Goa's e-Governance ranking goes up; Surges past Maharashtra and Gujarat

The second edition of the National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) 2021 was released by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG). In it, Goa shows a stark improvement in e-governance, compared to the past few editions.

All the states' governments and UTs' administration efforts to improve in e-governance ranking has delivered dividends, especially in the case of Goa, which has polished up its score drastically in the national e-governance ranking.

The ratings for Goa government's online portal increased from 0.74 points in 2019 to 0.77 points in 2021. Similarly, the ratings for individual department services increased from 0.19 points in 2019 to 0.41 points in 2021. This was the result of Goa's progressive efforts in the fields of finance, labour & employment, social welfare and environment.

An overall improvement was seen in scores across parameters at various levels. Information Security & Privacy stood as a key focus parameter across all portals. As per reports, Goa ranked sixth in overall e-governance among 10 states in Group-A. Goa offers the least number of online services, ranking the state eighth among the 10 states in the Group-A in that particular regard.

Goa's NeSDA 2021 score saw an overall hike of 4% when compared to that of 2019. Goa delivers 39 online government services, while states ranking second and third- Tamil Nadu & Punjab respectively, deliver all 56 online services that the assessment looks at.

Goa government’s portal scored 0.50 points on accessibility, 0.86 points for content availability and 0.86 points for ease of use. The other factors were information security, privacy, integrated service delivery, status and request tracking.

NeSDA is a citizen survey carried out by the DARPG. The DARPG conducted annual assessment divides states in 4 groups-- Northeast and Hill States, Union Territories, Thriving Ten States and the remaining Eight States.

Aiming to identify target areas, the assessment is conducted to ensure an increase in e-service delivery, increase in use of integrated or centralized portals for delivery of e-services and improvement across evaluation parameter scores.

As per reports, Kerala topped the list among Group A states, followed by Tamil Nadu and Punjab. Surprisingly, more advanced states like Maharashtra and Gujarat ranked 9th and 10th.