E-governance implementation in township level in Myanmar

Abstract

At the edge of globalization and technological advancement, public sector administration has to face an immense pressure. To cope with the mounting pressure the government has to be prompt, responsive, transparent and citizen-centric. It is beyond doubt that ICT backed government can ensure the desired services of the citizens and thus ICT integrated Egovernance has become a fashionable phrase to articulate the citizens’ demand to a reality creating values to their life. Keeping this in mind, the study has made an attempt to assess the e-readiness level of Township Administration of “TAMU” as a functional unit of field level bureaucracy from the perspective of both the officials and the beneficiaries. It has also attempted to identify the major factors that hinder the e-readiness initiatives of “TAMU” Township. For the purpose of the study, primary data are collected by using questionnaire survey and interview method. Then the findings from the primary data have been crossed verified with the benchmark of the “UN Five Stage Model of E-Governance” to have an overall scenario of ereadiness of Township Administration of “TAMU” Township. In the study lack of electricity, human capital, lack of infrastructure and logistics, web presence and citizens’ perception of beneficiaries are taken into consideration as independent variables for verifying the dependent variable, E-governance Readiness. The study reveals that the capability of officials in using computer is not up to the mark and their utilization level of computer facilities at workplace is considerably low. Also their electricity distribution power is too low. In case of infrastructure and logistics, it is found that the offices have not reasonable support of infrastructure and logistics and the trend in using computer and internet by the employee is gradually low. So, lack of infrastructure and logistics has deemed to be minimal effect on e-readiness at the field level administration right now. As per web presence concerned, the study reveals that every office has not website of its own. In context to perception of the beneficiaries, it is observed that most of the beneficiaries or the citizens are aware of the need of use of ICTs in the public administration. Nonetheless, they are found to be not satisfied in terms e-service delivery. The overall level of E-governance readiness of Township Administration of “TAMU” is at the Emerging stages of “UN Model”. This study comes up with some recommendations such as increase electric power distribution, development of human capital, increasing of the speed of Internet, and adopting arrangements for narrowing down the digital divide between the center and the periphery.