“In the happiness of his people lies the king’s happiness, in their welfare his welfare”. -Kautilya
Good governance is an administrative approach defined by transparency, accountability, responsiveness, equity, and inclusiveness.
Core Principles of Good Governance (UNDP)
Participation: Direct/indirect citizen involvement in decision-making. Eg: Gram Sabhas.
Rule of Law: Fair legal frameworks enforced impartially. Eg: Independent judiciary.
Transparency: Free flow of accessible information. Eg: Mandatory disclosures under the RTI.
Responsiveness: Institutions serving stakeholders within timeframes. Eg: Citizens’ Charters and CPGRAMS grievance portal.
Consensus Orientation: Eg: Federal consensus in GST Council meetings.
Equity/Inclusiveness: Ensuring all members feel valued. Eg: PM Jan Dhan Yojana’s universal financial inclusion.
Effectiveness/Efficiency: Optimizing resources for societal needs. Eg: Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) reducing subsidy leakages.
Accountability: Answerability of officials to the public. Eg: Mandatory CAG audits of government spending.
Success of Recent E-Governance Initiatives
Eliminating Welfare Leakages-
Paperless Document Access- Eg- DigiLocker crossing 67.63 crore registered users, hosting over 950 crore verified digital documents.
Telemedicine Reaching Remote Areas- Eg- The eSanjeevani platform providing digital medical services to over 45.42 crore remote patients.
Real-Time Payment and Financial Inclusion- Eg- Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
Democratization of Digital Commerce: Eg: The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) supporting over 1.16 lakh retail sellers across 630 cities.
Unified Public Grievance Redressal: Eg: The UMANG App offering citizens smooth, singular access to over 1,700 diverse public utility services.
Scientific Grassroots Nutrition Monitoring: Eg: The POSHAN Tracker continuously monitoring nutrition metrics for 8.9 crore children in 14.03 lakh Anganwadi centers.
Major limitations
Aadhaar-Linked Service Failures- Eg: Santoshi Kumari (11) starvation death in Simdega, Jharkhand (2017)
The Persistence of Digital Divide: Only 38% of rural households have high-speed broadband vs. 85% in urban clusters.
Digital Illiteracy: only 38% rural population digitally literate. Eg: Dependence on “CSC Middlemen” for simple tasks like PM-Kisan registration due to UI/UX complexity.
Linguistic Barriers: Eg: Despite “Bhashini,” real-time voice-to-text accuracy in tribal dialects (like Santhali or Gondi) remains below 60%.
Digital gender gap: Only 37% of Indian women have adopted mobile internet and only 26% use it regularly. (UNDP).
Aadhaar exclusion: A 2017 starvation death in Jharkhand’s Simdega due to Aadhaar-linked ration card failure exposed authentication risks.
Bureaucratic Resistance: Lower-level officials often view e-governance as a threat to their discretionary power.
Manpower & Skill Gaps: Eg: Dependence on private consultants for maintaining critical state data centers (SDCs).
Cybersecurity Threats: CERT-In reported 2.94 million cyber incidents in 2025, specifically targeting state-owned utility grids.
Way Forward
Enact a National e-Governance Act to make digital service delivery a mandatory right rather than an administrative choice.
Accelerate BharatNet completion: Connect remaining 55,000 GPs and 3.8 lakh non-GP villages by 2026 under Amended BharatNet Programme
Strengthen Common Service Centres as “Digital Post Offices.” Eg- Rajasthan’s e-Mitra model
Adopt X-Road interoperability layer (Estonia): handles 2.7 billion data queries with “once-only” principle – citizen submits info only once. 99% services online.
Implement 2nd ARC’s 11th Report fully:
Adopt national “enterprise architecture” framework
Mandatory Business Process Re-engineering before digitisation;
Build SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive, Transparent) governance.
The state must tackle the digital divide to ensure technology remains an inclusive tool for good governance.