Delhi eGovernment Portal - Feasibility Report

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To Citizens:

More Convenience: Most citizens feel it is very time consuming and tedious to wait in long queues at public service offices as the response times are very slow and, for some, travel distances are huge. With the help of eGovernment, one can communicate and do business anytime and anywhere. Moreover, the service is available 24 hours and 7 days a week. Information gathering is made easier with the help of the Internet, as one would easily find specific types of information. Also the search function would be able to find answers to questions without having going through hundreds of pages that have no relevance.

Better customer service: Some citizens feel the Government is very bureaucratic and there are too many rules and formalities to get work done. Thus, the eGovernment would be able to explain complex policies more clearly and also cut them down. Some also feel the staff is rude, impolite, and impatient with no motivation at all. They are not well informed or organized and everyone has a different story. Lastly, some feel there is a small degree of racism that exists to those from a particular region. An eGovernment portal would help in integration of information and removing all other interaction problems.

To Business:

Lower Costs: eGovernment would save productive time for businesses by cutting employee waiting hours and traveling time to a government office. Conducting transactions through the Internet with a few mouse clicks would save on a lot of time and, as it is rightly said, time is money.

More Information: The DEG would be collecting a lot of economic, demographic and other trend information which would be helpful for businesses to make more informed and better decisions.

To the Government

Increased Efficiency: Online transactions are quicker and more reliable than face-to-face transactions as automation reduces processing time and risk of clerical errors. This allows Government to focus on providing efficient services for the customer. Also departments would be integrated and information held by them would be more reliable.

Increased Esteem: An eGovernment portal makes the Government more responsive to everyone’s needs. This will help citizens see the government as a positive force in their lives.

A combined SWOT and PEST analysis has been carried out to better evaluate the impact of each possible strategic opportunity or threat that the eGovernment project could face. (Click image for a larger view.)

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Continue on to the next page where we discuss website design needs for the eGovernment portal.

The Delhi Government is based on the concepts of modernization and development by offering various services. The execution and the appearance of the website plays a crucial and significant role in the success of the organization. Therefore, the main menu options have been described below:

Customer Service Enquiry

Customer service is an integral part of the plan. It is a combined contact center which answers your queries regarding government departments. It can be provided by a person or by any means of self-service.

• ePay - ePay helps in building confidence among the customers. It helps the customers make payments online using Visa/MasterCard as well as helps in increasing the level of security among the customers as well as for the service providers.
• eSurvey - This is a complete web-based survey tool that allows Government Departments to launch through email or Internet web browsers, in order to evaluate employee opinion as well as determine client satisfaction.
• eHost - eHost is a web presence solution. The government departments can publish information on their services. This service helps in providing a number of management solutions like content and portal as well as other items.
• eLearn - eLearn is a tool for efficient training using a wide range of multimedia. You can access more than 3000 online courses and choose the ones that suit your needs to study at your convenience.
• eManager - This tool helps train managerial and supervisory levels through eLearning, ensuring that they get hold of the exact skills and attitude that they need when and where they need them.

Elements of WebDesign

• ePay logo – It is in jpeg format.
• eSurvey – It is in jpeg format.
• Publications, Logos and Trademarks – The Delhi eGovernment has to create an expressive symbol to achieve its goals.
• E4all Initiative – This is the core service of all the community activities adopted by the eGovernment.
• Delhi-eGovern Logo – The Delhi eGovernment portal can be reached through www.delhi-egovern.com.
• Delhi eGovernment logo.eps – Delhi eGovernment logo in eps format.
• Delhi eGovernment Logo. PDF – Delhi eGovernment logo in PDF Format (size 423 kb).

There are various other transactions which the eGovernment provides. The eGovernment helps citizens with basic services such as ordering of birth/death/marriage certificates and license renewals in addition to providing help for basic services like health, education and libraries. The services which are offered to the business play an important role, too. They help in the development of the business, especially the development of small and medium enterprises. The employee receives the benefits of services from the eGovernment like human resource training and development that improves the bureaucracy’s daily functions and dealings with citizens.

The Delhi eGovernment would aim to help all consumers learn from each other and continue to be rapid setters in using new technologies and to deliver better government service to them. There is an interlink between eGovernment and eBusiness in the new world of the knowledge economy. The government departments that provide its public services through the Internet need a highly competent communication infrastructure and network.

Consequently, such infrastructure shall be available to private companies with reasonable charges to enable them to offer their unrestricted and resourceful services and transactions. The Delhi eGovernment offers various services as well as products to its customers.

Firstly, they can display information about services like employment. They will provide job information online to unemployed people, which would help the people seeking jobs, professional training and even volunteer work. This would assist them in planning a career as well as their future with their families.

Secondly, the site can even talk about government rights and duties. By talking about the rights and duties of a citizen, it would help them understand their rights better and have the freedom of learning a wide range of public information.

Thirdly, the Delhi eGovernment would even provide money, tax and other benefits to its customers. It would show citizens information about different types of taxes, and how each tax is calculated and collected as well as what happens to the money.

The Delhi eGovernment would even provide information about various other things like :

• What is income tax and how it is applied?
• How much personal tax is an individual supposed to be entitled with?
• Details of common tax codes including emergency tax.
• Information on how tax codes are worked out.
• What does the Value Added Tax amount on receipts mean?
• The basics of Capital Gains Tax (CGT).

On the next page, we'll discuss potential security threats and concerns.

With the cost of computing power decreasing, companies have been able to collect and retain customer data more inexpensively. As the DEG would be used by millions of citizens, confidential and sensitive data, including their bank details and personal information, would be stored on the servers. Though speed and convenience for customer transaction processing is possible, the shift to e-based transactions has lead to malicious data theft which can result in hefty fines, legal liabilities and massive brand reputation damage leading to loss of customer trust and goodwill. These threats could be both internal and external and may include:

1. Legitimate clients who may have access to their Client Network Domain (CND) from which they can violate the service and access protected information commonly for financial gain.
2. Government officials and partner organizations who are responsible for the efficient operation of these services may seek to take advantage of their position by misusing their right to sensitive information.
3. Insiders who may be Government individuals who are able to mount an attack from the eGovernment Service Provision Domain (ESPD) but hold no responsibility for the eGovernment services.
4. Outsiders or individuals not associated with the eGovernment but have access to the Public Network Domain and thus have the information to attack and receive private information.
5. Criminals who may be attracted by prospective large-scale frauds of eGovernment services.
6. Foreign Intelligence services who wish to obtain information on the workings of another Government out of interest or also to cause disruption in the services.
7. Commercial organizations may seek to acquire information of competitors of eGovernment related sources.
8. Terrorist organizations attacking to disrupt the services or track down information on individuals.

However these risks can be mitigated by simple steps taken by the e-business team. These are:

1. Software to monitor access to information and computing systems needs to be installed. These could include passwords, network and host based firewalls, network intrusion detection systems, access control lists and data encryption tools.
2. Viruses and other malicious software threaten the integrity of IT systems, privacy and confidentiality of data and various steps are needed to be taken to mitigate the risk. Usually measures that are developed for detecting viruses can often detect malware as well. Thus, such programs need to be deployed.
3. eGovernment needs to be weary of its partner organizations and needs to get approval of various privacy policies.
4. Hacking and unauthorized access to IT systems which may be possible due to configuration errors, illicit use of access credentials and breaches of internal procedures need to be taken care of.
5. Written policies, procedures, standards and guidelines concerning information security need to be approved by all employees. These policies could include corporate security policy, password policy, hiring policy and disciplinary policy.
6. While hiring, strict background checks must be done. All employees should sign an agreement to follow confidentiality and security standards for handling customer information. Also information access to employees with a business motive should be limited.
7. Employees should be trained and updated regularly about such threats. Also, they should be asked to keep tough-to-crack passwords and encouraged to change on a regular basis. In addition, password activated screen savers should be used.
8. Employees should be strictly advised to keep all laptops, PDAs and cell phones in secure places. Also information should be in encrypted files.
9. Prevent terminated employees from accessing information by deactivating all rights to access the information.
10. When sensitive data is transmitted, a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) should be used to protect the information in transit.
11. Monitor the websites of your software vendors and read relevant industry publications for news about emerging threats and available defenses.
12. Maintain up-to-date programs and controls by regularly installing patches that resolve software vulnerabilities. Also maintain up-to-date firewalls.
13. Natural disasters might lead to mass volumes of data loss and, thus, there should be a data recovery system installed.

The Delhi eGovernment proves to be important for the citizens of the country. It helps in creating a better business environment and would even help in increasing the productivity and economic growth in rural and urban communities.

It proves to be helpful to the customers online as it refers to the effective delivery of public goods and services to them accompanied by quick response from the government with minimal direct intervention by a public official.

On the other hand, it even strengthens good governance and broadens public participation by promoting transparency and accountability in government. By increasing the government staff productivity, it helps in reducing overhead from fewer offices and there is less paper management.

Thus, e-government should result in the competent and quick delivery of goods and services to citizens, businesses, government employees and agencies. To citizens and businesses, e-government would mean the overview of procedures and reformation of the approval process. To government employees and agencies, it would mean the facilitation of cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure suitable and timely decision-making.

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