Key Success Factors for the e-Governance Initiatives Through Common Service Centres in India: An Empirical Study with Special Reference to Akshaya e-Kendras in Kerala
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00195561221123792 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Key Success Factors for
the e-Governance
Initiatives Through
Common Service
Centres in India: An
Empirical Study with
Special Reference to
Akshaya e-Kendras in Kerala
Vijaya S. Uthaman1 and R. Vasanthagopal2
Abstract
The National e-Governance Plan formulated by the Government of India lays out
the foundation for the long-term growth of e-governance in the country. The
Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme is a cornerstone project under National
e-Governance Plan, approved in the year 2006, and acts as the delivery point for
government, private and social sector services such as G2C, B2C and G2B to the
rural citizens of India at their doorsteps. In Kerala, the Kerala State IT Mission is
the nodal agency to create and run a CSC network through Akshaya e-kendras.
This study aims to provide empirical evidence about the major success factors
for e-governance services through Akshaya e-kendras. Infrastructure, accessibil-
ity, transparency, system quality, service quality, convenience, trust, e-participa-
tion and interoperability were the variables used for the study. SPSS Amos 22
was used for developing confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation
modelling for the study. The study found that the key success factors for the
success of CSCs are service quality followed by transparency and convenience.
Other important factors are accessibility, system quality and interoperability.
The least contributing factors are trust and infrastructure.
Keywords
Akshaya e-kendras, Common Service Centres, e-governance, success factors
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
69(1) 87–103, 2023
© 2022 IIPA
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DOI: 10.1177/00195561221123792
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1 CET School of Management, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
2 IMK, University of Kerala, Kariavattom Campus, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
Corresponding author:
Vijaya S. Uthaman, CET School of Management, College of Engineering, Trivandrum 695017, Kerala,
India.
E-mail: su.vijaya@gmail.com
88 Indian Journal of Public Administration 69(1)
Introduction
The digital revolution has the potential to strengthen democracy and catapult
India on to the development path. It makes the government more responsive, e-
cient, accountable and transparent towards the needs of the citizen. A large popu-
lation (70%) with diverse culture and demography living in villages make it by
itself a great challenge for coordinating and implementing good governance in a
developing country like India. The e-governance initiative in the country tries to
make major G2C services accessible to the common people in their locality
through common service delivery outlets and ensure eciency, transparency and
reliability of such services at aordable costs to realise the basic need of the
common people (http://mit.gov.in). For fullling this vision, the Common Service
Centre (CSC) scheme as a public-private partnership (PPP) project was intro-
duced with technical and nancial partnerships from private parties under the
National e-Governance Plan. The main purpose of this initiation was to provide
good governance to the common citizen, even to the remote place in the country.
The CSCs provide a wide range of services in G2C and B2C services which
require internet services, digital equipment such as PCs, photocopies machines,
cameras and so on.
Literature Review
Developing a framework for e-governance and implementing it in a developing
country requires an in-depth understanding of the context which includes the
historical and cultural perspectives of the country, ICT infrastructures at the
organisational level and national level, citizen e-readiness and so on (Heeks,
2001). E-government can reach its highest potential only when public sector
agencies and departments put citizens and consumers and their needs and problems
rst. E-government combines an internal focus on administrative reforms with an
external focus on state-customer relations and acts as a vehicle for the promotion
of good governance through the eciency of public administration, improved
public service delivery, strengthened openness and transparency of political
processes, improved production eciency and interoperability (Van Haldenwang,
2002). The success aspects of e-government services include consumer perceptions
on security and levels of trust, response times, the navigability of the website,
download time, the fullment of service promised, timely updating of information,
site eectiveness and functionality (Hazlett & Hill, 2003). With the implementation
of e-governance, there is higher eciency, good satisfaction, signicant cost
savings, time savings and more control in interaction with government services
(Srivastava, 2015).
Zaidi and Qteishat (2012) have assessed e-governance quality and citizen’s
trust. The framework includes various dimensions such as website quality, design,
reliability, responsiveness, security, privacy, eectiveness, ease of use and
citizen’s trust. The study showed that the quality of e-government services
inuences the citizen’s trust and satisfaction with e-government interactions.
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