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MMP Level Description of the Service<br />

Integrated<br />

per their choice)<br />

e-Business, Electronic Data<br />

Interchange, India Portal, Electronic<br />

Government Gateway, E-Courts, E-<br />

Office, E Procurement<br />

Hypotheses H2 in Tier-II includes e-readiness assessment of three<br />

dimensions of sustainable development with the considerations<br />

that MDGs need to harness the goals with active support of ICTs<br />

and E-Governance services in order to attain the objectives of<br />

sustainable development [6],[7],[8],[13]. Sustainable development<br />

requires holistic approach and thus there is a need to assess the<br />

strengths of E-Governance in meeting social, economic and<br />

environmental needs [19]. In the process, H2 posits three subhypotheses<br />

as follows:<br />

Hypothesis H21: E-Governance services available for MDG#1<br />

and MDG#2 collectively contribute to E-Readiness for Economic<br />

Empowerment<br />

Hypothesis H22: E-Governance services available for MDG#3,<br />

MDG#4, MDG#5, MDG#6 collectively contribute to E-Readiness<br />

for Social Empowerment<br />

Hypothesis H23: E-Governance services available for MDG#7,<br />

MDG#8 collectively contribute to E-Readiness for Environment<br />

In these hypotheses E-Readiness for Economic Empowerment,<br />

Social Empowerment and Environment are the latent variables<br />

which are measured through the contributions of the ICT enabled<br />

services for MDGs.<br />

Lastly in these Tier II hypotheses, it is posited that MDGs need to<br />

contribute to the overall sustainable goals in India and this is<br />

possible because of the sustainable development at the local levels<br />

[11],[12].<br />

Hypothesis H3: E-Readiness for Economic Empowerment,<br />

Social Empowerment and Environment collectively contribute to<br />

Sustainable Development.<br />

3. EMPIRICAL VALIDATION OF THE<br />

MODELLING<br />

This study involved primary survey among rural citizens, rural<br />

communities and government agencies who are major<br />

stakeholders in supporting MDGs. For the purpose some villages<br />

in the state of Gujarat were considered for pilot studies. The<br />

sample size was 194. This includes 24 government<br />

representatives, 52 village community members and 118 village<br />

citizens in eight sample villages in the district of Panchmahals in<br />

the state of Gujarat. This number was arrived during visits to eight<br />

villages where access could be possible due to the support from<br />

government officials and intervening agencies. In Figure 4<br />

sampling frame is presented.<br />

358<br />

Figure 4. Sampling Frame<br />

3.1 Validation of Tier-I Hypothesis<br />

The sampling indicates that samples are multi leveled and thus<br />

their collective orientation in assessing MDGs would be<br />

beneficial. In reality villagers, village community groups and<br />

government representatives are not same in numbers and their<br />

strength varies in the shape of a pyramid. Due to this structure of<br />

population, stratified layering of the sample respondents and<br />

divergence in their objectives in contributing to MDGs, dummy<br />

coding principle was chosen to validate the collective<br />

contributions [24]. In dummy coding one of the major<br />

considerations is to identify the controlling variable in the<br />

stratified layers. In this case, citizens are considered as the<br />

controlling variables because their contributions are deterministic<br />

for the success of MDGs. Communities and government<br />

representatives are mostly characterized as service provisioning<br />

and supporting agencies for overall progress of the citizens.<br />

Besides, citizen empowerment is quite critical in managing<br />

MDGs. Validations for H1 include dummy coding and ANOVA<br />

to predict the overall contributions through Dunnet values which<br />

is used for dummy coding [18]. For each MDG this validation<br />

procedure is adopted and in Table 4, variables and related<br />

measurement instruments are presented.<br />

Table 4: Variable Descriptions, Measurement Instruments<br />

Goal Variables Measurements<br />

1<br />

N=194<br />

Community<br />

Affinity<br />

E-<br />

Governance<br />

Support<br />

Household<br />

Affinity<br />

Community groups are using ICT to<br />

share information on Income generation<br />

Community groups are using ICT for<br />

networks<br />

Community groups have influence on<br />

Individuals<br />

Government representatives are using<br />

ICT to share information on Income<br />

generation<br />

ICT has enhanced transparency in<br />

getting wages<br />

Internet is available in village<br />

Information is useful<br />

Information is available on Mobile<br />

ICT has enhanced transparency in

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