Rajasthan Ranks At Top In Delivering Online Services

Rajasthan has emerged as the top-ranking state in delivering online services to citizens, National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) 2021 report said. As per the report, Rajasthan is the leading state with its services portals having average compliance of 76%.

The report covers seven focus areas including finance, labour and employment, education, social welfare, local governance and utility services, environment and tourism. Of all the identified 56 mandatory services across all focus sectors, Rajasthan is the leading State delivering 55 mandatory services online, followed by Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh.

The quality of state portals has been assessed on the four parameters- accessibility, content availability, ease of use, and information security and privacy. 

In terms of state-wise categorisation, the portals assessed were classified into two categories. The first category comprises of ‘North-East and Hill States” (10), ‘Union Territories”’ (8), “Remaining States — Group A” (10), and “Remaining States — Group B” (8).

Rajasthan has acquired the numero uno position in state/UT service portals in Group B. Its overall score has improved to 0.76 from 0.61 in 2019.

Among all the seven sectors,  Rajasthan has been ranked as the top in four categories- labour and employment, education, social welfare and tourism.

In other categories, Nagaland took the first position in “North-East and Hill” states, while Jammu & Kashmir was ranked first among the Union Territories. In addition, Kerala was first in “Remaining States – Group A”. 

In NeSDA 2021, the social welfare sector has seen the biggest percentage increase in the number of services followed by the environment sector and education sector.

The NeSDA study assesses states, UTs and central ministries across India on the depth and effectiveness of their e-Governance service delivery. State and UT governments across the country cumulatively provided 69% of all possible mandatory services, compared to 46% in 2019.

‘North-East and Hill States’ category saw the largest percentage increase in number of services compared to 2019. In this category, Meghalaya witnessed the biggest increase in services followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

The report also observed that many States and UTs are using integrated/centralised portals to deliver mandatory e-Services, implementing a key recommendation from NeSDA 2019. The integrated portals provide users a unified access point for a variety of services.

“Integrated delivery of services is a core tenant of the NeSDA framework and strengthening such portals will enhance the digital empowerment of citizens. These portals embody vision areas of Digital India and have been notable during the NeSDA assessment for their adherence to best practices for e-Governance and digital service delivery,” the report added.