. First, it ignores the fact that inefficiencies in public organisations arise partly due to the need to satisfy objectives and expectations of different organisational actors. This makes prioritisation of objectives and obtaining approval for redesigned processes more difficult (Seetharaman & Chattopadhyay, 2009: 17). Second, BPR is based on the implicit assumption that the intent of better service delivery is present. In reality this may not be so (De, 2008: 62). Third, since most public organisations have deep-rooted institutions and cultures so resistance to change is very high. Moreover, the citizens (end users of public services) also have culturally accepted ways of doing things. In such case, a new process that does not gel with the existing social process is likely to be rejected by the end users. It is therefore not surprising to find that even in many developed countries traditional across the counter service delivery continues to be preferred over online services, although government websites attract a large number of visitors (Deloitte 2005, 10). In case of Actor Network Theory, it has been contended by various critics (Collins and Yearley 1992; Descola and Palsson 1996; Bloor 1999) that ANT has slowly drifted, during the past twenty years, in a directionless fashion from being a sociology of science and technology into a social theory and onward into yet another inquiry into modernity. Perhaps Avgerou (2002) is right in contending that it is important not to see ANT as complete in itself and as a well-developed social theory with all its limits and delimitations, but as a theoretical position within the broader debate of the studies of the sociology of technology. By applying ANT concepts, embedded within the situated contextual analysis of the multiple institutions implicated in information systems innovation, one can extend the framework to one of direct relevance to the study of e-governmentindeed, all ICTsand development. In the Diffusion Model, no attention is paid to the consequences of the adoption, introduction and the incorporation effects. The diffusion model talks of stages in the diffusion but the central question remains unanswered that how to develop a process that can easily be permeated through all the levels of the society. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as proposed by Davis (1989) tried to model the technology phenomenon as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

The building blocks in the TAM model are the external variables, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, behavioural intention to use, attitude towards using and actual system use. Researchers have tried to examine the issues from an organizational level (Eg. Harrision, Mykytyn, Riemenschneider 1997) and some others have approached the issue by investigating the determinants of adoption and usage by individuals (Eg. Mathieson 1991). Given the different perceptions about technology and the knowledge level of the different actors, any unified model couldnt be proposed. However, considering the present level of technology use in developing countries, the above requirements imply in order to become acceptable to users across all the hierarchies technology has to become invisible. Before we unify the above discussion to propose an integrated framework, lets take the example of an invention that changed the face of communication telephone. The invention addressed a basic requirement of the society keeping in touch with near and dear ones in a cost effective manner. In the very first model of telephone, it could connect to two parties via a dedicated line. The next innovation came in the form that one needed to dial an operator who in turn used to connect to the party concerned. So from a one-to-one device, telephone became a many-to-many device. As the technology grew, the need of an intermediary was no longer necessary hence the role of operator became transparent and they used to sit at the exchange and make the necessary connections manually. With further technological progress, the role of operator became unnecessary to the technology too and automatic switching came into being. During all these times, the basic face of the technology remained the same but the underlying technology made rapid improvements. The people were just sitting at the edge such is the cutting edge technology. Next was the advent of the mobile phone. One advantage of mobile phones was that it could piggyback on an existing accepted practice of familiarity with the wired phone. Thus the invention here was the technology of mobile phones and the innovation was customizing the look and feel of it to an existing accepted tool the telephone. At the days end the mobile phone addressed the same old social need faster ubiquitous communication. Initially the value of the handset and the cost of making calls inhibited its mass acceptance. However with the passage of time, as call charges came down people started adopting mobile phones in their daily life. In other words, the innovation diffused in the society. Today in India, mobile phone has penetrated at the grass-root levels. No one is bothered with the underlying technology or the device that they are using to harness the power of mobile communication. The invention has totally diffused in our lives and technology has remained transparent. 3. AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK Although the frameworks have shortcomings, they yield valuable insights into some of the issues necessary for designing better e-government projects. Application of concepts from diffusion theories leads us to believe that an e-government process will succeed only if its perceived value (by the citizens) is more than the cost of adoption. Since technology involvement can create diffusion barriers by increasing this cost so intermediation may become in the short run. However, if such technology driven innovation do not clash with the existing value system and satisfy the requirements of trialability, observability, then with time the users will get familiar with it. Presence of incentive for early adoption can help this process. Major technological breakthroughs of the past centuries (electricity, silicon chips, mobile phones, etc) tell us that this process eventually leads to incorporation of cutting edge technology into the daily lives of people. When this stage is reached we no longer notice the presence of technology, but its absence creates significant inconvenience for us. The above discussion shows that societal needs result in creation of demand for certain services. The existence of demand provides the government with an opportunity to innovate. However, in order to succeed the innovation must conform to social processes and the involvement of technology should be restricted to levels permitted by prevailing social realities (Figure 3). Figure 3

opportunities

diffusion

Government

Society

Technology

demands

opportunities

However, mere identification of citizens needs is of little use unless it gets translated into innovations that satisfy these needs. Thus, it becomes necessary to design efficient processes and arrange resources for meeting this demand. This requires the application of BPR. But, the earlier discussion on BPR tells us that mere identification of process inefficiencies is not sufficient. The new process needs to be implemented gradually so that changes are incremental (Kaplan & Murdock, 1991). It also underlines the importance of striking a balance between the process objective and objective of different organisational actors, particularly those belonging to the dominant coalition. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) helps us in identifying these objectives. This knowledge can be of immense use in balancing conflicting objectives and prioritising activities. These findings are summarised in figure 3 below. Figure 4

Process Identification

Thus, to us the design of e-government projects involves three stages: identification, innovation and diffusion. In the next few paragraphs we present a brief description of the issues and events that form part of the above stages. A. Identification: Some of the most important design issues relating to e-government projects are identification of the needs of the citizens , the social processes and actors associated with these needs, the culturally accepted ways of doing things, possibilities created by technology, and permissible level of technology usage. Since these activities come at an early stage of the project so faulty decision on any one of these can have significant impact on subsequent developments. This is particularly important for e-government projects because most e-government projects deal with existing processes that have been in existence for long period of time. Since prolonged usage leads to internalisation (Scott, 2005) so changing such processes become very difficult. In such case process change should be resorted to only if it becomes absolutely essential. In fact, even without major process change it may be possible to achieve a much higher level of efficiency by merely changing the sequence of activities (Seetharaman & Chattopadhayay, 2009). While this approach results in reduction of processing time, changing the mode of delivery can improve the speed of service delivery. For example, although internet reservation of railway tickets started with physical delivery of tickets through courier, introduction of e-ticket has reduced the time lag. The introduction of e-ticket also makes it possible to reserve a berth any time before generation of reservation chart. However, technology can make certain delivery channels possible so it is necessary to identify the technological possibilities and its extent of social acceptance. The presence of existing processes also implies the presence of a number of actors. Some of these actors may be present because they possess resources critical for the success of the existing processes.

y t i l a u Q

Performance Measure

Value Created End User

Social Process

c i v r e S

d e p S

Value Perceived

t s o C

Activities

Organizational Actors

Objectives

Resources

Prioritization of activities

Identifying What to change

However, some of the actors may have a negative role. This might suggest that these redundant actors be removed from the system. However, the complexities of government processes imply that most actors are present in multiple processes. Thus, dropping an actor may improve the efficiency of one process but lead to different problems. In such case it is a better option to explore the possibility of creating a new role for such actors so that they continue to be part of the e-engineered process. This we term as people-process re-engineering (PPR). Such an approach would also reduce organisational opposition arising out of threat perception of endangered actors. It is also possible that there are actors who can have a positive impact on the project, but are presently not part of the system. PPR enables us to include them as well. B. Innovation: Some of the most important forms of innovation come in the way of simplifying things. In the identification stage, by the way of applying BPR and ANT, the critical processes, the adjunct activities and the resources required are identified. The BPR and ANT process helps identify places where resources are underutilized and places where resources are over utilized. It also identifies the idle resources. The whole aspect of innovation is making the existing processes better, the existing resources smarter by a minimum interference approach. The common way of making a process better entails changing its entire structure and content. This helps in efficient processes but often the learning required undoing an existing practice and then redoing the same. Hence the processes become smarter but the people that operate the process become less efficient. At the end of the day, once again the process struggles. A more efficient approach is to give a system that is easily understood by the people. By familiarity, the first ice is broken. Thus, the innovation is not developing a complicated system that lacks simplicity; rather its developing a simple system that engulfs all the complexity. A complete redesign is only required when the existing activities that comprise the processes have reached their bottleneck and cant be improved any further. The best innovation comes in the form of a process that can be identified with an existing social need Figure 5
INNOVATION

Modeling Social Norms Existing activity efficiency People-Process Reengineering New Technology but old box

Implementation

Delivery

Perceived Demands Accepted Processes Inefficient Activities Redundant Actors Diffused Technology Delivery Channels

Improvements

Simple delivery interface Executing social demands Incentives for early adaption Forming the critical mass Incremental value addition Technology Transparency

IDENTIFICATION

Informational Interactional Transactional Transformational Participatory

DIFFUSION

Stages

C. Diffusion: If the identification and innovation have been done properly, diffusion is just a matter of time. To accelerate diffusion process, the early adopters could be allowed incentives. Incremental benefits are added only when a critical mass is driving the thrust of the process. Diffusion cant be achieved in unison but the entire society needs to move forward with it. Technology familiarity is important but more binding is the technology transparency. The critical elements of diffusion are innovation, communication channel, time and social system (Rogers, 1983:11). Innovation has already been taken care of earlier, the identification stage helps in addressing the social needs and finding the communication channel. Innovation builds the infrastructure for using such a communication channel. The time factor plays a crucial role here. Time helps the innovation diffuse and making such technology transparent and thereby bringing a metamorphosis to the social system steadily. At every step, before adding incremental benefits, the stage at which the project resides currently is analysed.

The ultimate aim is to diffuse the system among the citizens so that it brings a transformational change and facilitates participatory governance. The framework that emerges from our model is presented in figure 5 above. 4. APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK:

Bhoomi: We now proceed to apply the above framework on a well known Indian case Bhoomi (http://www.revdept01.kar.nic.in/Bhoomi/Home.htm ) that have apparently met the project objectives. It is considered to be one of the most successful e-government projects and a number of states are attempting to replicate the model. However, there are indications that it has adversely affected some sections of rural population and has increased the distance between the State and Citizens (De, unpublished: 9-13). The Bhoomi project was initiated in 1999.. The scope of the project includes digitisation of certain land records, delivery of computerised RTC to citizens through Bhoomi centres at the Taluqa and acceptance of requests for mutation. Prior to Bhoomi, villagers used to get the RTC from the Village Accountant (VA). Although the process was time consuming and corruption prone, the villagers used to get the RTC without moving out of their village. Moreover, the help of VA was also taken for writing applications and submitting them to different government agencies (De, unpublished). Implementation of Bhoomi has resulted in considerable reduction in processing time and corruption, although the villagers are required to travel to the taluqa. Although the RTC is available on the web, absence of signature renders it useless for all practical purposes (Bhatnagar & Chawla, 2001). Although the project has resulted in considerable efficiency gains, it has had adverse effect on women landowners and land less farmers. While women find it difficult to travel, without RTC the landless farmer is unable to sale his products to government appointed procurement agencies. Earlier they used to cultivate on basis of unofficial sanction given by the VA. Ready availability of land information has increased the vulnerability of poor farmers to land sharks (De, unpublished). Although the project has institutionalised the computerised RTC by declaring all manual records invalid, no long term impact is visible either in terms of greater amount of agricultural loans or in creating demand for new services. Moreover, apart from the VA the roles & responsibilities of other actors have not changed; neither have the processes. Identification: Although the project identifies a felt need of the citizens (faster delivery of RTC), it failed to appreciate the informal processes associated with it. This resulted in ignoring the needs of the landless farmers. It also did not take into account societal restrictions on women. The inaccuracies in land records are considered to be due to landowners unwillingness to apply for mutation. This is again related to the delay and corruption involved in the process. Since the VA acts as the interface between government and citizens so the problems were linked to him and he is identified as the redundant actor. However, such situation would not have resulted but for the lack of supervision by overloaded senior officers located far away from the village. The project does not identify any inefficiency in the existing system of supervision. As a result the project does not explore the possibility of including the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) in supervisory role. Innovation: Inadequate appreciation of social and informal processes results in exclusion of certain sections of population. It also leads to making the VA redundant and no effort is made to create new role. It results in alienation of the VA and increasing distance between state and citizens. Although it is possible to reduce the importance of physical RTC by allowing all government agencies access to Bhoomi, the project continues with the existing system. In absence of any adequate ICT infrastructure at village level, delivery of the certificate necessitates travel by the villagers. Since adequate computer handling skill is absent in both organisational actors and citizens so recruitment of new staff and involvement of data entry firms became necessary. However, lack of expertise and absence of long term interests in the project resulted in poor services from data entry firms. This in turn opened up the opportunity of a new form of corruption by way of taking money to correct deliberate errors. Diffusion: By adopting a narrow focus (landowners) the project ignore the needs of the marginalised class and fails to cater to the larger societal needs like availability of information on market prices, welfare schemes. Creation of a new delivery interface in the form of newly recruited VAs who are not familiar with the villagers the project fails to utilise the influence that existing VAs have. The introduction of a technology not understood by citizens and organisational actors result in creation of a system that does not touch the daily routines of most of the actors. Moreover, by appointing new staff for manning the Bhoomi centres the project does not provide any incentive to existing organisational actors to adopt new technology. Absence of diffusion also results in absence of any incremental change. Thus, even after ten years the project fails to introduce new services, new processes and new actors in the system.

Stage of E-government: The shortcomings in identification, innovation and diffusion results in creating a system that provides limited information and interaction that requires physical movement. Absence of diffusion results prevents new ways of transaction from emerging, both intra-organisational as well as between government and citizens. Thus the project fails to transform existing system. The lack of involvement of majority of societal actors and absence of any incentive to adopt the new technology makes participation impossible. The above discussion is summarised in the figure below.
INNOVATION
Modeling Social Norms PPR Ignores informal processes and social processes Social demands Delivery Interface Transparent Technology Adoption incentive Incremental Change Critical Mass

DIFFUSION
Does not cater to social demands. Computers located at far off place and manned by unfamiliar VAs. New technology not understood by most people. So intermediation becomes necessary. No incentive. Use of technology is restricted to newly appointed VAs only. No change is taking place in terms of new services, process modification and inclusion of new actors As a result critical mass for diffusion is not achieved

Does not alter roles and responsibilities of most actors. Fails to give alternative role to VA. Continues with physical RTC but introduces an element of travel. The technology being new to both citizens and organizational actors, intermediation is needed.

Use of existing channel Packaging Technology

Perceived demand Accepted Processes Actors Inefficient Activities Redundant Actors Diffused Technology Delivery Channels

Ignores the demand of landless farmers. Assumes that availability of RTC is a major bottleneck for loans Deviates from existing social process restricting womens movement, informal processes surrounding RTC. Citizens, VA, RI, Tehsildar. Potential: PRI Absence of accountability, ineffective supervision, The RI and Tehsildar can be made redundant by involvement of PRIs in supervisory role. Telephone, television and radio are the only forms of ICT Paper certificate to be handed over in person.

Information

Information is available on ownership and status of applications. Other information relevant to the needs of the people are not there. Requires the people to incur spend time and money for coming to the Bhoomi centre. Creates the interface but does not enable transaction.

Interaction

Transaction

Transformation

Non involvement of majority of actors in new process results in absence of transformation Creates no scope for participation by different stake holders

Participation

IDENTIFICATION

STAGES

E-Seva: E-seva is a G2C and B2C citizen service aimed at the urban citizens residing in the major towns of the 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The electronic service delivery was launched in August 2001, based on the success of the TWINS pilot project. E-seva allows nearly 135 citizen services through various centres. However, due to paucity of space we restrict ourselves to presenting the summary of the analysis in the figure given below.
INNOV ATION
Modeling Social Norms PPR Takes into account the existing social processes and tries to setup agencies employing trust factor of the local youths. Does not alter roles and responsibilities of most actors. Identifies intermediaries in the form of knowledgeable youths who can run agencies. The existing channel is still kept open but tries a simple philosophy of bringing the govt. close to the people and establish parallel channels. The technology being new to citizens , intermediation was needed. Ignores the necessity of training for the citizens to adapt to the new systems. Payment of various bills, registration of births and deaths, filing tax returns. Citizens, Govt., Intermediaries. Potential: Local entrepreneurs. Inefficient delivery channels, long queues in front of offices If diffusion takes place entirely, then the role of the payment counters becomes redundant Internet as a technology has not diffused properly. Existing govt. offices, Local Kiosks through intermediaries and internet. Social demands Delivery Interface Transparent Technology Adoption incentive Incremental Change Critical Mass

DIFFUSION
Caters to the social demands by bringing govt. processes closer to people. Local E-Seva centres and Internet. New technology not understood by many. people. So intermediation becomes necessary. Faster execution, cost savings, opportunities for local jobless youths More services offered through the E-Seva centers as critical mass accumulates Accumulates, making it easy for the govt. to bring more services closer to the people.

Use of existing channel Packaging Technology Perceived demand Accepted Processes Actors Inefficient Activities Redundant Actors Diffused Technology Delivery Channels

Information

Information available via internet and at the local ESeva centers. E-seva centers can address to complaints from the citizens in some cases. Creates interface to enable transaction.

Interaction

Transaction

Transformation

Transforming Andhra Pradesh to adopt to the digitalera and possibilities of m-governance initiated. Participation has not been sought after in the project

Participation

IDENTIFICATION

STAGES

CONCLUSION: In this paper we have reviewed some of the existing frameworks for evaluating e-government projects and have highlighted their limitations. However, despite their limitations they provide valuable insights on design issues of e-government projects. These issues include the need for identification of citizens needs and building processes around existing processes so that diffusion barriers for new processes are minimized. Existing social and informal processes also provide valuable clues regarding the importance of different actors and prevent redundancy of socially important actors. While e-government necessarily involves involvement of technology, mass acceptance of new technology necessitates measures to reduce diffusion barrier. While this can be achieved through provision of incentives and employment of intermediaries, they are stop gap arrangement. Unless the technology driven innovation diffuses within the target population group the service fails to evolve. Thus, identification, innovation and diffusion are the three pillars on which our framework is built on. Accurate identification of existing reality creates the opportunity for innovation and diffusion of this innovation creates alters the reality to create scope for further diffusion. Subsequently we apply this framework to two Bhoomi and e-Seva to show that the current state of both the projects are adequately explained by the framework developed by us. Acknowledgement The first author is grateful to the Department of Telecommunications for granting him study leave for pursuing the Fellowship Program in Management at IIM, Calcutta. Reference: Arunachalam, Subbiah (2002). Reaching the unreached: how can we information and communication technologies to empower the rural poor in the developing world through enhanced access to relevant information? Journal of Information Science, 28 (6), pp. 513-522. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina (2003). An analysis of the determinants and effects of ICT diffusion in developing countries. Information Technology for Development, Vol. 10 pp. 151169, IOS Press Bouwman, H., de Vos, H., Haaker, T.(2008) Mobile Service Innovation and Business Models, Springer, Chen, Y., Chen, H.M., Ching, R.K.H., and Huang, W.W. (2009). Electronic Government Implementation: A Comparison Between Developed and Developing Countries, E-Government Diffusion, Policy and Impact: Advanced Issues and Practices, Information Science Reference, NY, 2009, pp. 89-105. De, Rahul. The Impact of Indian E-Government Initiatives: Issues of Poverty and Vulnerability Reduction, and Conflict. Accessed from http://www.apdip.net/projects/e-government/capblg/casestudies/India-De.pdf Garai, Atanu & B. Shadrach (2006). Taking ICT to every Indian village: Opportunities and challenges. New Delhi: OneWorld South Asia. Gardner, Katy and David Lewis (1996). Anthropology, Development and the Post-Modern Challenge. Pluto Press, London. Heeks, R. 2001: Understanding e-Governance for Development. I-Government Working Paper Series Paper No. 11. Jansen-Vullers, M.H., Netjes, M. & Reijers, H.A. (2004). Business Process Redesign for Effective E-Commerce. ICEC'04, Sixth International Conference on Electronic Commerce. Jayaraman, M.S., Natarajan, G. and Rangaramanujan (1994). Business Process Reengineering. Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi. Muthu, Subramanium, Whitman, Larry and Cheraghi S.Hossain (1999). Business Process Reengineering: A consolidated methodology in Proceedings of The 4th Annual International Conference on Industrial Engineering Theory, Applications and Practice November 17-20, 1999, San Antonio, Texas, USA. OECD (2005). E-Government for Better Government. OECD E-Government Studies, OECD. Roggenkamp, K. (2004) Development Modules to Unleash the Potential of Mobile Government: Developing mobile government applications from a user perspective from Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on eGovernment, Dublin, Ireland Sahu, G.P. (Ed) (2006). Delivering E-Government. GIFT Publishing, New Delhi.

Scott, C. and Cecchini, S. Can information and communications technology applications contribute to poverty reduction? Lessons from rural India. Information Technology for Development 10 (2003), 73-84. Scheer, A.W. and Allweyer, Th. (1999). From Reengineering to Continuous Process Adaptation in Business Process Engineering: Advancing the State of the Art. Elzinga, Jack D., Thomas R. Gulledge & Chung-Yee Lee (eds), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Massachutesetts, USA. Snellen, I. & M. Thaens (2005), Reflections on the Anatomy of e-government, In: Series Informatization Developments and the Public Sector, volume no. 9, IOS Press, Amsterdam, ISSN 0928-9038, p. 21-36. Stanforth, Carolyne (2006). Using Actor-Network Theory to Analyze E-Government Implementation in Developing Countries.Information Technologies and International Development , Volume 3, Number 3, 3560. Davis, F.D. (1989), Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology, MIS Quarterly, 13, 3, 319-340 Malhotra, Y. and Galletta, D.F. (1999), Extending the Technology Acceptance Model to Account for Social Influence: Theoretical Bases and Empirical Validation in Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences ,1999 Seetharaman, P & Chattopadhyay, R. (2009). Process Reengineering in Government Institutions: Walking a Tightrope. International Conference on Public Administration (ICPA 5th) Bijker, W. E., and J. Law, eds. (1992). Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Socio technical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Rogers, E.M. (1995) Diffusions of Innovations, New York: The Free Press Mathieson, K. (1991). Predicting User Intention: Comparing the Technology Acceptance model with the theory of Planned behaviour, Information Systems Research, 2, 3, 1973 1991. Harrison, D.A.; Mykytyn, P.P., Jr.; and Riemenschneider, C.K. Executive decisions about adoption of information technology in small business: theory and empirical tests. Information Systems Research, 8, 2 (June 1997), 171-195 . Bloor, D. (1999). Anti-Latour. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 30(1): 81112. Avgerou, C. (2002). Information Systems and Global Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Descola, P., and G. Palsson, eds. (1996). Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Routledge. Collins, H. M, and S. Yearley. (1992). Epistemological Chicken. In Science as Practice and Culture, ed. A. Pickering, 30126. Chicago: Chicago University Press.