CYBER QUIZ: EDITORIAL-1:
INDIAN PUBLIC eGATEWAYS:
NEED TO DEMARCATE THE TURF RIGHT NOW

1. THE IMAGE GATEWAY:
India Image
http://indiaimage.nic.in/about.htm


The official Government of India portal – a ‘one stop source of information
about India and its various facets including its Government, heritage, economy,
news, online citizen services etc.’

Launched in 1996 by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), an official agency of
the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Ministry of Communication and
Information Technology (MCIT), Government of India, it claims to receive 12
million hits a month from all over the world. It is the best of all official
portals claiming to provide ‘one stop source of information.’

2. THE COUNTRY GATEWAY
India Country Gateway (InCG)
http://www.incg.org.in/CountryGateway/Support/aboutus.htm

The planning phase of the gateway was launched on August 27, 2004. I had last
visited the site a few days back (hence the above URL) but have so far not
succeeded in accessing the website till date. Perhaps it is under
design/repairs.

It is a joint initiative of the Department of Information Technology (DIT), the
World Bank and the Development Gateway Foundation (DGF), Washington, D.C. Sudha
Nagraj reportss: “Country gateways are locally owned and managed public-private
partnerships that harness ICT for e-governance, e-business, e-collaboration and
knowledge sharing.” (Nagaraj, Sudha (2004) India gateway to aid ICT, The
Economic Times New Delhi, September 6, Monday, p-6,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/840364.cms).

Sudha calls it India Development Gateway (InDG) (emphasis supplied) but the URL
(www.incg.org) does not indicate so. One needs to be clear if it is a country or
a development gateway. The nomenclature needs reconciliation right now so that
visitors to the site are clear about what to expect on the site.

3. THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS GATEWAY
Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances
E-Governance Website
http://darpg.nic.in/eGovernance.asp

Administrative reforms is an integral part of eGovernance. Today no
administrative reform is conceivable without involving eGovernance and
eGovernance is meaningless without administrative reforms. Moreover, citizen
grievances keep on mounting against services delivered by public
organisations.Citizen charters, for example, is one solution
(http://goichartes.nic.in). This department has to be given its due place in any
eGovernment Gateway.

4. THE eGOVERNMENT GATEWAY
National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Hyderabad
http://www.nisg.org/egovgateway/

Launched on July 8, 2004, it is an initiative of Government of India “as a part
of the information and communication technology (ICT) for development project
sponsored by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).” The portal aims to be
“the first site of reference on e-Governance globally for providing a single
window interface for sharing ideas, resources and opportunities.” It “is a
service or resource made available on the Internet in order to improve the
communication between citizens and businesses on the one hand and the
e-Governance institutions on the other hand.”

These four public egateways- the image gateway, the country gateway, the
administrative reforms gateway and the eGovernment gateway, as the above
enumeration shows, have overlapping jurisdiction. Since India country gateway is
in planning stage and NISG has launched the prototype of eGovernment gateway, it
is right time that the turf between all the four gateways is clearly demarcated
right now so as to avoid duplication of efforts (and consequent waste of scarce
resources) and confusion in the mind of prospective visitors to these gateways.
Both the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the National Institute
of Smart Governance (NISG) deserve to be congratulated for launching their
respective gateways. Well done,and keep it up.

Dr D.C.Misra
September 12, 2004