Challenges of E-Governance

Environmental and Social Challenges

• Low digital literacy: digital literacy in India is less than 10%.

• Digital divide: The digital divide encompasses the technical and financial ability to use existing technology, besides access (or a lack of access) to the internet connectivity.

• Language issue: most of the e-governance apps are made in the English language or if it is in a limited number of languages. So it does not cater to the linguistic diversity of India.

• Resistance to change: This nature is shown by the stakeholders to move from a paperbased to a web-based system to interact with the government.

Economic Challenges: 

• Cost: E-governance measures are expensive and require a huge public expenditure. A huge amount of money is involved in implementation, operational and evolutionary maintenance tasks.

• Interoperability of the software: e-governance applications must be independent from hardware or software platforms.

• Lack of indigenization: India is dependent on other countries especially China for hardware for electronic devices. It increases the cost of e-governance measures.

• Maintenance of electronic devices: Because information technology evolves at a rapid pace, It is quite difficult for us to rapidly update our existing systems.

Technical Challenges: 

• Privacy and Security: incidents of data leak and cyber-attacks on governance sites have added concerns to the implementation of e-governance measures.

• Connectivity: Connectivity to far-flung and backward areas is a challenging task for the government.

• Local language: Most of the e-governance applications are written in English. As a result, e-Government projects do not succeed.
• Limited human resources: there is a lack of trained and efficient personnel to tackle the growing menace of cybercrimes linked to digitalization as well as to develop new technology.