View: The need to look at India’s technology agenda in a holistic way

The Covid-19 crisis presents an opportunity for bold reforms, not just in infrastructure, regulations and local economies, but also in governance. And this can be implemented via a strategic view and push to use information technology (IT) in governance.

This not only means using our technological prowess, but also the need to take a wider view of state and central functions, sharing best practices among states, Centre-state cooperation, and a drive towards making governance more efficient, effective and accountable.

As a term, e-governance has been mostly used in India for citizen service deliveries at central and state levels with a focus on activities rather than on outcomes, except for examples like passport services. Many states like Karnataka, Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have made good strides in some areas.