Indian government is planning to adopt and use mobile governance (m-governance) for governmental purposes. This is a good decision but like other projects is unsupported by capacity building and necessary legal, regulatory and information technology infrastructure.One of the main reasons for failure of e-governance in India is absence of accountability, lack of transparency and no time bound performance. Take the example of e-courts in India. Till the month of January 2011 we are still waiting for the establishment of first e-court in India. Even the national litigation policy of India (NLPI) failed to consider information technology for legal and judicial purposes in India.
Another key issue regarding e-governance and m-governance is absence of any legal framework for mandatory electronic delivery of services in India (MEDSI). The real problem with Indian E-Governance and M-Governance initiatives is that Legal Framework for Mandatory Electronic Delivery of Services in India is missing, says Praveen Dalal, Supreme Court lawyers and Managing Partner of India’s exclusive techno legal law firm Perry4Law. There is no effective Legal Enablement of ICT Systems in India and even the Information Technology Act, 2000 is “Non-Mandatory” regarding E-Governance and M-Governance in India, informs Praveen Dalal.
India has a poor track record of launching projects like Aadhar, Natgrid, CCTNS, etc and authorities like UIDAI without any proper planning and strategy. Even legal frameworks for these projects/authorities are missing.
Let us hope that India would learn from the failures of these projects and would make proper planning, policies and legal framework for m-governance in India before launching the same in bewilderment.
