International Journal of Computer Science Engineering and Information Technology Research (IJCSEITR) ISSN 2249-6831 Vol. 3, Issue 2, Jun 2013, 303-316 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.
E- JANRAJ- SMART GOVERNANCE AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL RIDHIMA JAIN1 & TARUN SHRIMALI2 1
Research Scholar, Bhagwant University, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India
2
Principal, Career Point Technical Campus, Dhoinda, Rajsamand, Rajasthan, India
ABSTRACT The growth and Development of ICTs‘ has led to wide diffusion and application, thus increasing their social and economic impact. ICT can support good governance by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of governments; enhancing the delivery of crucial public services and making public services more attuned to the needs of citizens. This paper analyses the development of e-Janraj as a product for e-municipality. It traces the data flow between the various stakeholders of the municipality and it also highlights the user model survey. It focuses on specific requirements of the emunicipality suite: E-janraj.
KEYWORDS: ICT, E-Janraj, IT, DFD, E-Municipality, E-Governance INTRODUCTION Global shifts towards increased deployment of IT by governments emerged in the nineties, with the advents of World Wide Web. Governments weighed down by the rising expectations and demands of a highly aware citizenry suddenly began to believe that there could be a new definition of public governance characterized by enhanced efficiency, transparency, accountability and a citizen- orientation in the adoption of IT enabled governance. Public administration, governed by bureaucratic structures built on rationale principles, that dominated the twentieth century, has failed to respond to the changing requirements of the present times. The long term success of IT projects, particularly electronic government, is determined by far more factors than those which are often assumed. On-line applications and their benefits are only one aspect. In fact, there is a whole range of factor such as organizational measure, strategic planning, qualifications, political support, rules and regulations issues, partnerships and much more. Before we proceed further we need to analyze the concept of e- governance first. e- Governance has numerous definitions all pointing to one direction. E-Governance is the public sector‘s use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decisionmaking process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective. It involves new styles of leadership, new ways of debating and deciding policy and investment, new ways of accessing education, new ways of listening to citizens and new ways of organizing and delivering information and services. E-governance may be understood as the performance of this governance via the electronic medium in order to facilitate an efficient, speedy and transparent process of disseminating information to the public, and other agencies, and for performing government administration activities. It however is considered as a wider concept than e-government, since it can bring about a change in the way how citizens relate to governments and to each other. “e- Janraj is an application of e- governance and can be defined as the use of information and communication technology to transform government by making it more accessible, effective, efficient and accountable at local level. EJanraj includes range of activities from providing greater access to government information, better accountability,
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promoting civic engagement to providing development opportunities. It will change the way a municipality interacts with the citizens. e- Janraj has the potential to transform municipal government structure and to improve the quality of urban services. It will provide opportunities like increased operational efficiency by reducing costs and increasing productivity, and better quality of services provider by public organizations. It will address the needs of citizens, and businesses and will also enable economic development.
PROBLEM STATEMENT The universal public service has traditionally been viewed as being bureaucratic, unresponsive, cumbersome and inefficient. For this negative image to be dispelled, the universal public service needs to embark on radical change. In key interactions with Government Departments the common answers a citizen gets is ―Come back tomorrow‖; ―File is not found‖, ―Concerned official not available‖. Such answers from Government Officers had lead a perception amongst citizens that a Government Official is Insensitive, Corrupt, Inefficient, Comes late, seldom works, Causes harassment and delay, Raises frivolous objections and is aloof from the ground realities. Despite various officers putting their hard work into Governance the perception amongst citizens is a cause of concern. They lack of citizen service delivery, inaccessibility, corruption, ineffective approach, inefficient budget utilization, non- uniformity of development etc are some of the causes that forces us to reconsider our approach to governance and service delivery to citizen. We need to facilitate better performance of the delivery of municipal services like birth and death registration, building plan, primary health and education, city cleanliness, water supply, sewage, road, street-lights, parks and garden through e-governance to citizens of the city However the citizen today unlike past is aware of his rights, is educated, knows that there is a re-course through courts and is even empowered with Right to Information. Also, the economic logic of e-governance is causing winds of change to blow across India‘s cities. In the past, the country‘s municipalities always looked up to their state governments for sustenance. As a result, they ended up functioning as an agency of the state government, which defeated the very purpose of setting up municipalities as autonomous bodies. E- municipalities are required that will enable:
Transactions follow-up online 24 x 7 by citizens
Online databases of municipal council members
Online databases with information on municipalities
Downloadable transaction documents to the public
Online Q&A sections with personalized reply to citizens
OBJECTIVES OF E- JANRAJ The objective of e- Janraj is to propose a model for municipality services that does not have a silo development and can be incorporated all over India in various municipalities. The research will propose a general model and specialize it for Udaipur municipality. The model so generated will enable the following:
Saving of time and cost due to provision of services to the citizens through single window; this will ensure more efficiency, which in turn means less cost and that translates to lower taxes hopefully.
With more things being done online there will also be better customer service and better city services. Think of
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the future e-municipality as a one stop shop, where all departments linked together and you only have to fill out forms once. All the data is automatically transferred when you feel out the next form. This will lead to better office and record management.
It will result in improvement in effectiveness of integrated command and control Information Technology systems for Planning, Services, Administration and the City Council.
It will enable better decision making
It will simplify and streamline the office procedures
It will also speed up the tiered reporting to County, State and Central Governments too.
Ensure transparency in the governing process
Check corruption
REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS To understand the requirements we first conducted the survey in the city of Udaipur with the sample of population size of 400. The idea of the survey was to analyze the rate of satisfiability of the citizens with the services provided by the municipality Survey Results The result of the same will clearly show the need for e- Janraj. Table 1: Survey Results for the Rating the Services Provided by the Current Municipality System 1 (Poor)
2 (Average)
3 (Good)
4 (VeryGood)
5 ( Extremely High)
Citizen friendly Regularity in Activities Transparency (i.e. no corruption) Efficient in its operations
45 40 77 55
45 50 13 38
10 8 10 5
0 2 0 2
0 0 0 0
Effective utilization of municipality budget Systematic in operations Delivery of citizen services Accessibility to Citizen Uniformity of Development Overall Municipality functions in your city
85 72 7 68 27 50
15 28 88 22 60 42
4 0 5 8 8 8
0 0 0 2 5 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
Feature
SMART OBJECTIVES OF E-JANRAJ After analyzing the above survey we can draw our roadmap by identifying the smart objectives. These are:
Death and birth certificates that use to take several days and multiple visits can now be procured in less than 48 hours
Housing plan can be approved in 1 day if all the documents are in order
Complaints can be tracked and hearing can be scheduled in 24 hours
Tax payment can be done instantly
Licensing to the shops and establishments can be procured in one working day.
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USE-CASE MODEL SURVEY Here four kinds of stakeholders are identified:
Administrator (Government official)
Citizen
Employee (Government- Here specifically municipality)
Guest
We take the following Assumptions and Dependencies:
Administrator is the sole manager.
Other users have no authority over the database.
This software is created for educational project purpose and can even be implemented as a live project.
There can be multiple employees/staff members, citizens.
Employees and Citizens must have their user accounts created so as to work further.
Figure 1: Use-Case Diagram
E- Janraj- Smart Governance at Municipal Level
SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS Use Case Reports Administrator
Pre Condition o Administrator is registered and has a valid user name & password. o
Administrator is logged in.
Normal Flow of Events o
Responsible for managing all the departments, employees & citizens‘ information and details.
o
Has the sole right to make changes in the database.
o
Can monitor the Latest News and Updates columns.
o
Is responsible for the authenticity of the information.
o
Can maintain complete information of BPL families.
o
Add/Edit/Delete details of upcoming projects, plans, policies, hearing notices.
o
Add/delete chairman‘s message.
o
Can upload various forms.
Post Condition o
Logged out Successfully.
Figure2: Activity Diagram for Administrator
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Employee
Pre Condition o
Employee is registered and has a valid user name & password.
o
Employee is logged in.
Normal Flow of Events o
Can do their regular work online.
o
Can view complains and do further processing.
o
Approve house plans.
o
Being a Ward Representative, can check for updates and complaints regarding their particular wards.
Post Condition o
Logged out Successfully.
Figure 3: Activity Diagram for Employee Citizen
Pre Condition o
Citizen is registered and has a valid user name & password.
o
Citizen is logged in.
Normal Flow of Events o
Can file for various taxes and certificates.
o
Can view the information of their ward.
o
Can post complaints to his ward representative if any problem occurs in his ward.
o
Can surf various links for various tasks.
o
Can pay the bills online.
E- Janraj- Smart Governance at Municipal Level
Post Condition o
Logged out Successfully.
Figure 4: Activity Diagram for Citizen Guest
Pre Condition o
None.
Normal Flow of Events o
Can surf various links on homepage.
o
Can view Latest news and Updates in the City.
o
Can contact the administrator by posting complaints.
Post Condition o
None.
Figure 5: Activity Diagram for Guest
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DATA FLOW OF E- JANRAJ In order to enhance the effectiveness of the e-Government practices, many municipal governments will need to move towards a higher level of e-Government development, which will require more technical, personal and financial commitments. In particular, continued and vigorous need to be made to advance web-based participatory and democratic local governance. Municipal governments also need to establish systematic and comprehensive e-Government plans, in which they assess available resources and address related legal issues like privacy and security as well. Acceptance of a new public service delivery paradigm, digital divide, privacy concerns, equitable access, and transition financing appear to be the major obstacles holding local government back. These challenges need to be addressed appropriately before completion of the corresponding development stage. To implement e- Janraj we must ensure that leadership is convinced and has decided to take this strategy. Also, when the operating model is ready the roles, responsibilities and accountability are clearly defined, funding is established, and organization for delivery is ready. The Competency should be achieved. Egovernment culture is to be established through workshops, training, publications, etc. Technology should be available. Scalable infrastructure should be in place; broadband should be available, technical standards to be ready. Legal obstacles are to be resolved Before moving on to the design of e-Janraj it is essential to understand the flow of data between the users. Like mentioned before e- Janraj maintains four levels of users:
Administrator Level
Employee Level
Citizen Level
Guest Level
Figure 6: DFD for e-Janraj
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1-Level DFD
Figure 7: DFD for A/c Creation
Figure 8: DFD for Complain Processing
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Figure 9: DFD for Department Management
Figure 10: DFD for Certificate Generation
Figure 11: DFD for Information Entry
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CONCLUSIONS At the core of the complexity and trust problems is the inability of many governments to optimize the services they deliver to citizens in ways that benefit the many stakeholders. In addition to citizens, these stakeholders include employees, such as call center and field service employees, who work directly for government agencies, as well as thirdparty contractors who provide services on behalf of the government or interact with governments on behalf of citizens. All the stakeholders must interact to accomplish the many processes that inform civic life, and they must do so in an optimal way. Whether it's providing a permit or license, garbage services, support for visitors and tourists, or processing parking tickets and voter registration, efficient execution is key in the defining the perception of effective government. Inefficient and wasteful processes that frustrate people are part of a government "performance" problem . Hence if we check the system for comprehensive requirements we would be able to design a product suite that will be able to cater Indian municipalities.
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50. Sameer sachdeva: ―25 steps for the success of e- governance‖ 51. Ridhima Khamesra, Dr. Tarun Shrimali,- ―E- Janraj- A Model for Electronic Municipality‖ published in international journal ―International Journal of Information Technology and Management Research‖. This paper was published in July (2011) issue. 52. Ridhima Khamesra, Dr. Tarun Shrimali -―E- Janraj- Good Governance at local Level‖ published in national journal “International Journal of Computer Engineering ―Jan-June 2011 issue of the journal.