Understanding SOA perspective of e-Governance in Indian context: Case based study

Abstract

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a contemporary phenomenon which is targeted for efficient and inclusive business automation. E-Governance services worldwide are no less than a business paradigm with clearly defined delivery and are creating potential for citizen centric services. Various information technology enabled services are planned for benefiting the support structure (e-government) and interfacing this structure with citizens' demands (e-governance). SOA principles and models are being used for building good e-government systems. Good results of e-government systems notwithstanding, such projects are not free from challenges in many countries. Graduating e-government systems to e-governance systems needs a critical evaluation of citizen participation. In Indian context, this challenge is prevalent because of various issues including digital divides, supply driven approaches of the government systems and inadequate inclusion of developmental perspectives. Various e-governance pilot projects which delivered expected results could not sustain during scale up. This phenomenon provides a scope to appreciate underpinnings of e-governance strategies. In this paper, e-governance systems are given due importance and it is posited that citizen participation with developmental perspectives would lead to better citizen centric services and would also provide scope for demand driven growth of egovernance services. It is also argued that SOA principles adopted with citizen orientation in the value chain would provide this desired result. In Indian context, this issue is relevant as it poses a major challenge for e-governance policy makers to successfully incorporate citizen participation, especially with development perspectives and sustain this participation during scale up. Mapping of SOA oriented components are discussed through two case studies in Indian context to appreciate the issue.