Impact of corruption on rural India and role of e-governance in prevention of corruption

“Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately-by diverting funds intended for developments, undermining government's ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, discouraging foreign investment and aid” -By Kofi Annan.

The impact of corruption on the poor and on poverty reduction processes has now been reasonably and widely debate issue in India. The effect of corruption on the poor can be gauged through both its direct impact (through, for example, increasing the cost of public services, lowering their quality and often all together restricting poor people's access to such essential services as water, health and education) and the indirect impact (through, for example, diverting public resources away from social sectors and the poor, and through limiting development, growth and poverty reduction).

The State and Central governments have moved quickly into various anticorruption measures against this menace. Millions of Rupees has been spent to address these issues year after year in India with little impact and the gravity of corruption and its clutch over India as well as the world is very high. Various tools and techniques have been evolved against this social evil, yet the magnitude of corruption is continuously increasing.

Amongst many tools being developed to fight against corruption, lately there has been much focus on E-Government by using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to open up Government process and enable greater public access to information. In this paper, I have made a prompt attempt to explore the current developments regarding E-Government and best practices in the Government for the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies in combating corruption. This paper also examines the relevance and recent evolution of e-governance in government services and promoting strategies of organizations and inhabitants in the fight against corruption.