Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of the Cyber Capability Framework to understand how e-Governance projects in less developed countries interact with various economic, political, and social contexts within and beyond their public service delivery mechanisms. In the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal, India, many of the muted desires of the poor and the marginalized population are often ignored and accepted as consents. Analyzing the various schemes of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal, the Cyber Capability Framework unearths such suppressed and untold stories where the rural citizens in West Bengal fail to enhance their cyber capabilities. The paper concludes that the national e-Governance plan without sufficient focus on the needs and concerns of the rural citizens have actually exacerbated digital divides further in West Bengal.

 

Introduction

 

Many less developed countries have recently joined the bandwagon of e-Governance projects to improve efficiency, transparency, accountability and productivity in their respective public service delivery mechanisms. In this context, proper adaptation of information and communications technologies in e-Governance projects becomes crucial in advancing the goals of the public sector service delivery and in guiding the public sector towards an instrument for social and economic development. The United Nations E-Government Survey (2008: XII) states:

 

Several countries around the world are attempting to revitalize their public administration and make it more proactive, efficient, transparent and especially more service oriented. To accomplish this transformation, governments are introducing innovations in their organizational structure, practices, capacities, and in the ways they mobilize, deploy and utilize the human capital and information, technological and financial resources for service delivery to citizens.

 

Advocates of e-Governance often promise improved quality of public service and wider political participation of the people in implementing various development programs (Garson, 2004). Opponents, however, argue that e-Governance projects have failed in their promise of more effective and democratic public administration (Jaeger, 2005). According to Reddick (2005) e-Governance projects fail because of too much bias on supply-side perspectives ignoring the demands of the targeted people. Helbig (2009) explores the theoretical and practical intersections of e-Governance and digital divide to develop comprehensive and more effective e-Governance policies and implementation strategies. E-Governance scholarship also argues that data on computer access can be misleading since it hardly reflects the different socio-economic compositions of the particular nation (ITU, 2003). Similarly, factors like gender (Richardson, et al., 2000), context (Avgerou and Walsham, 2000), income (World Bank, 1998), IT literacy and skills (Heeks, 2000) may affect the abilities of the people to take advantage of e-Governance initiatives in less developed countries.

 

It is true that e-Governance projects can enhance speed, efficiency and transparency of public service operations by streamlining different bureaucratic practices. But performance of e-Governance projects throughout the less developed countries so far has not been very encouraging. Bhatnagar (2000) observes that, “The impact of CRISP and DISNIC (two major ICT programs targeted to rural development in India) on administration has been marginal because the task of changing the administrative culture is enormous.” Real benefits of e-Governance projects come in adopting government service delivery mechanisms that offer better opportunities to the ordinary citizens in fulfilling their regular needs and concerns. Based on a study of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal, this paper argues that enhancing the cyber capabilities of ordinary citizens is essential in establishing e-Governance facilities in less developed countries. In the following sections, this paper describes briefly the research methodology and the concepts of the Cyber Capability Framework. The paper then investigates the various schemes of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal with the dimensional analysis of the Cyber Capability Framework.

 

Research Methodology

 

I used multiple sources of data and data collection methods like documentation, observation and open-ended interviews. In this research, data was collected from various documents available online from official government websites or available from printed reports and research papers. The main benefit of integrating multiple data sources is an increased internal validity of the research.

 

Overall, I conducted 76 interviews in 14 months starting from October 2008 to December, 2009. Along with visiting 26 common service centers, I also interviewed various government officials at Kolkata to find out how the national e-Governance plan was conceived, designed and implemented in West Bengal. In addition, I spent two months in New Delhi to interview officials working at different projects of the national e-Governance plan in India.

 

I also identified some key informants in selected districts who were involved with the politics of West Bengal and had good knowledge about how the national e-Governance plan might affect the social and cultural fabric of the state. To ensure reliability of information, I triangulated anything learned from these key informants with other sources, mainly newspapers and other secondary documents. The key informants actually opened doors to many other people who provided me further information relevant to this research. Thus, the collection of data progressed through chains of conversations, and the emphasis was never on sampling as is common in statistical or quantitative analysis. My purpose in this research was to gather qualitative input from government bureaucrats, technocrats and private executives who had either directly contributed to the national e-Governance plan or were affected by the project.

 

Representatives from Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), the private company in the public-private partnership in West Bengal were also interviewed. They also helped in fixing up appointments with many kiosk owners. The selection of kiosks was mainly done through consultation with IL&FC executives who provided me with the names, addresses and phone numbers of the kiosk owners. The selection was primarily based on a uniform distribution of kiosks in selected districts in West Bengal. The kiosks were selected randomly from the various districts in West Bengal.

 

I also used close observation to understand the interactions between users and center owners in the common service centers.  In all these observations, I retained an analytical and observational position so that I could describe and interpret the social relations of the villagers from outside. Every experience, conversation and encounter that I had with the local people along with my formal interviews was treated as data. I allowed my respondents to come out with their own versions of their stories: tales of how they visualized a world mediated with digital gadgets which were completely alien to them. All data collected through these chains of conversations were noted down and coded at a later date.

 

My studies of the centers were never restricted to gathering information about their operational statistics only. I wanted to find out more than simple number of people using the kiosks per day or the amount of money each owner earned every month. I was interested to understand the social contexts in which the kiosks were operating in the villages of West Bengal. I also talked with some people in the villages who were not interested at all with the common service centers. This offered me new insights about why some people did not pay attention to this new initiative. On some occasions, I spent hours just observing the people who visited the kiosks, noticing their requirements, the kiosk owner’s responses and how a transaction materialized or failed in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

 

Cyber Capability Framework

 

Based on conceptual understanding of the capability approach by Amartya Sen (1985; 1997; 1999) and the design-reality gap model by Richard Heeks (2002), I have developed the Cyber Capability Framework to evaluate the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. The Cyber Capability Framework emphasizes individual freedom to achieve “the various things a person may value doing or being” (Sen, 1999: 75). This focus on individual opportunities broadens conventional e-Governance assessments based only on access to or income from digital interventions to new horizons. Studying and interpreting access to the national e-Governance plan through common service centers (internet kiosks) do not account for the exact desires of the targeted individuals. Instead, the Cyber Capabilities Framework investigates whether the national e-Governance plan enhances certain capabilities to achieve some valuable human functionings. The Cyber Capability Framework then forms the fundamental analytical base to address many of the relevant concerns of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal in a holistic manner. The framework broadens e-Governance studies from simple measurements of access to a focus on the socio-political contexts that shape the achievement or deprivation of the cyber capabilities of the people affected by the project. 

 

The Cyber Capability Framework also shifts e-Governance discourses from a focus on supply side activities like digital growth and access to discussions on demand side of human development. Evaluating the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal from the demands perspectives based on local needs and concerns of ordinary citizens brings in new criteria, not generally available in e-Governance studies. This research, therefore, makes clear distinctions of ownership, access and use of digital devices in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. For example, having access to computers through the common service centers does not necessarily mean that all the people have the skills, opportunities, motivations and permission to use them in some meaningful manner.

 

Further, based on the ideas of design-reality gaps (Heeks, 2002), I have articulated the Cyber Capability Framework in six different dimensions: i) information; ii) technology; iii) process; iv) objectives and values; v) skills; and vi) management systems. These six dimensions help in understanding different ways of enhancement or deprivation of a person’s cyber capabilities in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. While the framework develops specific indicators for each of these dimensions, the interdependencies of these dimensions are equally important in investigating the cyber capabilities of individuals in the nation-wide e-Governance project.

 

The information dimension: The prime focus of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal is to offer constantly updated information about public services through the common service centers. This information has to be authentic and constantly updated to attract local users for enhancing their cyber capabilities. The information dimension in the Cyber Capability Framework demands that the information supplied through the centers should be authentic, constantly updated, and must have enough relevance for local needs and concerns. Investigating in this line, the information dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework helps us to understand whether the information delivered through the centers has paid enough attention to the demands and concerns of local the people in West Bengal.

 

The technology dimension: This dimension considers the scope for local improvisations of information and communications technologies adopted within the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. Some design-imposing software applications often contain deep inscriptions that leave very little scope for local design improvisations. But shallow inscriptions in software applications offer more flexibility and scope for local improvisations. The technology dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework investigates how these design inscriptions in technologies can be continuously improved by local input in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

 

The process dimension: The systems design of the national e-Governance plan assumes that certain structured decision-makings are effective in the functions of all the ministries and departments in West Bengal. Smooth delivery of services, transparency in transactions, easy access to information, and efficiency in service delivery are some of the attributes of this dimension. This dimension is more concerned with the political context of the state that influences the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. The scope for various stakeholders like civil societies, private investors and donor agencies to work with the local government and create the environment for the citizens to come up and deliberate on the type and quality of services through a reiterative process is crucial in this dimension. This dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework investigates how the West Bengal government organizes its equity-efficiency trade-off in implementing the national e-Governance plan to deliver its egalitarian interests in favor of the ordinary citizens in West Bengal.

 

The objectives and values dimension: This dimension investigates whether the national e-Governance plan has been designed within certain valued rules and objectives for offering services at the local level. In reality, political and social environments do not always allow new technologies to disturb the prevailing self-interests and hidden agendas of local elites. This sort of mismatch, even after introducing the national e-Governance plan, in reality infringes the cyber capability enhancement scope of the people. This dimension of the framework also deals with the new forms of social cohesion that characterize the new dynamics of social relationships due to e-Governance projects. New expressions of togetherness and communicating with each other in the networked societies refer to a synergy between real interaction and virtual communications. This dimension investigates how the common service center scheme of the national e-Governance plan enables or constrains the participation and social cohesion among ordinary citizens in West Bengal.

 

The skills dimension: The national e-Governance plan in West Bengal needs qualified designers, analysts and developers with necessary skills to build the national e-Governance plan. Any failure in this front will decrease the ability of the project to offer quality services to the citizens. Since India has no dearth of qualified ICT manpower, I concentrated more on the quality of e-literacy programs for the rural citizens in West Bengal to enhance their capacity to handle digital artifacts. The skills dimension evokes that e-literacy does not end in just learning to access certain information through search engines and website browsing only. It extends using the internet for enhancing individual capabilities to be able to perform activities of one’s preferred choice. Through this process a person can effectively contextualize and integrate the centers with his/her activities to enhance his/her cyber capabilities.

 

The management systems dimension: The national e-Governance plan has been designed to support certain organizational practices that have both structures and systems to support strategic decision making. But in reality, many of the line ministries in West Bengal do not have similar operational structures. If all ministries are told to update their individual databases regularly based on the structure of the new system, the process may become difficult to operate smoothly. The national e-Governance plan promoting structures of connected networks and systems may give rise to design-reality gaps that will reduce the cyber capability opportunities of users. This dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework investigates the transformational aspects of the backend integration of the government services in implementing the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

 

The Context of West Bengal

The regional state of West Bengal[i] in India has been ruled by a Marxist coalition government, the Left Front, for the last 33 years.

Initially, the left political system in West Bengal was oriented more to labor movements and turned away many private investors from the state. But the economic liberalization in India initiated in 1991 thrust the Left Front government in direct competition with other regional states in attracting investments for the state. After winning the assembly elections in 2001, they initiated plans to reorganize the information and communications technology sector along with other high-technology sectors to attract private investors in the state. This sudden shift towards high-technology growth model through private investments in West Bengal, however, failed to make any significant economic integration in favor of the poor and the marginalized population of the state.

 

While implementing the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal authorities need to adopt more local equity ventures based on sustainable ways of constructing alternatives to benefit the ordinary citizens. The Left Front government has so far come up with very few new ideas and ventures on ICT for development targeted to the marginalized populations who need it most. Within this contextual background, this paper investigates how cyber capabilities of the ordinary citizens in West Bengal get affected with the implementation of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

The National e-Governance Plan in India

Since the beginning of this century, Indian policy makers have shown keen interest to bring e-Governance projects to the benefits of the rural population of the country. Some of the e-Governance projects in different regional states in India have also shown positive results in offering certain electronic public services to the rural populations in their states. However, most of the initial e-Governance projects were stand-alone public service initiatives adopted by the respective regional states in India. In the year 2006, the national e-Governance plan was the first nation-wide e-Governance project initiated by the central government that covered all the 28 regional states and 7 union territories in India. 

 

During the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07), the Government of India allocated US$ 4.92 billion in its budget for the implementation of e-Governance projects in India. The Department of Information Technology, Government of India allotted Rs.600 crores and the World Bank agreed, in principle, to provide US$500 million for the project (Government of India, 2010). Further, the National e-Governance Action Plan got its Cabinet approval on May 18, 2006 for implementing 27 mission mode projects in the national e-Governance plan in a phased manner. Offering public services through the common service centers supported by the state data center and the state-wide area networking is the main objective in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

 

The Common Service Center Scheme

 

One of the main aims of the national e-Governance plan in India is to utilize the reach and flexibility of ICT to reform various government functions and provide efficient and quick anytime, anywhere government services to the citizens (Department of Information Technology, 2010). In order to fulfill these objectives, the central government of India has planned to set up 100,000 internet enabled kiosks as common service centers across all the 600,000 villages in India. The common service centers are the frontend delivery units for a range of government and private sector services like video, voice and data content and services in the fields of education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as information on private businesses to the rural citizens in India. These centers are also expected to offer web-enabled public service application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills (Common Service Center, 2008).

 

Each common service center (Tathya Mitra) in West Bengal is manned by a village level entrepreneur (VLE) similar to a business franchisee to serve the rural citizens in a cluster of 5-6 villages. The entrepreneurs are selected based on their business skills and strong social commitments to act as intermediaries between the state government and citizens as most of the rural citizens are not computer literate in the state.

 

At the second level is a service center agency (a franchisor) to select and manage the village level entrepreneurs. The service center agency operates, manages and builds the networks covering 100-200 centers in one or more districts in West Bengal. The main responsibilities of the service center agency are to set up the common service centers across the state with provisions for hardware and software supplies to the village level entrepreneurs along with broadband internet enabled connectivity in all common service centers. Shrei Sahaj Private Limited, a division of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) is the state center agency[ii] in West Bengal.

 

The third level of the common service center scheme is the state designated agency (SDA) to manage and organize implementation of the national e-Governance plan within the state. West Bengal State Rural Development Agency under Panchayat[iii]

and Rural Development Department is the state designated agency in West Bengal. The main responsibility of state designated agency is to facilitate implementation of the common service center scheme through its district administration and to provide legal and policy support for the formation of the common service centers.

 

At the national level, the main responsibilities of the national level service agency (NLSA) are to provide strategy, framework and directions to manage the common service center scheme across the country. Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Limited (IL&FS) is the national level service agency entrusted with the task of program management for the common service center scheme. Finally, at the top level, the responsibilities of the Department of Information Technology, Government of India are to provide financial support to the states and union territories in India and define and monitor the overall objectives of the national e-Governance plan in India.

 

The central government of India approved the common service centers scheme in September 2006 with a total cost of Rs 5742 crore for a period of four years. The central government of India also sanctioned Rs 856 crore and the different state governments contributed another Rs 793 crore for the scheme. The private business partners in the scheme contributed the balance amount. The common service center (CSC) scheme under the national e-Governance plan is expected to install 104,881 centers throughout the country. By June 2010, around 40,750 common service centers were operational in 21 regional states in India (Medianama, 2009).

 

The Mission Mode Projects 

 

The national e-Governance plan has 27 mission mode projects (MMPs) comprised of 10 central mission mode projects, 10 state mission mode projects and 7 integrated mission mode projects distributed among multiple ministries and government departments in India (Government of India, 2010). All the mission mode projects have pre-defined objectives and scope, and are owned and managed by respective line ministries. The anticipated impact of the mission mode projects on the overall economic, administrative and political perspectives of the country within a reasonable time frame form the general criteria for selection of the projects in the national e-Governance plan.

 

One of the major objectives of the mission mode projects is to offer efficient online services and up-to-date information about various public services in India. A major challenge in implementing the mission mode projects in India is changing the existing functions in government offices. Digitizing the existing functions requires extensive government process re-engineering activities. Full support from top leadership and willingness for implementing the mission mode projects from the respective line ministries and departments make some of the central mission mode projects relatively successful in delivering their services.

State-Wide Area Network

 

In 2005, as part of the national e-Governance plan, the Department of Information Technology of Government of India designed the state-wide area network (SWAN) scheme to offer network connectivity in each regional state and union territory in India for an overall outlay of Rs. 3334 crore. Under this scheme, wide area networks have been established in 27 states and 6 union territories across the country. When fully implemented, the state-wide area network scheme is expected to function as the backbone network for voice, video and data communications covering almost 50,000 departmental offices through one million route kilometer of communication links in India (Government of India, 2010). The vertical component of the state-wide area network scheme uses a three-tier architecture with the state or union territories headquarters connected to each district headquarter which in turn is connected to each block headquarter.

 

As on August, 2010, the Department of Information Technology of the Government of India has approved proposals on the state-wide area network (SWAN) scheme from 35 regional states and union territories with a total outlay of Rs. 1,964.97 crore (Government of India, 2010). The West Bengal state wide area network (WBSWAN) was launched in August 2001 to connect all the 18 district headquarters to the state capital Kolkata, via 2 Mbps leased lines to carry voice, video and data.

 

State Data Center

 

The state data center scheme for all the 35 regional states and union territories under the national e-Governance plan in India was approved by the central government in early 2008 with a total financial grant of Rs.1623.20 crore to be disbursed over a period of 5 years. The idea is to create an integrated database for the respective states to provide efficient electronic delivery of government to government (G2G), government to citizens (G2C), government to business (G2B) and business to business (B2B) services. The state data centers are expected to function as the repository for secure data storage and online delivery of services to run the citizen information portal and the state intranet portal of the respective states in India.

 

Some of the key Government to Citizen (G2C) services expected to be delivered through the common service centers are land records, various certificates and permits, electoral and employment services. In the Business to Consumer (B2C) services, the government plans to offer some e-commerce services like digital photos; web surfing; photocopy; desk top publishing and utility/telephone bills payment services. In the Business-to-Business (B2B) services the government is targeting various advertising and promotion services, data collection services and some distribution services.

 

The Cyber Capability Dimensional Analysis

 

I analyzed the mission mode projects of the national e-Governance plan in India with the information dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework. The mission mode projects never bothered to change or at least question many of the existing regulations that hindered information dissemination through public service delivery mechanisms. For example, the All India Radio, the only official news broadcasting radio station in the country failed to reach out to people in remote villages who could communicate only in some local dialects. Changing existing regulations to integrate the marginalized people in India was never a priority in the central, state or integrated mission mode projects. Moreover, selecting mission mode projects in the national e-Governance plan that offered quick economic reflections was against this principle of long term e-Governance performance and failed to integrate the poor in this new public service delivery mechanism. The non-availability and the non-ability to demand and consume information based on individual’s needs and preferences affected severely the enhancement of the cyber capabilities of the rural people in West Bengal.

 

Moreover, the technology dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework observed that there was no scope for different technologies of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal to be constantly improvised to reduce the design-reality gaps of the project. Studying the scope for improvisation of technologies based on local needs and concerns was the main objective in using the technology dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework. In other words, cyber capabilities of ordinary citizens could be enhanced only when the various technologies associated with the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal offered reasonable scope for improvisations to suit the local needs. The authorities in West Bengal failed to realize that active citizen engagement for improvising a technology was a constant learning process that went beyond simple technology access to the people. It required people’s participation and deliberation that built and enhanced the capacities of citizens to grasp new technologies for constant improvisations.

 

Also, there was a serious lack of reiterative dialogues between government officials, kiosk owners and ordinary citizens on the whole business model and how the electronic services could be customized for local needs. As an alternative, frontline workers like agricultural extension agents, village-based health workers, and community development agents could have helped in bridging the gaps between the village users and the technology of the national e-Governance plan. Recognizing and adopting such fieldworker involvement could have opened the door for local insights into the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal.

 

The process dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework observed that the functions of all the ministries in West Bengal, including the local governments in the districts lacked efficiency and transparency in their service delivery mechanisms. The process through which the various state ministries and departments functioned in West Bengal on many occasions failed to take the opportunities that ICT for development offered. The process dimension further revealed that the integrated design of the common service center scheme offered hardly any scope for intimate interactions among the users, center owners and the local government representatives. If the centers were primarily designed for public service outlets, how could they function without the active involvement of the public servants? In addition, local volunteers and field workers with local knowledge could have added more value to the common service center scheme. The common service centers were just 10 foot by 10 foot rooms with two tables and a couple of chairs. These rooms could hardly accommodate 10 people at a time. If the local Panchayat wanted a fraction of its public services delivered through these centers, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the centers to handle that workload.

 

The management systems dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework observed that most of the state mission mode projects and common service centers in West Bengal were lagging far behind during 2008-09 when this field work was executed. A major challenge in West Bengal was the existing rules and regulations in most state government functions. The other concern in West Bengal was the lack of interest among government employees in automating the existing manual processes. But unless all line ministries and departments agreed to support automation it was a difficult proposition to effectively implement online services in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. The efficiency and transparency promises of the national e-Governance plan were not at all evident in the performance of the common service centers in West Bengal as none of the backend operations were available online through the centers. The cyber capabilities of the ordinary citizens could not be enhanced in West Bengal due to non-availability of online services.

 

The objectives and values dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework offered a severe mismatch of the designed scheme in the common service centers in West Bengal that failed to fathom the depth of its surrounding reality. The existing political environment of the state never allowed the common service centers to make any impact on the existing style of public service delivery of the local Panchayat in West Bengal. The objectives of the national e-Governance plan were to bring efficiency, transparency and accountability in the public service delivery mechanism in rural West Bengal. But in real-life, political systems in West Bengal never allowed the common service centers to perform with any online services. Moreover, in implementing the common service center scheme in West Bengal, the Left Front leadership failed to invent any alternative route to appropriate the immense potentials of ICT to enhance social cohesion among its rural citizens. The centers were standing there as mute exhibits of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal, neglected by the mainstream of activities all around. As a result, due to lack of proper vision of the local context the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal failed to enhance the cyber capabilities of its ordinary citizens.

 

The skills dimension of the Cyber Capability Framework, suggests that access to the common service centers is not enough. E-Governance projects should uplift the skills of the targeted citizens and all their needs to be effectively contextualized and integrated with the services of the centers to enhance individual cyber capabilities. There were hardly any efforts in building e-literacy programs by the authorities in West Bengal. The centers were engaged in offering IT courses but those were all paid courses targeted to the rich and educated sections of the population. Local governments or the private parties involved in the project failed to offer e-literacy development programs to improve the skills level of the ordinary citizens. This in turn affected adversely in enhancing the cyber capabilities of ordinary citizens in West Bengal.

 

Conclusion

 

This paper observes that strategies to offer ordinary citizens new technologies based on local needs and concerns have never come up high on the agenda of the Left Front government in implementing the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. There are hardly any signs of integrating local demands and aspirations through people’s participation in the management and implementation of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal. Accepting the national e-Governance plan and managing it requires a much deeper understanding than simply agreeing to install 6, 000 common service centers in the villages of West Bengal. The national e-Governance plan in West Bengal requires a total transformation of the backend operations than delivering birth or death certificates through the common service centers. Moreover, by introducing private companies in the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal the Left Front government has compromised bulk of its egalitarian ways of moving with the ordinary citizens. The Left Front decision makers have to understand that the conflict today is not about anti-automation or pro-automation. They have to judiciously decide how e-Governance initiatives can enhance the cyber capabilities of the poor and the marginalized population; the people who have been supporting them in elections for the last 30 over years.

 

Advocates of the national e-Governance plan in India are trying to produce new kinds of organized, orderly and routine functions mediated by information and communications technologies in its public service delivery mechanism. Nobody can denounce the noble inscriptions within all the mechanical accuracy and reliability of digital interventions. But the predictable order of the national e-Governance plan in India has to extend from inside out. That is where the needs, concerns, and demands of the people get infused with ICT to enhance the cyber capabilities of the ordinary citizens in India. Over-commitment to the external, quantifiable and the measurable aspects of the national e-Governance plan in the growth of common service centers, state data centers, and state-wide area networking has numbed the quests from within that go beyond the numerically gathered data and observations. The cyber capability analysis of the national e-Governance plan in West Bengal observes that the techno-managerial decisions of the state authorities concentrates more on the external order of growth without caring for the internal chaos that remains within as  muted and unfulfilled desires of the impoverished.

 

Acknowledgements

This article is based on my PhD dissertation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York, USA. I acknowledge the intellectual contributions from Prof. Langdon Winner, Prof. David Hess, Prof. Ron Eglash, Prof. Dean Nieusma and Prof. David Hakken in preparing this article.

 

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