1.    Introduction     

Enabling government has been the much required in governance structure to facilitate participation of civil society and create mechanisms for decentralization of administration and plugging loopholes. The role of state empowering citizens through facilitating mechanisms, processes and structures as well as resources to maximize citizen’s welfare through people’s participation without burdening the state apparatus. The impression is to garner public support for social goods such as health, education and employment. It is an ongoing conscious interactive process to improve a citizen’s status within the defined boundaries of a nation. The enabling governance structure might include five different models in concurrence such as public-private partnership, selective privatization, reducing public expenditure through decreased subsidies , increasing employment prospects and building social cohesion through reducing disparities. ‘The state privatizes select services, engages non –governmental agencies , incrementally decreases subsidies, switches over from welfare to workfare and create structures for interactive governance with individual in a way that creates more social connections’[1].

           In a socialist welfare economy the core fundamentals of governance is to provide welfare benefits to the people and cater to the needs of larger masses through equitable distribution of resources and income. There should not be wide disparities in public goods and social issues such as health, education, and public distribution networks need to be carefully monitored so that people from all walks of life can benefit from government initiatives. However to build and operate an enabling government the state have to reduce bureaucratic inertia, reduce corruption and increase public goods in sectors such as education, health and employment . In the case of India, the subsidies have been major contributor to fiscal deficit and the increasing stress on public resources have been instrumental in draining the government and increasing its public expenditure. India being a welfare state it opted for reducing leakages and generating new resources for the public good.

Structural changes which have been made include the reforms in administration with compulsory removal/retirement of the non-efficient government official, declaration of income made mandatory for senior level government functionaries including ministers etc. Further, a proper log is maintained with the picture of the person meeting the concerned official so as to reduce public interaction and also stem any possibility of corruption in offices. Prime Minister Modi along with his cabinet ministers looked into these schemes and tried to address loopholes as a result of which instead of general bulk subsidy were replaced with direct bank transfer to the accounts of the person concerned, cheap cooking gas at all fuel outlets, and creating a digital India so as to facilitate transfers. Further, the development of digital vault for employment verification (digital locker) and also verification of educational certificates was made easier, online exams so that outside intervention is reduced, and developing Ayushman Bharat (Long Live India health scheme) programme to provide health benefits of up to 0.5 million Indian rupees to persons who are Below Poverty Line (persons whose daily income is less than two dollars a day). One of the biggest achievement of Modi government has been the account transfer of subsidies because of which India saved more than 100 million dollars each year through plugging the loopholes and ejecting the fake beneficiaries. In terms of digitization of governance, Modi government has stressed on the objective of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’ aiming at public partnership and participation. For this purpose, Modi government started E-tenders in which the vendors can apply online and the results would be declared also online. Further, Modi government in order to bring transparency started online monitoring of files and correspondence so that bureaucrats cannot impede the administrative process, and they are made accountable for making deferred or late decisions. The stress is on reducing interpersonal communication which is the core element of corruption and nepotism. Also development of e-procurement for government offices and institutions and online payment system reduces stress and better receipt process. At the local level, government has facilitated easy digital process through application for driving license, issuance of death and birth certificates, payment of property tax and other municipal taxes, e-filing of income tax and developing Open Source Software, official E-mail Policy and Open APIs. Also the government has developed secure networks for Electronic signatures and mobile based digital identity and developing a citizen centric portal named as ‘mygov.in’ to address queries and complaints.

2.   Reducing Bureaucratic Inertia and Increasing Accountability

           One of the critical issues for any welfare economy is to reduce bureaucratic inertia and work towards better work efficiency. In this regard the provisions have been made with regard to compulsory declaration of income of the higher officials and also reducing their intervention to the minimum in the processes. As a result of this digital filing system has been promoted which tracks files and penalizes those officials which sit on the files for no valid reason. This also helps the public to know the required documents for getting the sanctions in terms of building a house or getting certification for setting up nay small or medium enterprises. Further, in order to facilitate better coordination among the ministries a regular weekly coordination meeting is arranged in which mid-level officers.

           In order to address bureaucratic red-tapism steps such as power points presentations as well as outcome reports are sought with different ministries. Prime minister conducts coordination meeting with the high level officials on a regular basis allocating different day to each ministry and within a fortnight all the proposals are highlighted and the presentation are made along with the approximate budget and the timelines for completion of each project. Now, even for promotion in certain security agencies and public departments the officials due for promotion are sought for presentation outlining their achievements. Modi government during his first term gave the slogan of “minimum government, maximum governance" and started initiatives for minimum bureaucratic intervention in services such as attestations, and also verification in those areas in which intervention was embedded during the colonial times. Also to facilitate public good it has created certain portals and even applications which can be downloaded and also complaints can be made through such apps. One of such portal is E Procurement Portal (CPP).This portal requires all the Central Government departments to announce their tender enquiries, award of contract and corrigendum details. This portal provides centralized information on procurements made by various central government organization[2].This portal is complemented with E tenders website which requires that all tender applications and the opening of tenders is done online and therefore kickbacks are reduced drastically. There is another app E-Office. This portal supports governance through promotion of transparent inter and intra-government transactions. The purpose is to create process which are simplified, responsive, and effective across all government offices. The Open Architecture of E-Office is a reusable framework and provides applicable solutions and also procedures to be replicated across departments at the central, state and district levels[3]. The product brings together the independent functions and systems under a single framework.

3.   Generating employment

           One of the important areas for the government in a socialist welfare economy is to generate employment at local and district level. In this regard India has right from its independence has adopted measures to generate employment at local level. This was done to utilize the unemployment which is there during non-crop seasons. As already India had hidden unemployment in agriculture sector where more people are employed over and above required in farm lands. Many farm labour have to move to cities in search of work during lean season. In order to stem this, initiatives such as Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (100 days employment assured each year)

           Further, Indian government started a unique ICT based portal to connect the job aspirants and job providers. This portal registers job seekers, skill training centres, potential employers, and career counsellors. With the use of meta-data and profiling of potential candidates, it provides most matching jobs to the aspirants. Further all such facilities along with career counselling have been facilitated through the portal multiple social mediums such as career centers, individual mobiles and career counselling centres[4]. While employment has been the epicenter of such initiatives but Modi government knows that there is a limit to careers and jobs and therefore started an initiative known as startup India where it provides expertise in developing entrepreneurship skills and also financial assistance through a ‘Fund of Funds’ to finance such initiatives at very nominal interest rates. A strong network of industry associations and academia facilitates free four-week online learning package. It has also created research parks, and startup centres across India. The startups have bene provided necessary recognition through online platforms, easy Patent filing, verifying compliance mechanisms, addressing of regulatory issues and innovation promotional programmes for students, as well tax benefits[5].

           In honor of the former Prime Minister of India, an innovation mission named as Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has been instituted to encourage ethos of innovation and entrepreneurship. AIM recently launched Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) across India. These are training workspaces to increase on-site training of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Atal Incubation Centres (AICs) provide world class development facilities complemented with capital equipment and facilities.[6] Also equal attention has been paid to empower and provide skills to the women workforce. This is done under the aegis of Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP). The objective is to train women (above the age of 16 years) with no access to formal skill training facilities, especially in rural India. Under this initiative ‘skills in several sectors such as agriculture, horticulture, food processing, handlooms, traditional crafts like embroidery, travel and tourism, hospitality, computer and IT services’ are provided[7]. Further another programme Trade related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD ‘enables credit availability to interested women through non-governmental organizations (NGOs)’[8]

    Prime Minister Skill Development Programme (PMKVY) is a ‘Skill Certification initiative that aims to train youth in industry-relevant skills to enhance opportunities for livelihood creation and employability. Individuals with prior learning experience or skills are also assessed and certified as a Recognition of Prior Learning. Training and Assessment fees are entirely borne by the Government under this program’[9]. Launched in July 2015 National Skill Development Mission aimed to build synergies in different sectors in skilled industries. The seven sub-missions proposed in the initial phase to guide the mission’s skilling efforts across India are: ‘(i) Institutional Training (ii) Infrastructure (iii) Convergence (iv) Trainers (v) Overseas Employment (vi) Sustainable Livelihoods (vii) Leveraging Public Infrastructure. Click here to download the framework for implementation’[10]. Many other initiatives such as Science for Equity Empowerment and Development (SEED), ‘emphasizes equity in development, so that the benefits of technological accrue to a vast section of the population, particularly the disadvantaged’[11].

           Apart from these activities and programmes the need for any government is to generate revenue and funds through cost effective planning and reducing the government expenditure. One way is to reduce subsides by plugging loopholes and denying such facilities to those who are relatively better income.

4.   Reducing Subsidies and Corruption

           The government has the responsibility to provide subsidies to the needy and reduce unnecessary expenses through plugging loopholes in eth system. As a result of this Modi government adopted then direct cash scheme to the people and recued the bogus claimants. As a result of this initiative even subsidies for cooking gas or any other government scheme, the beneficiary gets the cash directly to his/ her account while the product is sold at the market price. This way the beneficiary knows the transfer form the government and he does not have to pay anyone to get the cash transfers. Further, this has helped in better management of subsides and also creating a data bank of the beneficiaries. On the of the critical advantage has bene the regularization of the labour working in different factories and industries as the entrepreneur used to inflate the number of labour to get tax benefits and also show manipulated figures in its accounting books. Because of the compulsory opening of account for every working individual it has become important to for factory owner to pay the salary amount directly to the bank and thereby cannot inflate the labour costs. This way the marginalization and the exploitation of labour have been reduced drastically. Further the adoption of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime has helped in evading double taxation and knowing the value addition at each level.

           In India, prior to 2014, there were seventeen indirect taxes such as Sales, Excise and Value added taxes with different percentage in different states. PM Modi introduced the GST in July 2017 replacing multiple taxes and bringing uniformity under three grading systems to ensure compliance and monitoring. This has ensured compliance and also brining tax evaders under the net. The duplicity of taxation and additional burden on monitoring institutions have been reduced drastically. The only problem is to make people understand the GST structure and electronic filing systems. While subsidies, tax compliance and corruption are larger challenges but any government has to make itself socially responsible by making provisions for education and health to the citizens.

5.   Improving Education and Health Facilities

           For any society the wellbeing is fathomed by health facilities and the future is secured through education systems. In India as there is relatively young population provisions for education and health is clearly in the top agenda of any political party. Considering the need to educate children the previous Indian governments have made right to education as the fundamental right and have made provisions that the primary education is provided to all. Apart from raising tax through higher education cess, there have been provisions for identifying universities and institutions and supporting them with 10 million rupees (about 1.5 million USD) grant to each selected institution to make them world class institutions. Furthermore centralized digitization is done through initiative such as Granthalayah (online digital library) and Learning Management software (LMS). ‘LMS is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of electronic courses (e-learning) and training programs. It has the objective of enhancing knowledge and skills of users as per their roles envisaged in the e-Governance Competency Framework (eGCF)’.[12] While regular monitoring of educational institutions is being done by the University Grants Commission there is discussions to institute Higher Education Commission and allow centralized recruitments to eliminate nepotism and favoritism by few provincial administrators. Also students are given education loans on simple rates of interest with payment duration extending to 20 years.

           In any developing economy human resource is the valued resource. In any developing country it is important to reduce infant mortality and also pregnant women mortality. Mission Indradhanush was launched, with the purpose to immunize every child up to two years of age, and well as expectant mothers under the routine immunization programmes. Notably, ‘Mission Indradhanush’ was identified as 12 best practices globally, and enlisted by the British Medical Journal[13]. An apps known as e-Hospital@NIC (link sends e-mail) has been created. This is a health information management system (HMIS) designed to deploy in cloud infrastructure to manage and integrate multiple hospitals. This integrates and monitors ‘complete treatment cycle of OPD/IPD as well integrates clinical, administrative, and billing/ insurance activities’[14]. Apart from education and health effective administration is needed so that these initiatives reach the common masses.

6.   Empowering Local provincial and District Administration

           Most of the bureaucratic inertia happens because of the need to get approval from the higher authorities or personnel. This need to be reduced to bring about effective governance through time bound responses or solutions and also provide assistance at times of need. The large population and the workload at times even on officials leads to administrative delays. In this regard two important area shave been focused. This includes Right to Information (RTI) under which any person can seek public information from the government departments and secondly, the regular scrutiny of non-performing officials. In fact apart from RTI, the errant or corrupt officials have been compulsorily retired and this year more than 125 officials have been retired without any intervention from courts.

           At the local level initiatives such as E-Panchayat (Village level) administration provides comprehensive software solution facilitating automation of Gram (village) administration functions.[15] Also another portal E-District Mission Mode Project (MMP) provides ICT support to the ‘participating departments and district administration in terms of providing centralized software application for selected category of citizen services and training for staff of the departments with a view to improve delivery of the citizen services being rendered by these departments’[16]. For facilitating farmer’s access to local market, National Agriculture Market (NAM) electronic trading portal is created which creates a unified national market for agricultural commodities. This provides information about buy and sell trade offers, commodity arrivals and prices, and e-bidding. This facility reduces transaction costs and information asymmetry[17].

           The Economic Survey of India 2019 focuses on disposal time, pendency time, case types and case clearance rate in courts[18].Few of the applications have been developed to provide real time data and info to the select target groups. These apps are as follows:-

Agrimarket App- ‘The mobile application has been developed with an aim to keep farmers abreast with the crop prices and discourage them to carry-out distress sale. Farmers can get information related to prices of crops in markets within 50km of their own device location using the AgriMarket Mobile App’[19]. Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (Cctns)‘aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing through adopting of principle of e-Governance and creation of a nationwide networking infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled-state-of-the-art tracking system around 'Investigation of crime and detection of criminals'[20]. Another example of Public-private partnership and privatization through service provider to facilitate passport granting process is Passport Seva(service) centres which enables simple, efficient and transparent processes for delivery of passport and related services.[21]

           While all monitoring, vigilance and government oversight has bene created but there are inherent challenges in implementing and execution of such programmes and plans which are enumerated in the next section.

7.   Challenges in Ease of Governance and enabling environment

           Within any developing country the problem that emerges for facilitating environment is the fear of vengeance form the bureaucratic machinery and the lack of digital connectivity. Further, even if efforts are made for ending corruption and bringing about efficiency there are four challenges that are faced by the government. Firstly, the lack of dissemination of information at different levels. Due to this many people are not aware of the programmes and schemes which are launched by the government. This can be overcome through dissemination through social media platforms and also using the newspaper s and local media to provide information. Secondly, in order to end corruption there is a need for better accounting and also cashless transfer mechanisms which can only be provided if there are intricate network of banking and financial instruments. This can be done through easing the banking norms and protection of the interest of the consumers through weeding out the hacking activist through two level; security systems in credit cards and debit cards. The mobile phone of the person becomes very handy instrument. Further, the local government should also adopt the use of kiosks and the service centers where people can log in and undertake various services provided to them at nominal costs. At times it has been found that unscrupulous elements purposefully disconnect the digital connectivity saying that the server is either down or not responding. In this regard the server rooms and the digital administrators would be aware and the vigilance mechanisms should be strong. For that purpose the names and phone number of the vigilance persons should be displayed very prominently ta the services centers and local administration. Also, there should be surprise checks undertaken by senior functionary to bring about order and reduce corruption. India has taken a stern note of the corrupt practices and even civil society groups have started portals to list the names of the corrupt officers in each state and province. The government takes due cognizance of the fact and through various instruments and police agencies does due verifications of officers who need to be promoted. Once honest officers get rewarded and the corrupt are dismissed from service the demonstration effect has a cascading impact. Further, vigilance and anti-corruption units should be duly strengthen and should come under direct central government control. Thirdly, it has been found that digital penetration in certain areas have been low, leading to the less impact in those regions. In this regard with the fiber optic network and the 4G service providers such efforts are made so that internet data and connectivity is till the last person and last mile. This needs better secure systems and also projecting future through enhancing the serviceability of servers and coordination with service providers.

           Also the public distribution networks and initiatives such as in the field of education and health could be easily accessible and should be available to the needy. For this sufficient scholarships to be provided to the deserving students. The need of compliant redressal and the use of various social media platforms to launch complaints has worked wonders in India as every compliant need not be made only through application, it can be made through Twitter and even Facebook accounts. Lastly, the political patronage on the corrupt practices at all levels must be dissuaded. This acts as the platforms for better implementation mechanism and also when the poor and needy feel that the last dollar / rupee or dong reaches then public participates in better implementation and also willing to give feedback without any fear of the corrupt officers and politicians. The establishment need to be sensitive to the people and in the case of India people are keen on reporting corrupt practices and sending it through social media platforms in the form of audio and video files. This needs encouragement within the ambit of the legal systems. Main developing countries have been facing problems with regard to legal systems and once proper judgement and facilitation of legal assistance is done ta both central and local level, things ease out for people and thereby civil society.  

           Lastly, the digital economy and governance have acted as panacea for the ills which have been there in the systems. Further, bogus claimants and ghost workers in social sector need to be eliminated and therefore the government have to solicit ideas form the public through advertisements in local newspapers and administration. The regular dialogue among the public representative and local district administration have helped in proper utilizations o funds and also costs effective means to implement programmes. For many government programmes the advertisements and planning stages consume maximum funds leaving little for the actual programme implementation on ground. This need to be eliminated in an incremental basis as complete stop would cripple the administration and also lead to tardy progress in many of the schemes and programmes. In all spheres, the best effect which can be brought in effective administration and building the enabling environment is public participation. The public and the civil society would only get interested when there is an assurance and penalizing effect is felt at district and local level.

8.  Conclusion

           In many developing countries building and operating an enabling government is a challenge. However, this can be addressed through grassroots activism and political will so as to merge the two initiatives together. Further, the important aspect for any change is that the political brass should be clear about its objectives and with the internet and social media being effective platforms and the new generation increasingly aware of the developments, a citizen charter and the government incremental initiatives need more focused approach and sufficient funds to make it a success. At times, in India any legislative committee seeks public suggestions for implementing a legislation or reform and people have given new ideas and also raised pertinent questions. However, monitoring mechanisms and even hard decisions such as compulsory retirement and easy grievance redressal mechanism would work wonders. The sensitization of the public through television and radio would make people aware of the penalty and the cascading effect would be felt. The people’s participation and feedback are important to reach well defined objectives and achieve required results. 

Notes

[1] Zaban, Hila (2012 April 12), Types of government-society relations: Enabling government, open government, adaptive government, responsive government Literature review. Retrieved from http://www.theinstitute.org.il/files/pictures/articles/Types_of_government.pdf

[2] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural

[3] E-Office. Retrieved from https://eoffice.gov.in/

[4] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural

[5] Government of India Support for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in India. Retrieved from https://www.ges2017.org/govt-of-india-support-for-entrepreneurs

[6] Government of India Support for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in India. Retrieved from https://www.ges2017.org/govt-of-india-support-for-entrepreneurs

[7] Government of India Support for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in India. Retrieved from https://www.ges2017.org/govt-of-india-support-for-entrepreneurs

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid

[12] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural

[13] Narendra Modi Official Website. Retrieved from  https://www.narendramodi.in/taking-decisive-steps-towards-securing-health-of-future-generations-16-march-2019-544074

[14] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Sharma, Prathma (2019 July 5), Reforms in judiciary can help improve the ease of doing biz. Retrieved from https://www.livemint.com/budget/economic-survey/reforms-in-judiciary-can-help-improve-the-ease-of-doing-biz-1562266333416.html

[19] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural

[20] Ibid

[21] Digital India. Retrieved from https://digitalindia.gov.in/rural