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strongly believed that local governance has far reaching effects at
the national level in terms of sustainable development [21]. This
is quite significant because of the local self governance in India
has provided the rights to use and develop local resources for
development. Government agencies are responsible to these local
empowered agencies and extend support in terms of awareness,
expertise and finance development interventions. Collective effort
is therefore, essential to attain MDGs. It is because successful
development process needs collective efforts from the planners
and mediating agencies and the citizens [20],[42]. In such
scenarios, the contributions are multilevel oriented and therefore,
predictability of their contributions will be influenced by
collective participation [20],[1].
Hypothesis H1. Citizens, Community Groups, Government
Agencies contribute collectively to the success of MDGs
Tier-II Hypotheses: E-governance readiness is a major contributor
to each and every MDG due to the enormous benefits of ICT
envisaged in the MDG agenda. E-Governance aims to bring
appropriate services closer to the citizens with optimized cost,
time and relevance [1], [19], [3]. Thus it is important to find the
causal effects of E-Governance efforts and their contributions to
the MDGs. In order to measure this effect, it is posited that E-
Governance supported efforts for MDGs are reflected through
display of readiness across all the dimensions of sustainable
development. It is also considered important that group of MDGs
are likely to support a particular dimension of readiness for
sustainable development. There is a continuous process adopted
by World Bank, World Economic Forum through INSEAD and
ITU etc. to look at the progress done in the areas of e-readiness. In
Figure 2 below India’s position on e-readiness (reports of
INSEAD are used here) is presented [2],[35]. This e-readiness
exercise provides comprehensive analyses on various metrics
driven performance assessment (termed as indices) of various
countries participating in the process. Major indices which are
presented in Figure 2 reflect the ICT adoption behaviour in India
vis-à-vis global scenarios [6],[7],[8],[9]. Indices used in this
assessment provide a percentile score. A higher percentile
provides better status for the country. The percentiles are
presented longitudinally by using data of INSEAD since the year
2002. It may be noted that these e-readiness assessment
indicators are useful to evaluate the role of E-Governance in
meeting MDGs.
Figure 2. ICT Indices for India [2]
Eight MDGs envisaged for improving the quality of life of people
in member countries are grouped as presented in Figure 2 and in
the following manner. MDG#1 and MDG#2 are related to ereadiness
for rendering services related information, optimizing
cost and time of availing information on income generation
opportunities, enhancing skills through education, government’s
effort to use ICTs for providing networks among wage earners,
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schemes for income opportunities and providing transparency in
such processes. In India there are many E-Governance initiates
aimed at all these defined areas of interventions including Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) [35]. MDGs# 3,4,5,6
relate to social issues which reflect in gender inequity, women
health, HIV etc. In India, this is quite challenging because of
various social, cultural and infrastructural issues [31]. It is noted
that despite improvements in health services including National
Aids Control Programme, National Rural Health Mission, rural
India in particular is not recording encouraging results as per
MDG reports [27],[29]. It is thus posited that social empowerment
can be measured through e-readiness to support MDG#3,4,5,6.
MDG
#8
MDG #7
MDG #6
MDG #5
MDG #4
MDG #3
MDG #2
MDG #1
Figure 3. MDG and E-Readiness
MDGs#7,8 encompass larger issues related to environment. In
India e-readiness to support this cause needs active interfaces with
networks, and awareness among the rural citizens. It is posited
that role of E-Governance in these areas is expected to enhance
the e-readiness in managing environment. In Table 3 various E-
Governance programs are planned to meet the MDG agenda.
Table 3: E-Governance Programmes in India [5],[6],[7]
MMP Level Description of the Service
Central Government Income Tax, Central Excise,
Passports/Visa & Immigration, MCA
21, National ID, Pensions, Banking,
Insurance
State Governments
H23
H22
H21
E-Readiness -
Environment
E-Readiness -
Social
Empowerment
E-Readiness -
Economic
Empowerment
H3
Sustainable
Developmen
t
Agriculture, Land Records, Transport,
Treasuries, Commercial Taxes, Gram
Panchayats, e-Health, Registration,
Police, Employment Exchange, e-
Districts (State can add 5 MMPs as