By Burhan Rasool, Member, Prime Minister’s Task Force on Austerity & Restructuring Government and General Manager, Punjab IT Board; and Ammar Malik, Director of EPoD Research, Harvard Kennedy School
One of the natural and obvious outcomes of adopting IT in any public sector organization is the generation of data — and introducing more IT systems into government departments will certainly generate more data. But to be made meaningful for decision-makers, this raw data needs to be processed, ultimately resulting in a culture of data-driven policymaking. Good data can lead to good decisions, hence good governance. On the other hand, bad data leads to arbitrary decisions, hence bad governance.
IT adoption comes with the promise of speedy and simplified processes with little or no human interaction. For the government, this implies that it can facilitate its citizens without discrimination or bias. For the people, this entails remote, paperless, and cashless transactions with the government and assures uniform and easy access to government facilities.
