Automating Government with e-Governance

The author of this article, Akbar S. Ahmed, aims to make a business case that Linux, a free and open-source computer operating system, can improve the quality of life for those living in developing countries by lowering the cost of government operations and increasing efficiency of government programmes.

Ahmed proposes that these governments utilise a programme he calls "e-governence". "E-governance is the computerization and automation of common government processes with the goal of lowering costs, improving efficiency and generally providing better services to citizens."

As the president of a company called Delixus that has developed an e-governance programme, Ahmed uses his company's software in India as an example of successful implementation. "The Delixus e-Governance Platform addresses the needs of millions of rural poor citizens in India who receive widow or pension checks through services provided by local government offices. For several reasons, the current manual system is slow in getting checks to the people who desperately need the money. First, long distances often exist between the pension offices and the villages where people live. Second, cross-referencing multiple files for a single citizen often takes weeks due to the large volume of applicants. Third, citizens often are unaware when checks are ready for pickup."

According to Ahemd, the Delixus e-Governance Platform is successful because it "leverages the strengths of Linux to improve the lives of Indian citizens through more timely access to information and to their pension checks. Linux servers located in each local government office power the e-Governance application and provide a robust decentralized processing model. The use of separate Linux servers in each office removes the risk of having a single point of failure that would cripple government operations. Importantly, the decision to put a separate server in each office was cost justified through the use of low cost open-source software.

The servers at each local government office are designed to communicate with a central computer at the state government offices. Communication and internetworking with the state-level computers is facilitated through the use of open-source applications that support open standards. Specifically, the PostgreSQL database server, the Apache Web server and the Postfix e-mail server easily integrate with other open-source software, commercial software and one another.

The Delixus e-Governance Platform uses a Web-based user interface to allow applicants to access the e-Governance application from any Internet cafe. In addition, the same interface is fully accessible by government officers who access the application from their internal network. The Web-based interface provides a unified and consistent user interface that can be accessed from any Web browser that supports Kannada, including Linux and legacy Windows desktops."

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