E-governance through Panchayati Raj institutions in Karnataka: Issues and challenges

The fundamental objective of e-governance in India is to provide ―S.M.A.R.T government; SMART being an acronym for ―Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent Government. The Government of India wanted to bring about improved service delivery through the Panchayats and enable greater accountability to the community through the use of ICT. The rural development programmes in India thereby Karnataka are executed and monitored by the 3-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). The objective of these rural development programmes can be achieved only if the execution and monitoring can be done in more effective manner, which is possible only through the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT). The state government further believes in bringing in transparency, making need based, good quality and timely information available to all citizens and providing all services in an efficient and cost-effective way and identifying services on an online basis. The paper sets out to examine the different dimensions of the e-governance that the state government is trying to provide to the rural population through its various methods of e-participation. This paper tries to bring forth the issues and challenges being faced by the state government, the Panchayati Raj Institutions and the rural population in participating and governing through these e-tools of governance and will also assess the position of these tools by the different sections involved especially the implications of e-governance on the standards of transparency and accountability of the state in governance.