FROM MY BOOKSHELF-1:eGov-1: Review of Bhatnagar (2004 Sage) by Dr
D.C.Misra
Version 2: Abridged

Book Review of

Bhatnagar, Subhash (2004): E-Government: From Vision to
Implementation: A Practical Guide with Case Studies, New Delhi,
Sage.202 pp with Bibliography and Index.

This book review is available in this forum under three versions:

Version 1: In A Nutshell
Version 2: Abridged Version
Version 3: Full Version

This post carries Version 2: Abridged.

In case you are interested in eGov, read Version 3 (Full Version)
which is in the nature of a documented review article.

Dr D.C.Misra
September 5, 2004
_____________________________________________________________________

Version 2: Abridged

BOOK REVIEW
by Dr D.C.Misra*

E-GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR FUNDAMENTALTRANSFORMATION:
CASE STUDIES SHOW THE WAY


The book, according to the author, is a result of the two years of
intensive work done at the World Bank in which the field experience
had to be distilled and communicated to the Bank staff through
workshops and training programmes.The book claims to
provide "practical insights for IT professionals, civil servants
and managers from multilateral institutions interested in the
implementation of e-government," and is intended to serve as
"a practical guide for developing e-government at a local, state or
national level."The book is organised in seven chapters.

Chapter 1 deals with definition and scope of e-government. Here the
author gives, what may be called by now the conventional, definition
of e-government and draws distinction between e-government and e-
governance, noting four-stage evolution of e-government, namely, Web
Presence-Limited Interactions-Transactions-Transformation.The
evolutionary stages are also in the ascending order of difficulty.
Examples thus abound in the first stage of web presence
(There are a very few countries now which do not have web presence)
while we have limited examples of fourth stage of transformation).

Chapter 2 focuses on understanding e-government in developing
countries. Here the author enumerates some of the documented case
studies of e-government applications from different developing
countries classifying them in four categories of (i) delivering
citizen services, (ii) delivery of services to business and industry,
(iii) increased efficiency within government, and (iv) empowering
citizens through access to information. He then enumerates seven key
trends of e-government in developing countries.

Chapter 3 deals with potential benefits and impact of e-government.
Here the author enumerates, among other things, the well-known
potential benefits of e-government, namely, increasing transparency,
reducing administrative corruption, improving service delivery,
improving civil service performance, empowerment and improving
government finances, and cites examples to illustrate his claims. He
concludes that "The scope of e-government as it is implemented
today is not wide enough to have generated a macro-level impact that
is discernable through aggregate indicators. In vestments in e-
government are relatively small to have created such a macro
impact."(p-60).

Chapter 4 attempts to provide guidelines, based on a dozen case
studies, for implementing e-government projects successfully. These
guidelines, however, fail to stimulate thinking or inspire action as
e-government projects are not only location-specific but also sector-
specific requiring development of location- or sector-specific
planning and implementation, as the case may be. Moreover these
guidelines, generalised on the basis of mere dozen case studies,
unnecessarily circumscribe the domain of e-government, denying
insights from e-government projects in other locations and sectors.

Chapter 5 makes a more ambitious attempt to provide guidelines for
designing a country-wide strategy for e-government. Here it is
necessary to distinguish between strategy and policy. Governments
seldom, if at all, design a strategy but they do, however, typically
develop policies which usually take into account issues, among
others, of resource constraints and equity. Moreover, governments are
known to be reactive and seldom, if at all, proactive in approaches
to policies and problems. Information technology (IT) has, however,
been an exception to this general rule.

Chapter 6 purports to be a brief essay on future of e-government. It,
however, appears to be inappropriately titled as no where does it
discuss the "future" of e-government, leave alone make any
informed guesses about it. Instead the author deals here with pious
platitudes like "A major task is to build institutional capacity for
reform." (p-93). True, but how? Any example? As a guide perhaps, it
should have shown the way.

Chapter 7, the last chapter, forming nearly half of the book and
which indeed could be said to be the main content of the book,
provides a dozen case studies on e-government "structured in
similar format." The book, according to the author,"is based on the
analysis of two dozen cases from sixteen countries in the developing
world where e-government has been implemented to address social and
economic development challenges." (p-13). The book is wound up by
a brief bibliography, an annotated list of web resources and an
index.

The book revolves round the case studies. The dozen case studies
dealt by the author are: 1. Bhoomi (computerisation of land records
in Karnataka), 2. Gyandoot (community-owned rural Internet kiosks in
Madhya Pradesh), 3. CARD (computer-aided registration of deeds in
Andhra Pradesh), 4. FRIENDS (online payments to the government in
Kerala), 5. VOICE (computerised municipal service centres in
Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh), 6. Income Tax (online income tax
administration), 7. eProcurement (experience from the developing
world), 8. Customs (Indian customs online), 9. Interstate Checkposts
(computerised interstate checkposts in Gujarat), 10. SmartGov
(secretariat (sachivalaya) e-application in Andhra Pradesh, 11. QPEN
(anti-corruption project in Seoul), and 12. CVC (an anti-corruption
project in India).The e-government practitioners in India are quite
familiar with these Indian cases due to their frequent coverage in
print media and on the web and non-Indian cases, being remote, are
only of academic curiosity. The cases offered thus fail to excite the
reader.

The case studies, formally grouped under the title "Case Studies
of Social and Economic Impacts of E-Government," which appear to
have been undertaken by the author on behalf of the World Bank,
follow a structured format of 1. Application Context, 2. New Approach,
3.Implementation Challenges, 4. Benefits and Costs, 5. Potential
Future Benefits, and 6. Key Lessons. The structured format, however,
does not have much value to the readers as the cases,being from
varied fields ranging from computerisation of land records in
Karnataka, India to anti-corruption project in Korea, defy
comparison. It would have been better if case studies pertaining to a
specific topic, say, computerisation of land records, a subject of
considerable importance in agrarian economies, had been highlighted.

Bruno Lanvin (2002) in his preface to The E-Government Handbook for
Developing Countries, has noted: "There is no e-government
textbook and no e-government theory; knowledge comes from practice;
excellence comes from best practices." (CDT 2002). But then one is
reminded of English poet T.S.Eliot's oft-quoted lines: "Where is the
wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost
in information?" The pearls of wisdom in case studies are often
hidden in, following Harvard terminology, the "cold-questions" which
trigger thinking (and thus hopefully prepare practitioners for
action).No "cold questions" are found in the routinised presentation
of case studies in this book under review, designated "structured
format" by the author.

A glaring omission in these case studies is the absence of the
perspective of the concerned citizens. The Roadmap for E-Government
in the Developing World has rightly noted that "Citizens are the
e-government experts." (PCIP 2002). Inclusion of this perspective
would have very considerably enhanced the value of these case studies
to the reader.

E-government calls for fundamental transformation. This book, through
the case studies, shows the way to e-government policy makers and
practitioners. Sage India, which has already earned a well-deserved
reputation for quality publications in social sciences including
publications on information technology (IT), needs to be
congratulated for bringing out this timely publication on e-
government. We hope more books on e-government will follow from this
stable. Reasonably priced and well produced, the book should be read
by all concerned with e-government in the developing countries. The
writer too needs to be congratulated for making a noteworthy
contribution to the limited but steadily growing literature on e-
government in developing countries.

References

CDT (Center for Democracy & Technology) (2002): The E-Government
Handbook for Developing Countries, Washington, D.C., the Author.
November. A project of InfoDev and Center for Democracy & Technology,
available: http://www.cdt.org/egov/handbook/2002-11-
14egovhandbook.pdf (accessed: July 25, 2004).

Lanvin, Bruno (2002): Preface, in CDT (2002) (q.v.)

Misra, D.C. (2004): Defining eGovernment (forthcoming).

PCIP (Pacific Council on International Policy), The Working Group on
E-Government in the Developing World (2002): Roadmap for E-Government
in the Developing World: 10 Questions E-Government Leaders Should Ask
Themselves, Los Angeles, CA, the Author, sponsored by Oracle and
Microsoft supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York, April,
available: http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/e-gov.paper.f.pdf
accessed July 25, 2004).
______________________________________________________________________

READ
A Review by Dr D.C.MISRA of
GOVERNMENT ONLINE:
Opportunities and Challenges
by
M.P.Gupta, Prabhat Kumar and Jaijit Bhattacharya
(New Delhi, Tata McGraw-Hill, 2004)
in next post under this column.
____________________________________________________________________
* Dr D.C.Misra, a former civil servant, is New Delhi – based
Independent eGovernance and IT Consultant. He was Chairman, Task
Force for IT Policy for Delhi.E-mail: dc_misra[at]hotmail.com.