Dr Jitendra Singh to Release National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment 2021 Report

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of State of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, Dr Jitendra Singh will release the second edition of the National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment 2021 on 13^th June 2022. The NeSDA 2021 report has been prepared covering the assessment of States, UTs, and focus Central Ministries on their effectiveness in delivering online services to citizens. The report also provides suggestions for governments to further enhance their e-Governance service delivery systems.

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) had constituted the National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) in 2019 as part of its mandate to boost the e-government endeavours and drive digital government excellence. The biennial study assesses States, Union Territories (UTs), and focus Central Ministries on the effectiveness of e-Governance service delivery. NeSDA helps the respective governments improve their delivery of citizen centric services and shares best practices across the country for all States, UTs and Central Ministries to emulate.

DARPG embarked on the second edition of NeSDA study in January 2021. The NeSDA 2021 framework was finalized after multiple consultative workshops with States, UTs and Central Ministries from March 2021 to May 2021. The NeSDA 2021 Portal was formally launched in June 2021 to conduct the entire assessment process online. The data collection, synthesis and analysis processes spanned the next 12 months till May 2022. Regular review meetings were held during this period to provide necessary guidance to stakeholders. In addition to the DARPG team supported by NASSCOM and KPMG, 36 nodal officers from State and UTs and 15 nodal officers from Central Ministries came together to ensure the successful conduct of NeSDA 2021. More than one lakh responses from across the country were reviewed to finalize the findings of NeSDA 2021 report.

NeSDA 2021 covers services across seven sectors – Finance, Labour & Employment, Education, Local Governance & Utility Services, Social Welfare, Environment and Tourism sectors. The assessment covered 56 mandatory services for each States & UTs and 27 services for the focus Central Ministries. The second edition of NeSDA added eight State / UT level services and four Central Ministry services. Five of the State / UT level services assessed in NeSDA 2019 are now offered through Central Ministries and hence were not considered for the 2021 assessment.

The portals assessed were classified into one of two categories. State / UT / Central Ministry Portal, the designated portal of the respective government that provides a single window access to information and service links, is the first category. These portals were assessed on four parameters, viz., Accessibility, Content Availability, Ease of Use, and Information Security & Privacy. The second category comprises of the State / UT / Central Ministry Services Portals which focus on the digital delivery of services and provide service-related information. The Services Portals were assessed on an additional three parameters, viz., End-service Delivery, Integrated Service Delivery, and Status & Request Tracking. To facilitate comparative assessment of the progress in e-services across the country, the assessment parameters have remained the same as in the 2019 study.

NeSDA has followed the Good Governance Index 2021 grouping of the States and UTs. North-East and Hill States make up the first group while Union Territories make up the second group. The remaining states of India have been classified into two states as Remaining States – Group A and Remaining States – Group B.

NeSDA 2021 has shown clear progress for e-Governance services across the country. States and UTs have strived to implement to the recommendations of NeSDA 2019 for creation of integrated State / UT Portals and enhancing the number of services provided on their services portals. Further, governance in the times of the pandemic necessitated operationalization of security measures such as VPNs, flexible working policies including work-from-home, and development of several new apps that brought citizens and governments closer through use of technology inter alia providing timely services at the doorstep.

Improvement in the country’s e-Governance landscape may be summarized in the following key takeaways –

• Increase in e-Service Delivery
• Rise in use of Integrated / Centralized Portals for delivery of e-Services
• Improvement across assessment parameter scores

In NeSDA 2021, 1400 services across all States and UTs were assessed as compared to 872 in 2019, an increase of over 60%. 74% respondents of the nation-wide citizen survey conducted during the study had stated that they are satisfied with the e-Services provided by the States and UTs. The e-Services of Finance and Local Governance & Utility Services sectors were the most widely used by citizens. The rising trend of e-Services delivery shifting from single silo departmental portals to integrated / centralized portals has resulted in higher citizen satisfaction.

The NeSDA 2021 findings demonstrate the journey of e-Services towards citizen centricity and benchmarking governance. Governments across the country have put a stronger emphasis on integrated service delivery which has led to a greater number of e-Services being offered through integrated / centralized portals. These portals also provide unified access to services, improving accessibility and usability. They also provide a uniform digital experience to users, creating ease of use through intuitive navigation, uniform look and feel, improved content availability, robust information security, and privacy mechanisms. These factors have led to increase in scores across all assessment parameters.

An overall improvement has been seen in scores across all parameters and at all levels with Information Security & Privacy being the most improved parameter across all portals. Among the Central Ministry Portals, scores have improved for 4 portals. Among the Central Ministry Services Portals, scores have improved for 6 portals. Among States and UTs, scores have improved for 28 of the State / UT Portals and for 22 of the State / UT Services Portals. The NeSDA 2021 rankings are provided below.

Ranking of State / UT Portals is as follows:

Note: In 2021, the UTs of Lakshadweep and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu have not provided adequate data for assessment of their UT Portals. and hence they are not considered for analysis.

Among the North-East and Hill States, Meghalaya and Nagaland are the leading State Portals with an overall compliance of more than 90% across all assessment parameters. Among Union Territories, Jammu & Kashmir ranked the highest with an overall compliance of nearly 90%. Among the Remaining States, Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh had a compliance of more than 85%. Amongst all the States and UTs, Kerala had the highest overall compliance score.

Ranking of State / UT Services Portals is as follows:

Note: In 2021, the UT of Lakshadweep has not provided adequate data for assessment of their UT Services Portals and hence it is not considered for analysis.

Among the Services Portals for North-East and Hill States, the highest-ranking states of Meghalaya and Tripura showed improvement across all six sectors compared to NeSDA2019. In the Union Territories category, Jammu & Kashmir was assessed for the first time in NeSDA 2021 and scored the highest amongst all UTs for six sectors. Among the Remaining States, the overall score of Tamil Nadu increased the most in 2021 compared to 2019. Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Goa, and Odisha also improved the compliance of their Services Portals by 100%. Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan are the leading states with compliance of more than 75% across all parameters for their Services Portals.

Ranking of Central Ministries is as follows:

Note: The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has not provided adequate data for assessment of their services portal in 2021.

Among the focussed Central Ministries, Home Affairs, Rural Development, Education, and Environment, Forest & Climate Change are the leading Ministry Portals with an overall compliance of more than 80% across all assessment parameters. Ministry Portal of Home Affairs had the highest overall compliance score. The Central Public Procurement Portal, Digital Police Portal, and Bhavishya Portal are the leading Ministry Services Portals with an overall compliance of more than 85% across all assessment parameters.

The NeSDA 2021 report presents ample examples of the integrated service delivery portals of the States and UTs that provide the citizens a unified access point for a variety of government services. The report also features few portals of the Central Ministries that offer easy access to common services and create universally accessible digital resources. Initiatives of various district administrations for service delivery to seamlessly reach citizens up to the last mile have also been showcased in the report. This edition of the report has also highlighted measures implemented under the Digital India programme that enabled COVID-19 pandemic management.

While NeSDA 2021 has provided encouraging findings for the journey of e-Services excellence across India, there continues to be room for improvement in digital service delivery. The NeSDA 2021 report also provides suggestions for further improvement in the depth and effectiveness of e-Governance service delivery. Recommendations to improve assessment parameters and incorporate learnings from global digital government trends have also been included. Going forward some of these recommendations may be incorporated as assessment parameters to encourage the alignment of e-Services delivery with global digital government best practices. The progress shown by NeSDA embraces the vision of Digital India. Hence DARPG intends to conduct the next edition of NeSDA in 2023.