India's Egovernance Moving on E-Democracy Plane

With the government trying its best to incorporate technology for the common masses, the e-governance movement of the country is fast moving towards e-democracy now.

It is important to note that the e-democracy is an effort to change the role of citizen from passive information giving to active citizen involvement. And in an e-democracy scenario the Government will be informing the citizen, representing the citizen, encouraging the citizen to vote, consulting the citizen and engaging the citizen in the Governance.

And taking the citizens input about the various government policies by organizing an e-debate will further strengthen the e-democracy. The concept of e-debate is similar to chat over the Internet, wherein not only the citizens but also the political leaders contesting the elections participate.

In a e-democracy environment, the citizens give their feedback about the various policies of the parties and particularly the manifesto of the party. The initiative further strengthens the process by enhancing the representative role, improving accessibility of citizens to their elected members and developing the capacity of elected representatives to engage in e-government.

And additionally, the elected members will also be provided with access to the local authority's Intranet and e-mail systems so that they become available online for decision making and people can easily access them.

Citizen participation is an integral part of this initiative. For achievement of the above initiative the citizen has to participate in the Government business and therefore spreading awareness becomes the responsibility of the state as well.

As an integral principle to this, elections should not be fought on the principle of what one party or other has to offer. But they should be fought on the principle of what the citizens require.

And additionally, local and regional market research programs should be carried out using the Information Systems to determine the needs of the citizens. GIS could be used as a tool to find out potential gaps in the services offered. Once all this is done, we are sure to have a solid e-governance led platform that can ensure e-democracy for the whole country.