When Government goes online

Sanath SIRIWARDENA

E-Government is the method of transacting with the Government electronically over the Internet. To obtain such services the respective Government must convert all its institutes and offices to Internet oriented places whereby allowing citizens to have access to services remotely. Once the service becomes available and ready to be served over the Internet, it is said to be online.

Today, Governments all over the world have adopted this modern method of serving citizens in respective societies, not only by increasing the efficiency of the tasks but also saving large sum of money spent annually for providing citizen services. Health, education, public services are the most prominent services which come under the e-Government process.

In a well developed e-Government environment where both public and private sectors are connected over the Internet, the lengthy transactions with the Government will be shortened considerably by cutting down the time it requires by more than half. Both the Government and the public would benefit from this.

Module

When e-Government process is concerned Sri Lankan module looks pretty immature even after a decade. During this period the Government and other institutes who are responsible for promoting information services in the country have consumed excessive time though information technology had not become idol for the general public. As we approach the end of 2008, the latter part of the first decade of this millennium, none of the Government institutes are capable of providing full featured online services to the general public.

The tender notices published on a close succession inviting vendors to undertake the developing of e-Government related services proves that the Government is still in its nascent stage when e-Government is concerned. Even the majority of Government web sites that are functioning, still provides very limited service to the public and that also are limited to providing information mainly of the institute itself and nothing more.

However in a well established e-Government environment a web portal must be capable of serving citizens with allmost every service that could be obtained using authentic methods by visiting the Government offices in person. To be more precise an online service is capable of providing even more enhanced services to the public over the Internet. In this regard the e-Government process should not be limited only to the building of web sites for the display. For example, putting train schedule on the Internet would not fulfill the requirements of the commuter unless they have been provided with online reservations.

If Government steps in to the e-Government mechanism it will never flourish unless we develop other commodities in the society simultaneously. In this regard how citizens would access the services put online by the Government is important. When the Government hosts services online citizens in the country must also be provided with the medium to access without difficulty irrespective of the locality of the client. This would be the biggest task we may ever face in the process of making electronic government a success. However providing facilities to the public for the access of services only would not be sufficient. A nationwide programme, tailor made to suit Sri Lankans must be conducted at the national level with the help of the Government.

Penetration

The reality is, the Internet penetration in the country is very low compared with other countries. Apart from this, an uneven growth has caused Internet not to reach the rural community timely in the past. Thus, many living in rural areas stay away from Internet as they are not provided with the medium to access the information super highway.

This is the point where Government intervention is need. E-Government process and providing access to the public more or less a single initiative that the State should undertake. Neither of them has no meaning individually to the society or to the economy as well. Therefore the Government must embark fully to promote Internet in the four corners of the island by taking everybody on aboard irrespective of social standards.

However the other alternative methods such as rural Internet centers can also be setup to facilitate low income users with no computer facility available at home. But to achieve significant growth rate in Internet penetration, individual connectivity must be provided to the public at affordable prices in addition to implementing e-centers throughout the country.

Anticipation

The question is how long Sri Lankans have to wait in anticipation to get connected to the Internet. If Internet providers in the country are hesitant to address the rural Internet coverage issue, what the Government should do is invite more operators to promote Satellite Internet services to overcome the bottleneck in the last mile. Since Satellite services like IPStar have reached other countries in Asia and Pacific, price fall of a home Satellite dish, VSAT (Very Small Satellite Terminal) is imminent in the future.

Telecommunication resource sharing mechanism is the next important thing that Sri Lankan telecom sector should embark on. Point to point data traffic transportation from one location to another especially in the backhaul segment could be done economically in most instances using the existing infrastructure of the other operator. More importantly, if Micro Wave is involved in the backhaul data transport, this minimises the requirement of scare resources of wireless frequency spectrum and this utilises it to the optimum.

This process will speed up the rural communication infrastructure development while saving millions of rupees providers spent individually in broadband development projects.

If correctly employed, the cost of broadband services can be brought down drastically whereby allowing low income rural subscribers to get connected to the Internet at affordable prices in the future. Finally this gives a better choice and a wide verity of Internet services to the end user in a competitive market environment.

Meanwhile, to motivate more and more people to get subscribed to the Internet, prices of the Internet services must immediately be brought down to the reach of the majority of people living in the country. To allow people to accomplish their tasks quickly and efficiently over the Internet, the quality of the service must be enhanced to meet the standards respectively. Failure in providing such standard in Internet services could cause public to loose confidence and if such condition trigger that would immediately impact adversely on the entire e-Government process.

Restrictions

The restrictions put up by the providers to limit the usage of the Internet had adversely affected the growth. Even though people have Internet at home they will find the capacity allocated is never permitting them to use it lavishly. If we continue this, people would never consider using Internet to access the services provided by the Government and continue to rely on the traditional methods when transacting with the Government.

However, when existing users are being concerned their awareness about Internet is at a very low level compared with other countries, the benefits of Internet waiting to be offered to the society have failed to do so. Therefore national priority should be given to educate the public about the benefits and advantages of Internet. This process must be conducted at the grass root level with the help of civic organisations in the country.

Especially when Government hosts services online, to attract public to use them over the Internet, a unique strategy must be developed and that assures the success of the e-Government process in the country. A bilingual feature enables the public to work and transact using their native language. This feature would increase the use of web services considerably in the future and this condition would play a major role in the developing of e-based web services in the country.

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