Title: Policy issues for e-government services for rural areas

Authors: Biswatosh Sengupta, Mrinal Kumar Bandyopadhyay

Addresses: Department of Information Technology, B.P. Poddar Institute of Management and Technology, EN 31, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, India. ' M.B. Technosoft Consultants (P) Ltd., 252/2, Panchanantala Road, Howrah 711101, West Bengal, India

Abstract: E-governance or e-government uses the tools of Information Technology to enhance and speedup government|s activities more rationally for the welfare of the people. In this paper an attempt has been made to provide a brief scenario of Indian e-governance/Panchayat (rural government), to identify the gap and requirements for e-government services for rural areas, Information Kiosk for e-governance and to recommend Policy Issues for e-government Services for Rural Areas particularly emphasising the need for Small and Medium Entrepreneurs as alternative for rural economy for sustainable development considering various aspects.

Keywords: e-government services; policy issues; e-panchayat; baseline data; open systems; data repository; service metrics; information kiosks; electronic government; rural e-government; rural areas; local government; India; SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises.

DOI: 10.1504/IJED.2009.028543

International Journal of Electronic Democracy, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.136 - 148

Published online: 18 Sep 2009 *

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