New Delhi December 9, 2008
Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh emerged the five best e-governed states of 2008-09, according to a study by leading IT publication Dataquest and the top technology research firm CMR (International Data Corporation). Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh climbed three spots each over last year's ranking, to emerge at No. 1 and No. 5 respectively. Delhi slipped two ranks from No. 1 last year and Himachal Pradesh and Haryana climbed up 5 and 14 places respectively to be among the top 5 states of the year. Karnataka and Kerala record the highest drop in eGov satisfaction Karnataka, home to India's Silicon Valley, dropped 9 places to 16 followed by South Indian state of Kerala that dropped 13 spots to reach No 18.

Like previous years, this year too the top performing states of 2007-08 took a dip in rankings confirming that retention of Service Quality and Ease of Interaction are vital for e-governance initiatives in certain states.

"E-governance has a long way to go in India. There are dozens of great pilots and some good live projects, but there's 'reinvention of the wheel'. Central departments are duplicating work as they build multiple citizen databases—Census, Voter IDs, PAN records, Food & Civil Supplies—and wasting thousands of crores." Mr. Prasanto K Roy, chief editor, Dataquest said.

"India's federal structure gives autonomy to the states, who are keen to guard their turf, but turns into a challenge when it comes replicating good projects as the states are distrustful of providing too much information transparency to Central departments," he added.

The results of the survey, to be published in the December 15 issue of Dataquest, are based on a survey that assessed every State's IT vision, implementation and ease of use of services. It also took into account IT allocation for new projects in 2007-08, implementation of these projects, and user satisfaction among 3,150 citizens and business.

Indian states are lining up ambitious e-governance projects. From being one among many government programs, e-governance has now become a top priority for the government. The Union Budget for 2008-09 increased the allocation to the Department of Information Technology by 12% to Rs 1,680 crore. The scheme for establishing 100,000 Citizen Service Centers (CSCs) and setting up State Wide Area Netrworks (SWANs) across states is in progress.

The Dataquest-CMR survey measures citizen satisfaction under 'e-Governance Satisfaction Study' along with Ease of Use, Availability, and Quality of e-Governance Services.

Citizens: Not Enough Satisfaction

The CMR-Dataquest study noted a marginal decline in citizen satisfaction across all 12 categories, despite efforts to ensure that government services reach the common man. While the overall citizen satisfaction declined from 64.8 to 63.6, individual services like Employment Exchange and Police & Security showed a decline of 10% and 9% respectively.

Other services ranked included RTO, Departments of Land, Property, Income Tax, Municipal Corporation, Power and Water Utilities, Agriculture, Healthcare, Transport and Education.

Tamil Nadu topped the overall citizen satisfaction closely followed by Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Delhi was at No. 4 despite maximizing the e-readiness index. The CMR-Dataquest study added that the expectations of Delhites are sky-high and a cause of concern.

In the agriculture services non-agricultural states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh were among the top 3. Gujarat became the only state in Asia to have an e-connectivity network in all 590 village councils. Around 207 village community centers have started operations. So far, 13,693 panchayats or village councils have computers and sarpanch and village secretaries are trained to operate computers.

According to the survey Delhi, Goa and Haryana were the most e-ready states in the country, while Bihar was the least e-ready. Orissa and Uttar Pradesh took the second and third last positions in terms of e-readiness.

Business Satisfaction
The business satisfaction index saw a huge drop in satisfaction levels as corporate satisfaction score declined from to 64.9 from 68.9 in the previous CMR-Dataquest survey. A decline of 9% to 15% in satisfaction was reported across parameters like Financial Assistance, Incentives & Grants, Business Registration and Supplies & Provisions.

Tamil Nadu led the business satisfaction score outperforming other states on most parameters namely License & Permits; Financial Assistance; Incentives & Grants; Sales Tax; Municipal Corporation. Business registration and power utility were the only two categories where Tamil Nadu did not top the list. Businesses were most satisfied with power utilities in Assam followed by Karnataka and Orissa.

In the Government Tenders/Contracts category, Tamil Nadu scored the highest, followed by Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. Gujarat was ranked third in the License and Permits parameter, though it claims to have a 'business-friendly' environment, behind Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, the survey pointed out.

The Tail-enders: West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar
West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar were the worst 3 eGoverned states. West Bengal, which has been traditionally slow to computerize, covered a lot of ground in the last few years but still has long way to go. It is among the bottom 3 on 6 of the 12 citizens satisfaction parameters and 7 of the 15 business satisfaction parameters.

Interestingly, West Bengal at No. 19 had a per capita allocation of Rs.13.78 on IT, higher than the IT spend of the Best eGoverned state Tamil Nadu at Rs 8.31, showing that IT spend is not the sole criterion for providing good governance.

Not unexpectedly, Bihar, a first time entrant in the list, was a laggard in all 27 parameters for citizen and business services.

Jharkhand was among the bottom three in 9 of the 12 citizen parameters and all 15 business parameters. The only three parameters where it wasnt among the bottom three is Agriculture, Healthcare and Employment Exchanges.

Methodology: Study covers state IT officials, 3150 citizens, professional and businesses
The fifth Dataquest-CMR Satisfaction Index Study of Indian States is based on the response of discussions with State IT Secretaries to get an understanding of their IT vision and priorities backed by extensive secondary research to assess the availability and usage of ICT infrastructure. E-governance projects in 21 states were profiled for coverage and achievements that had combined weight of 11% in the overall assessment.

Each state was also assessed on the per capita IT spending on projects implemented in 2007-08 with a weightage of 6% in the overall assessment.

The states were rated on the basis of ICT and social, educational infrastructure and were allocated weightage of 8% in the overall assessment.

Finally, the study evaluated the effectiveness of IT deployment, based on a survey of citizens as well as businesses regarding actual satisfaction with the delivery of services. Feedback was sought on 12 major government services to citizens as well as 15 key government services to businesses.

To make a meaningful and broad-based assessment 3,150 citizen users and business users were covered with 150 interviews in each state divided equally among urban and rural citizens and professionals and business heads of small, mid-size and large corporates. The scores obtained from this survey were allocated a weightage of 75%.

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