Examining the ‘e’ in government and governance: A case study in alternatives from Bangalore City, India

Veena V. Raman

Visiting postdoctoral scholar, Berkeley Center for Globalization and Information Technology

University of California, Berkeley. 

<veenavr@berkeley.edu>

Innovations in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have prompted many visions of creating channels of interactive communication between citizens and their governments (Grossman, 1995). This is particularly true in developing countries where providing access to technology and bridging the digital divide is promoted as necessary for development. While governments have spent considerably in designing many e-government initiatives, there is relatively little research to examine whether new ICTs actually serve to strengthen governance and deepen democracy in a developing country. What role can ICTs play in promoting citizen involvement and participation in government when there are large disparities in access and skill levels? This study examines these questions through a case study of e-government initiatives in Bangalore City, the information capital of India. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is a broadly used term that can encompass many technologies used to produce, process, exchange, and manage information and knowledge. In this study ICT is defined as computers, software, peripherals and connections to the Internet.

Though a developing country, India has emerged as the source of many skilled information workers and innovations such as the Simputer (a portable, less expensive alternative to conventional portable computers). It exported software and services worth $12.5 billion in 2003-2004 (Economic Times, 2004). Bangalore is the source of 45 % of India's software exports. It has been termed the information capital and the Silicon Valley of India. In 2002-03, this capital of Karnataka State in south India, had software exports of US $2.67 billion (Department of IT and Biotechnology, 2006). It is one of the ‘technopoles’, a hub integrating the region into the global information economy. It has been ranked in a UNDP survey as the world's fifth largest technolog centers. It is also the site of many initiatives to use information technology for development (Singhal and Rogers, 2001).

Yet, sizable portions of the city’s 6.52 million people remain beyond this information economy. According to the State government, Bangalore city has just over 60,000 Internet connections (Department of IT and Biotechnology, 2005)^. There is tension between participation in global operations and the local socioeconomic context. Bangalore exhibits pervasive forms of asymmetry between those who can participate in the global information economy and those who cannot (Madon, 1997). In an effort to satisfy the diverse and often conflicting demands of its citizens while dealing with urban fragmentation, poverty and the high cost of urban infrastructures and services, the local government is adopting information technology. This makes Bangalore an interesting site to study e-government initiatives. The prevalence of information technology in government offices and proliferation of government websites add a new aspect to the study of government and governance.

Role of Information Technology in Government and Governance

Though the terms e-government and e-governance are often used interchangeably, there is a need to differentiate between them.

The term government usually refers to formal institutions of the nation-state. It is a set of institutional forms that hold administrative monopoly over a territory with demarcated boundaries and borders, its rules sanctioned by law. It refers to the formal and institutional processes that are used to maintain common order and to facilitate collective action within a geographical boundary (Stoker, 1998a).

Governance is a broader and more inclusive term than government in that it encompasses the activities of a range of groups – political, social and governmental – as well as their interrelationships (Stren & Polese, 2000). The term governance includes the relationship between government and state agencies on the one hand and communities and social groups on the other and is not tied specifically to a place. It refers to the role of citizens in the policy process and how groups within a society organize to make and implement decisions. It tells a story of the processes of differentiation, networks, trust, diplomacy and coalition building (Rhodes, 1997). Governance puts an emphasis on the role of citizens in the policy process- from issue identification, to implementation, feedback and the evaluation of results. Citizens maximize the chances of representation for their interests by playing out strategies in the networks of relationships between various institutions. The new strategies are dominated by the network logic, in which power relations are always specific to a given configuration of actors and institutions. Information technologies such as the Internet, that operate on network logic, can play an important role in governance.

Information technologies also play an important role in government since governments collect, control and manage extensive information flows. The use of ICTs within and by governments has been called e-government. The debate on the scope and meaning of e-government includes such organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Gartner Research Group and Rand Europe, all of which have tried to define e-government.

E-government has been defined as the delivery of information and services online via the Internet. A common strand among the various attempts to define e-government is describing it as including different stages or phases. Thus for example, the UN-ASPA study identified five stages of e-government development (emerging, enhanced, interactive, transactional, and fully integrated or seamless), and the World Bank model identified publish, interact and transact as the three phases involved. The Gartner Group adds another phase, “transformation” to the definition. A comprehensive understanding of e-government includes employing information technologies to cut costs and improve the efficiency of government processes, new fee-for-service applications, and very broad expectations for facilitating democratic discourse through an electronic feedback loop between people and government. Heeks (1999) labels these as eAdministration, eCitizens, eServices and eSociety.

Digital technologies allow governments to develop strategies for improving their performance management by using information systems (Heeks, 1999). This is expected to make staff more accountable for their decisions and actions, and be responsive to their clients, and reduce corruption and inefficiency. Digital technologies allow decentralization since records and other information can be accessed from anywhere within a network thus creating opportunities for more flexible and responsive decision making.

In addition, Heeks (1999) suggests that information technology may be used to automate existing human-executed processes that involve information processing, support existing processes in government decision making, communication, and decision implementation; and help in creating innovative methods for public service delivery.

According to the e-government handbook published by Infodev (2002), “e-government is not simply a matter of giving government officials computers or automating old practices. Neither the use of computers nor the automation of complex procedures can bring about greater effectiveness in government or promote civic participation... Understood correctly, e-government utilizes technology to accomplish reform by fostering transparency, eliminating distance and other divides, and empowering people to participate in the political processes that affect their lives.” Expectations about e-government can be essentially boiled down to fostering transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and participation.

However, currently, many e-government initiatives focus on simply adapting ecommerce models as for example developing new ways of providing fee-for-service applications over the Internet (Holmes, 2001). Norris (2003) argues that e-government has succeeded in facilitating information and service provision, not citizen engagement.

Information technology, democracy, participation and civic empowerment

Information technologies may or may not be used to foster democratic communication and empower citizens and this holds true for computers and the Internet.

Internet enthusiasts have pointed to the possibility that it could lead to increased political engagement, erase boundaries between the public and private sphere; provide direct links to policymakers; and expand opportunities for political deliberation (Porter, 1997; Norris 2001). A few studies provide some evidence for this claim (Wilkund, 2005; Weber, Loumakis & Bergman, 2003). Other studies suggest that, if a correlation exists between information technology advances and civic engagement, it seems to be negative (Bimber, 2001, 2003; Schudson, 1998). This has prompted some scholars to be more skeptical, arguing that the Internet is more likely to reinforce, not reverse, established patterns of political communication, widening gaps between elites and non-elites (Norris, 2001; Bimber, 2003) which could impair democratic communication and action.

Democracy is a broadly defined term and is practiced in many different ways. Comprehensively defined, democracy includes an elected government, free and fair elections, universal suffrage, freedom of conscience, information and expression on all public matters broadly defined, the right to oppose the government and stand for office, and associational autonomy (Held, 1996). Based on classic theories of democracy, it is possible to identify three distinct theoretical variations – pluralist, representative and direct democracy. The role of ICTs in promoting democracy is slightly different under each theory.

Those who emphasize pluralist democracy argue that ICTs can improve citizen-government transactions, enhance administrative efficiency in service delivery, improve performance and increase citizen satisfaction with government while heightening the voice of networked groups and civic organizations. Proponents of representative democracy stress that ICTs could improve accountability through the electoral process, allowing citizens to be more informed so that they can evaluate the government, elected representatives, and alternative policy proposals. When information technologies (IT) are used to correct the failures of the current political system and increase democratic quality without altering their structures, it promotes continuation of representative democracy (Hacker & van Dijk, 2000). Advocates of direct democracy hope that by facilitating new forms of interaction between citizens and governments, ICTs can channel citizens’ voices and priorities into the policymaking process (Norris, 2003).

An alternative conceptualization is provided by Barber (2003) in his formulation of thin, plebiscitary, and strong democracy. Under thin democracy, experts and elites do the actual work of government and citizens remain watchdogs and monitors. Here the role of ICTs would be to just facilitate the watchdog function. A strong democracy incorporates participatory and deliberative elements without necessarily being a direct democracy. In this case ICTs would play a role in encouraging widespread participation and deliberation.

While the Internet may be used to establish privileged networks that leave out many and create social exclusion, it can be considered a new form of public space since its decentralized nature allows many voices to be heard. Kellner (1999) argues that the Internet should be seen as a site of struggle, as contested terrain. The possibilities for making use of it as a tool for resistance, to circulate struggles should be considered. Cyber-activists attempt to carry out globalization from below by developing networks of solidarity. Such networking links many social movements thus providing the basis for a new politics of alliance to overcome the limitations of post modern identity politics, to contest the mainstream, and offer alternative views and politics. This is subject to bridging the many of the digital divides that currently exist. 

In summary, ICTs could be used for increasing transparency in government, improving citizen satisfaction by delivering efficient services, providing opportunities for electronic ballot casting and stimulating citizen involvement through civic consultation. However studies suggest that ICT has largely been successfully employed in streamlining labor-intensive bureaucratic transactions rather than in participatory or consultative efforts to promote democratic practices (Chadwick & May, 2003).

Citizen participation and engagement is not deterministically driven by adoption of information technology. It is contingent upon individual resources, capacities, and predispositions and on how collective action organizations and other groups use the greater access to information now available to them to influence and mobilize people. Though ICTs allow connections to be made, they are tools; they do not facilitate deliberative engagement on their own. Facilitation of such engagement is a cultural-democratic function. ICTs offer another communication channel, but they cannot address factors such as availability and utilization of resources, ability or inclination for political action. It is the interaction between technology, citizens, and policymaking elites that tends to shape the face of democracy. This is particularly important in developing countries where scarce resources have to be used for ‘development’, which could involve providing drinking water, electricity, roads, education or medical facilities. The role for ICTs in such cases is enabling access to these services.

ICTs and development

Employing ICTs as tools to support economic and social development has a long tradition in development literature (Lerner, 1962; Schramm, 1964; Rogers, 1995). With the advent of the Internet, this too has been incorporated into development discourse (Heeks, 2002, 1999) and research has emerged concerning how the Internet might be used to support the development process (Roman & Colle, 2003). Simultaneously, development as a meta-discourse has been subject to severe doubts and criticisms (Biccum, 2002;Tehranian, 1999). The role of ICTs in development is now part of a wider debate about the nature of development itself (Morales-Gomez & Melesse, 1998; Hartmann, Patil & Dighe, 1989).

India figured prominently in these discussions (Miller, 2001), and in the case studies of successes and failures in using the Internet for development (Bhatnagar & Schware, 2000). The digital divide remains one of the main issues for India. Keniston (2004) identifies four areas manifesting a digital divide: Disparities in access to ICTs between rich and poor nations, a linguistic-cultural gap online between the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture and other cultures, the gap within a country between the digitally empowered rich and the poor; and the emerging gap between the rest of the people and an affluent elite digerati who live in special enclaves and may disregard local conventions, authority and traditional hierarchies. All these are visible in India.

The most affluent groups, concentrated in major cities, with a good command of English, education and cutting edge IT knowledge constitute the vast majority of users. A majority of India’s population however, live in rural areas, are poor, and have limited access to ICTs. There is also a great need for a development of Indian language fonts to remove language barriers and to facilitate localization of content.

E-government provided through kiosks has been promoted as one solution to the digital divide (Kaushik & Singh, 2004). However, while E-government initiatives have commanded significant resources in implementation and there have been few on-the ground-experience based studies of these implementations.  

Data collection and research design

Data for this study was collected between June 2003 and January 2005. The material provided here is part of a larger research project undertaken for a doctoral dissertation. The data collection process for the dissertation included multiple methods and strategies: analysis of e-government websites, policy documents and reports; interviews with policy makers, government executives, and individuals representing three major agenda builders in the e-government space in Bangalore; a survey of 993 Bangaloreans to assess how citizens contacted and interacted with their local government and their use of information technology; and participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Bangaloreans who were part of two initiatives to promote citizens participation in local government called PROOF (public record of operations and finance) and WardWorks.

The data presented in this paper is drawn from the analysis of e-government websites, and participant observation and semi-structured interviews with people participating in PROOF and WardWorks initiatives.

Bangalore City, Karnataka: A profile

Bangalore is the fifth most populous city in India with a population of 6.52 million. The city had a literacy rate of 83%, with a discrepancy between men (76.29%) and women (57.45%), according to the 2001 Indian census. In April 2004, the city had only 916,065 telephone connections and just over 60,000 Internet connections (Bangaloreit.com, 2006). No official statistics were available regarding the number of mobile telephones.

The average per capita income in the city for 2002-03 was Rs. 18,000 ( Rs 43 = US$1) (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, 2003). In 2004, the cost of buying a computer in Bangalore was about Rs. 40,000. Accessories such as printers, and ensuring Internet connection for a year can cost anywhere between Rs. 5000 to 10,000. Investment in a computer can be an expensive proposition. Thus, except in upper-income enclaves or families with an employee who could secure loans, home access to a computer and the Internet was not a common phenomenon. Many people use cybercafes to access computers (Haseloff, 2005) but there are no official statistics about the number of cybercafes in Bangalore city or the number of people who use them.

E-government in Bangalore

Bangalore city, as the capital of Karnataka State, is affected by state level policies, and actions. This section provides an overview of state e-government policy and analyzes the e-government services available to citizens.

Karnataka state has been seen as a pioneer in IT. Its e-readiness level for 2004 was assessed as the highest in India based on its infrastructure, human resources, policy regimes and investment climate by the Department of Information Technology (Kaur, 2005, April 16). In 2001, which was declared as the ‘Year of e-governance’ by the Government of India, Karnataka’s state government announced a number of e-government initiatives (New Indian Express, 2001, December 24). In 2003, as part of administrative reforms, the Government of Karnatak (GoK) created a position called ‘e-government secretary’. The position of the e-government secretary is a state level office, and the appointee is selected from the Indian Administrative Service. The GoK has been widely cited as a leader in e-government and has received awards for its initiatives in this area.

According to the official website of the GoK Department of IT and Biotechnology its policy focuses on “using e-governance as a tool and delivering a government that is more pro-active and responsive to its citizens.” (Bangaloreit, 2006). The objectives stated in the official document ‘e-Governance strategy for Karnataka’, declare that information technology should be used to usher in an era of Electronic Governance aimed at demystifying the role of Government; simplifying procedures; bringing transparency; making need-based, good quality and timely information available to all citizens; and providing all services in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The government defines e-government as involving “the application of Information and Communication Technologies to bring about more speed, transparency and responsiveness to the various areas of governmental activities resulting in enhanced accountability and empowerment of people. E-Governance will cover transactions and information exchange between Government and citizen, Government and business and within Government itself.”

The policy declaration further states that the government is convinced that “e-Governance can help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, between the developed and the less developed, between the urban and the rural population by providing equality of opportunity and empowering the poor”. The primary aim of Mahiti – The Millennium IT Policy is to use “e-Gov as a tool and deliver a government that is more proactive and responsive to its citizens”[1]. To this end, government websites should aid an average citizen by providing contact information that would enable a citizen to find out whom to call or write to, information on services for obtaining a service or grievance redress, icon based Kannada interface that would facilitate e-Gov access by the common man, a facility for payment of all utility charges online and interactive features that would facilitate democratic outreach.

The rhetoric of the policy encompasses employing information technology in service provision by the government and in facilitating democratic outreach between government and citizens. There is a clearly stated expectation that e-government will lead to ‘greater transparency, accountability, equality of opportunity and empowerment of the people’. However, on the official website of the Department of IT and Biotechnology, the following statement appears “E-governance or electronic governance may be defined as delivery of government services and information to the public using electronic means.”

To examine what local government services citizens of Bangalore city could access through the use of ICTs, a search was conducted online to access all local government and State government websites. State government websites were included because many state level agencies provide services to Bangalore city and are considered to represent government services by Bangaloreans. The list of e-government services available to Bangaloreans between June 2003 and August 2004 is provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Government services accessible to citizens online

The websites were evaluated for the presence of various features related to information availability, service delivery, privacy and security, and public access. Over the past several years, researchers have used different methods for evaluating e-government services. This research adapts measures developed by West (2005) and Holzer & Melitski (2003).

Information Availability: As of August 31, 2004 all the websites listed in Table 1 provided contact information. They had telephone numbers, email addresses and mail addresses. Bangaloreit.com and NIC provided links to other websites. However, none of them provided any online publications, searchable online databases, or audio clips. 

Service delivery: Bangaloreit.com (5) and NIC (7) were the two websites that offered the maximum number of services as of August 31, 2004. None of the websites offered services that could be completely performed online without physically visiting a government office or government kiosk. They did not offer electronic payment facilities where payment could be made through credit card or direct bank deposit [2]. None of the websites allowed digital signatures. On all the websites, even when forms were accessible, the citizen had to print the form and mail it back or hand deliver the completed form to obtain the service, none of them could be counted as transactions fully executed online.

Privacy and security: None of the websites had visible statements about the privacy of data or the security policies of the government. This is understandable since there were no facilities to enable the citizen to share information with the government online. There were no statements regarding cookies or the disclosure of information to law enforcement officials.

Public Access: Public access was assessed based on features that would help citizens contact government officials and use the information provided on the websites. All the websites listed above provided email addresses of the officials to be contacted. However, they did not have search functions that would help citizens look for specific kinds of information. There were no features to help citizens get updates about information on the websites either through email or mobile phone.

E-government services for Bangalore city were not prioritized for a long time after the Mahiti policy was announced. When field work was conducted for this study between June 2003 and August 30, 2004, the only local government website available to citizens was that of the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP). The BMP is responsible for civic development within the Greater Bangalore Metropolitan area, which covers 224.66 sq. km. (divided into 100 wards) with a population of 6.8 million. BMP handles more than 20 different types of functions that allow it to interface with Bangalore’s citizens.

The website www.blrbmp.org was created in May 2000 under Commissioner K. Jairaj. On this website, there were nine sections to provide information : BMP (listing its short history, names of the Commissioner, Mayor, Deputy Mayor), protocol (listing of road digging activities), Budget (features of the budget), committees (standing committees of BMP), Public Grievance Cell (with a format to register complaints), the Garden City (important landmarks of the City), Your Representatives (names of the councilors), Self-Assessment Scheme (property tax) and the Vision (BMP vision statement). One year after the launch of the website, complaints surfaced that the website was not updated, contained incorrect information, and did not contain information that might be useful to citizens (Belgaumkar, 2001).

Confusion about the official site of the BMP began when the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) created another website for the BMP called www.blrbmp.com. However, this site was not the official website of the BMP and so did not provide access to any online services. The other local government website that was expected to be accessible was the Bangalore One portal. However, this portal did not become operational between 2003 and 2004 due to many delays.

A new website was created for the BMP called www.bmponline.org in June 2004. This website had more links than the old versions. However under the tab ‘citizen friendly schemes’, it listed 9 schemes though the links were not functional.  There were no links to the list of councilors or standing committees, no services or information related to services were provided online.  BMP’s official website did not provide accurate information about who the mayor was – it had not been updated when data collection ended on August 31, 2004. There were no email addresses where citizens could reach the Mayor or the Commissioner. There was no search function or a feature that would enable citizens to comment. There was no statement about the privacy of information since there were no features to facilitate exchange of information between citizens and government. News reports suggest that the situation of lack of up to date information and lack of citizen friendly services continued into the year 2005 (Yasmeen, 2005).

Thus if any of the various stages or phases of e-government models are applied to Bangalore City, it would be classified as belonging to stage one, where it is publishing some information and has established its presence online. There were no transactional or interactive features and the Mahiti policy goal of facilitating democratic outreach did not materialize on the official websites. Thus within the framework of the phased development model of e-government, Bangalore City cannot be classified as having successful e-government initiatives that lead to fostering accountability, effectiveness or participation opportunities for citizens. This assessment holds true if we rely exclusively on citizens employing ICTs to interact with their government as constituting the definition of e-government and e-governance.

The case changes if we do not make technology central to our analysis but look for evidence of citizen participation in government and governance and try to examine what role information technology can play in that process.

PROOF : Public Record Of Operations and Finance

Without transparency, financial reporting, and structured disclosure norms from government institutions, citizens cannot participate in governance. PROOF was created as a mechanism to address this problem. Beginning in July 2002, the Bangalore City Corporation has made public its financial statements to provide full and accurate performance information to the city’s various stakeholders. Each quarter, a public meeting is held where city government officials meet citizens to discuss the city’s standardized financial statements, a set of performance indicators as well as a report that contains the city government’s management discussion and explanatory statements. Citizens question specific expenditure items and request clarification of decisions made. This system operates on the rationale that disclosure of accurate and timely information is a necessary condition for good governance.

Anatomy of PROOF

In the early 1990s, Bangalore became a major destination for software development in India. Many multinational companies set up offices in the city, attracting job seekers from all over India (Bangaloreit.in, 2005). This resulted in increasing pressure on the city’s infrastructure and greater service demands from the growing population. The city did not have the financial strength to undertake any infrastructure projects on its own and had to approach capital markets for funding. This brought the city government face to face with the realities of its finances. What they found there was inefficient resource mobilization and utilization, lack of information and evaluation, and a lack of transparency and accountability. As the capital of Karnataka State, Bangalore was seen by the state government as critical to its projected image as the ‘software destination of India’. The Chief Minister of the state set up a committee – the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) – to address these problems (BATF, 2003). As part of the changes to city government, the accounting system was revamped.

With funds provided to the BATF by a private foundation, Rs. 15 million was spent in moving the city’s single entry accounting to a fund based accounting system. A management information system was put in place and accounting became a core activity. A fundamental institutional transformation was achieved so that the information flow cycle was reduced from a 48-day cycle to 2 days, creating a single source database that facilitated quick management decisions (BATF, 2003). The political support from the Chief Minister enabled the BATF team to overcome resistance to mapping the old system and reengineering it, and training personnel. This change in systems led to a complete overhaul of public works management. The Corporation could provide specific details of finances, public works undertaken and status of infrastructure initiatives through the Internet, through email and through traditional means such as print. Thus the stage was set to enable the city government to respond to requests for information from members of the public. While citizens and the Bangalore City Corporation have a common interest in the city’s functioning, there was no formal mechanism for them to work together prior to PROOF. Citizens working through four civic groups, Janaagraha, VOICES, Public Affairs Center, and Center for Budget and Policy Studies mobilized the community groups to participate in PROOF meetings.

Since August 2002, public meetings have been held to discuss the city’s budget, its actual revenues and expenditures, with a detailed list and valuation of its assets and liabilities. The local government in Bangalore City consists of both elected representatives and career administrative officers appointed by the state government. The city is divided into 100 wards. Each ward elects a Corporator. The Corporators elect one member from among them as the Mayor. The day-to-day administration of the city is handled by the career officers appointed by the state government. This group of people is headed by the Commissioner. A Special Commissioner is his deputy. An Additional Commissioner handles the city’s finances and there are seven Deputy Commissioners who work for the Commissioner. The PROOF public meetings are generally attended by the Mayor of Bangalore City, and the Additional Commissioner.

In the public meetings, citizens present their analysis of the budget. They point out discrepancies in the budget and the Additional Commissioner of Finance responds. This is followed by an open house where citizens question the Corporation officials about specific expenses. Citizens also participate in the formulation of the Corporation’s budget. To facilitate this process, three retired officials from government finance departments lend their expertise to citizens’ discussions and planning during weekly discussions. They prioritize public works from their local areas in areas such as road repairs, footpaths, and drainage; and examine ways to improve the budget, and enhance revenue collection. Citizens have been involved in proposing methods to double property tax receipts by researching various issues such as assessment of tax on government residential properties. They also examine whether all the obligatory functions of the Corporation are being carried out.

WardWorks

In addition to participating through PROOF, Bangaloreans also participate at the level of their local wards through an initiative called WardWorks. WardWorks is citizen follow up on public works going on in their wards, relying on the same accounting and information management system that made PROOF possible. Adoption of the new computerized accounting system helps the Corporation streamline application of resources, plan for the future, and facilitate prioritization of activities that need funds. It also facilitates the generation of a monthly report called Arthika Darpana. This allows for the generation of a ward-wise budgetary allocation index. The Corporation could also provide online access to ward level budgets. Citizens make use of this information to hold their elected representatives and service providers accountable and influence decisions about projects to be undertaken.

While ward level works constitutes a relatively small item in the city budget (6%), it allows citizens to participate in selection, prioritization and implementation of various local works. Bangalore has 100 wards. When field work was conducted for this research, 10 wards in the city were active participants in WardWorks. The leadership of the city corporation, Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, was persuaded by citizens working through the Janaagraha civic group to mandate attendance by their ward engineers, health officials and other employees at a monthly review meeting. It was established that points raised in the meetings would be part of the official record.

The monthly review meetings involve accessing the ward works index for each ward for a given month and discussing the progress of works with the officials responsible. This gives citizens an overview of how money has been spent and provides a critical formal space to hold the agencies responsible for ward-level issues and press forward with the agenda of their neighborhood vision documents. Currently, communities in different wards hold monthly review meetings, where they meet with their Corporators, engineers, police inspectors, and other officials dealing with electricity, water and sanitation to discuss ward works and work together in tackling civic problems. Some of the most successful wards have been those with serious infrastructure problems. Constructive engagement with government officials has occurred when residents selected specific issues and employed a focused approach to meeting officials, pursuing them over time and following up on their issues until they were satisfied with the solutions. These initiatives have some similarities to citizen participation processes in Porto Allegre in Brazil.

One important question is the sustainability of these initiatives. Is this just a local initiative that will fizzle out or can it be extended to other places? Citizens working through Janaagraha have moved beyond the local government level to lobby the central government of India. In a measure of their success, their suggestions that for two amendments to State Municipal Acts – first, to provide urban voters with a legitimate platform ‘Area Sabha’ to participate in their neighborhood as part of the Ward Committees (modeled on monthly review meetings) and second, to require municipalities to disclose quarterly audited statements of performance (modeled on PROOF) have been accepted by the central government of India.

On December 3, 2005, the central government announced the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) – a seven year program to financially support 63 cities and help urban renewal. The goals of this mission include enabling modern and transparent budgeting and financial management systems in urban government, city-wide frameworks for planning and governance, access to basic services, transparent and accountable governance and the introduction of e-government services. Suggestions about amendments made by citizens working through Janaagraha have been included in the list of Mandatory Reforms required in the JNNURM.

PROOF and WardWorks: What do they achieve?

Bangalore City Corporation is the first local government in India to make its financial statements public. PROOF meetings are unique in the extent to which citizens are able to require transparency and accountability from their local government in addition to participating in the budgeting process. The public meetings have provided a formal mechanism for citizens to question local government officials on their priorities for the city and request clarifications where required. PROOF has also led to a comprehensive framework for assessing local government performance. It has enabled citizens to be actively involved in working with the local government to improve quality of life in Bangalore.

Through WardWorks, citizens in Bangalore are able to engage in participatory budgeting for the first time. In this process, they identified Rs 100 million of ward works as priorities for the financial year 2002-03 of which Rs 50 million of works was included in the Program of Works.

The process of prioritization led to citizens engaging in dialogue with other citizen groups/associations in their wards. Instead of collapsing into chaos, these meetings proved that with enough information and opportunities to participate in decision-making citizens could work together effectively. They were able to compromise when they saw the process as being fair and transparent. They also monitored the implementation of works to improve the value received for their tax rupees and to make their neighborhoods more livable.

Through the monthly review meetings, citizens interact with their elected representatives and BMP to review works going on in their ward and provide feedback and suggest changes or new additions. These meetings are conducted with along with digital reports generated from a regularly updated database made possible by FBAS. This has led to citizen partnership in local government. While the state government has discouraged decentralization and sharing of power in practice, citizens groups have been able to take advantage of a simple computerization process within local government to gain more space for participation in governance.

The progress of PROOF and WardWorks has not been without challenges. Elected representatives have voiced criticism of citizens working through Janaagraha since they feel threatened by citizens who want to participate in the budgeting process and prioritizing ward works. Budgeting and deciding on ward works are sources of power for elected representatives. Active citizens have been threatened with police cases. It is clear from the multiple statements made by elected representatives in the BMP council that they do not believe in allowing citizens to participate, they see themselves as the only legitimate decision making entities in local government. 

Why is citizen participation in governance opposed in practice in Bangalore?

Historically, Karnataka state has retained a high level of concentration of power at the level of the state government. Some of this has been attributed to a legacy of colonial practices. Bangalore City figured prominently in colonial government as a cantonment for British troops and this affected how democratic traditions evolved in the local government. Bangalore was designated a municipality in 1862 when nine citizens formed a municipal board. However, it did not have a single unified governing body and the British Resident held wide discretionary powers. Lord Mayo’s (British Viceroy of India from 1869-1872) doctrine of administrative efficiency in local government at the expense of popular participation which was perceived as taking considerable time to evolve and likely result in inefficiencies, strongly influenced the emerging philosophy of local government (Prasanna, Aundhe & Saldanha, 2000).

When the British withdrew in 1947, Karnataka State opted for a “weak Mayor” system. All the areas around Bangalore were consolidated under one authority through the Bangalore City Corporation Act of 1949. The Act provided for direct election of representatives by wards (smallest administrative unit in the city). Each representative would serve on the city council for five years. The chair of the city council would be Mayor--a council member elected by the representatives for a term of one year. The executive authority rested in the City Commissioner who was appointed by the state government. All major decisions on daily administration of the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC), known as the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) in Kannada, passed through the office of the Commissioner. Thus, though there was an evoking of democratic local government, the state government in fact retained executive power.  

This situation persists today even though the Nagarapalika Act of 1993 mandated major changes in urban governments. The provisions of the Act were aimed at promoting local democratic participation in municipal government. Yet, decentralization and devolution of power was thwarted in Karnataka during its implementation (Heitzman, 1999). Even though the citizens elect their local representatives, the power such representatives wield is limited. The indirect election of the Mayor and the short, one year tenure, makes the position that of a figurehead with no executive authority. Though the BMP is a legislative body that makes policies, it is the Commissioner who executes those policies. Citizens have no mechanism to hold the Commissioner accountable. Thus to some extent, decentralization and enhancement of people’s participation in local governance remain principles that are not realized in practice.

PROOF and WardWorks as opportunities for citizens to participate in local government have to be viewed within this context. They indicate that information technology introduction at the institutional level can have a major impact even when ICTs use among individuals is not widespread and is hampered by a digital divide. The role of information technology in PROOF & WardWorks was generating new kinds of information and altering information flows rather than facilitating community networks or e-consultation with government officials. Findings indicate that even in this limited role, information technology could facilitate citizen participation. Though the participation channels were traditional in nature, information technology made participation possible through new information flows. This is an instance where participation and civic empowerment are the result of ICTs interacting with the structure and process of local government, in tandem with civic action. These initiatives would not be possible without the new computerized accounting and information management system and public access to that information.

However, greater availability of information is not a sufficient condition to promote citizen participation. PROOF and WardWorks relied extensively on educating citizens, building their capacity and identifying the opportunities for citizen participation. Considerable time and energy was spent in mobilizing existing neighborhood organizations and resident welfare associations to help generate resources locally and to motivate citizens to participate.

Discussion

The findings from this case study indicate a need for reevaluation of how we define e-governance in the developing world, particularly in the context of citizen engagement and civic empowerment. If the expectations for e-government and e-governance are focused around using ICTs, achieving citizen participation through e-consulting or e-engagement seem impossible goals. This is because a majority of the population has to deal with issues of physical access to technology, lack of infrastructure such as reliable electricity, lack of relevant content in local languages and disparate skill levels. If Bangalore is any indicator, even information capitals in developing countries cannot aim to achieve the goals.

Secondly, if we assume that for successful e-government there is need for educated citizens, appropriate technical infrastructure and online services that meet citizens’ needs, and commitment from government officials to finance and provide policy leadership on all these aspects, most developing countries will have to wait for a long time to achieve these before citizen engagement and civic empowerment happen through e-government. Asymmetrical and entrenched power relations, lack of resources and skills among a majority of the population and citizen needs for basic infrastructure such as drinking water and electricity are daily realities in many developing countries.

If governance is the process where citizens mobilize, network and try to influence their governments, it is already happening in developing countries in different ways without extensive use of information technology. Thus empowering them in the governance process through information technologies currently is a question of small changes within strategic areas in government that can provide opportunities for participation. Defined in this way, the issues for e-governance research are about investigating how institutional structures such as legislation or the budget affect development of governance processes and how information technology might interact with these processes. There is a need to examine how civic groups use information technologies and participate in governance despite pervasive digital divides.

If elected representatives see citizen participation as a threat to their power, there is no reason for them to encourage participation. Yet, decentralization and multiple actors sharing power are becoming important in network societies though participatory democracy is not the goal of all the actors. Future research has to examine how politicians and bureaucrats deal with this tension and what factors promote power-sharing beyond the obvious gains of improving trust in government and an efficient use of resources. PROOF and WardWorks illustrate the need to study the power of information technology in the context of bureaucratic government organizations, the structure of government, and the deep-rooted patterns of civic engagement.

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