Wired For Change Information and Communication Technologies Shaping Public Administrative Reform For Development in Karnataka, India

International Journal of Organizational and Collective Intelligence, 4(1), 1-23, January-March 2014 1
Wired for Change?
Information and Communication

Technologies Shaping Public Administrative
Reform for Development in Karnataka, India
Shefali Virkar, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford,
Oxford, UK
ABSTRACT
The recent global diffusion of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) has raised expectations
for technological change to support socio-economic progress and political reform in the developing as well
as the developed world. Much as been written about e-government within a growing stream of literature on
ICT for development, generating countervailing perspectives where optimistic, technocratic approaches are
countered by far more sceptical standpoints on technological innovation. In seeking to bridge existing gaps
in the literature, this article critically examines the role of Information and Communication Technologies in
governmental reform processes for development through the presentation of a case study based in the Indian
State of Karnataka. The study focuses on a collaboration between the state government of Karnataka and
the eGovernments Foundation (a non-profit private sector organisation) between 2002 and 2011, designed
to reform existing methods of property tax collection through the establishment of a networked online tax
collection system across the municipalities of 56 towns and cities within the state. Through a combination
of both qualitative and quantitative data, this paper analyses the interactions between new technologies and
changing information flows within the complexities of public administration reform of the given context and,
in doing so, examines the interplay of local and external factors and relationships and their role in shaping
the implementation of the project at hand.
Keywords:
Ecology of Games, e-Governance, e-Government, ICT for Development, Information and

Communication Technologies (ICTs), Process Reengineering, Public Sector Reform
INTRODUCTION
Technology, twentieth century modernists1
prophesied, would dramatically alter the
landscape of local, national and international
politics. Although the idea of a communications network spanning the globe is not new,
the past decade has witnessed the burgeoning
growth of new Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet,
which reached nearly one-quarter of the world

by 2009. The diffusion of ICTs has enabled the
electronic production, transmission, processing,
communication, and consumption of increasingly vast quantities of information. What effect
will technological change have on the political
and governmental arena? Historically, developments in communication technologies have
resulted in changes in the way in how governments function, altering existing administrative
DOI: 10.4018/ijoci.2014010101
Copyright 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
2 International Journal of Organizational and Collective Intelligence, 4(1), 1-23, January-March 2014
processes and challenging public agencies to

find new ways in which to communicate and
interact with their citizens. Today, ICTs are seen
to possess the potential to change institutions
as well as the mechanisms of service delivery,
bringing about fundamental changes in the
way governments operate and transforming the
relationships between governments and citizens
(Misra, 2005).
This chapter engages with issues related
to the use of ICTs in the governmental process
through a case study of the use and impact of
the Internet and Internet-related technologies
on municipal government within a developing
world context. Given the paucity of empirical
research on the interaction between the context
of development administration and the process
of technology adoption, this paper attempts to
trace a collaboration between the government
of the Indian state of Karnataka and the eGovernments Foundation (a not-for-profit private
sector organisation) between 2002 and 2006.
This collaboration was targeted at reforming
existing methods of property tax administration
within the state and, in the process, establishing a system of online property tax collection
across its 57 towns and cities. The case study
examines the interplay of local contingencies
and external influences, finding them to play
a key role in the projects implementation and
eventual impact.
GOVERNANCE, GOVERNMENT
AND ICTS: A CONCEPTUAL
EXPLORATION
Since the 1980s, the accelerating pace of globalisation has prompted the growth of literature
on how globalisation affects governance. This
literature is comprised of a number of disparate islands of theory that focus on small
parts of the larger question of the impact of
globalization. Three domains of thinking have
emerged as the most popular within development discourse over the past few years. The
first is that of the race to the bottom; where
national governments, locked in fierce competition to keep highly mobile capital within
their borders, are forced into lowering labour

and environmental regulatory standards and
reducing spending on social welfare (Legrain,
2002). Another cluster of literature focuses on
the growing importance of non-state actors
such as Multinational Corporations (MNCs),
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and
transnational activist networks. A third cluster
focuses on the ability of international institutions to effectively support global governance
(Drezner, 2004). While distinct, these different
strands of thinking share one basic conclusion:
rapid development is leading national and international actors to place tremendous demands on
the state and its institutions, such as demands
for increased accountability and transparency
in political decision-making and bureaucratic
functioning.
During the same period, discourse and
scholarly activity, both in academic and policy
circles, has shifted its focus away from a more
centralised, top-down conceptions of government those formal institutions and processes
which operate at the level of the nation state
to maintain public order and facilitate collective action (Stoker, 1998) towards the more
bottom-up notion of governanceand its reshaping and improvement. The idea of governance,
while traditionally a synonym for government,
has been captured in recent theoretical work as
signifying a change in the meaning of government referring to a new process of governing; or
a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new
method by which society is governed (Rhodes,
1996: 652-53) by a set of relationships between
the state, the market and society. Governance
is thus seen to be concerned with crafting the
conditions for ordered rule and collective action,
comprised by those complex mechanisms,
processes, relationships and institutions through
which citizens and groups articulate their
interests, exercise their rights and obligations
and mediate their differences (Cheema, 2005:
5). Governance may be said to consist of two
distinct but complementary elements: that of
government which encompasses all the formal
institutional and legal structures of a country,
and democracy which can be said to refer
to the participative and deliberative processes

which operate within those structures.
The idea of good governance has become, in recent years, an important criterion
to determine a countrys credibility and respect
on the international stage. This is particularly
true for developing countries with respect to
the flows of aid and international investments,
where there has been a growing trend to link
measures of the quality of governance with
the amount of aid and investment provided
to them. Increasingly, evolving assumptions
in development communities, as reflected in
trade agreements and the conditions demanded
by donors, such as industrialised countries and
international donor organisations2, suggest that
the quality of a countrys governance can be
judged by the degree to which its institutions
and processes are transparent, accountable to
its citizens, and participatory, allowing citizens
to participate in decisions that affect their lives.
Good or democratic governance, to paraphrase
Cheema (2005), is in evidence when the authority of the government is based on the will
of the people and is responsive to them, when
open democratic institutions allow full participation in political affairs and when human
rights protections guarantee citizens the right to
speak, assemble and dissent (Cheema, 2005).
Good governance thus addresses the allocation
and management of resources to respond to
collective problems, and is characterised by
the principles of participation, transparency,
accountability, the effective rule of law, equity
and strategic vision (Cheema, 2005).
In the parlance of the development community, accountability, transparency, and integrity
are billed as essential elements for the effective
functioning of democratic institutions and processes and the attainment of good governance.
While these principles are not limited to the
public sector alone, and impact the operations
of both private organisations and civil society
bodies, their application to the assessment of
public institutions is critical as these bodies are
responsible for the generation and allocation of
public funds and the provision of public goods
and services in the economy (Cheema, 2005).
This idea is gradually gaining a foothold in the
developing world, where a major development

strategy since the 1980s has been to reshape
and improve governance (Misra, 2005), chiefly
through an active agenda of slimming down the
state, increasing the efficiency of public services, and extending the range of public-private
working relationships (Minogue, 2002), but also
focusing on making government participatory,
accountable and transparent, and ensuring that
the voices of the poorest and most vulnerable
are heard.
Worldwide enthusiasm for the potential of
ICTs has made its mark on the concept of good
governance. The promise has led to conceptions
of electronic-governance or e-Governance, a
concept that may cover the use of all Information
and Communication Technology platforms and
applications by the public sector (Ronaghan,
2002). For the purposes of this chapter, eGovernance will be defined as: the use of
ICTs by government, civil society and political
institutions to engage citizens through dialogue
to promote greater participation of citizens in the
process of institutional governance (Bhatnagar,
2003c: 1). This may be achieved through the
use of ICTs to improve information and service
delivery and in encouraging citizen participation
in the decision-making process, thereby making
government more transparent, accountable and
efficient (Misra, 2005), and involves the governing or management of a system using electronic
tools and techniques, wherever government
offers services or information. Therefore, the
essential aims of e-governance are:

To initiate a process of reform in the way

Governments work, share information and
deliver services to external and internal
clients;
To produce greater transparency in the
functioning of government machinery;
To help achieve greater efficiency in the
public sector;
To deliver services to citizens and businesses on-line3 targeting tangible benefits
such as convenient and universal access
(time and place) to such services, and
lowering transaction time and costs (Bhatnagar, 2005).
The term e-governance thus encompasses

both the installation of computers and computer
operations in public organisations, and the creation of systems wherein electronic technologies
are integrated with administrative processes,
human resources and the desire of public sector
employees to dispense services and information
to people fast and accurately. It consists of the
political but also the technical aspects related to
the improvement of public sector management
capacity and citizen participation (Bhatnagar,
2003c). Conceptually, e-Governance may be
divided into e-Democracy (defined by an
express intent to increase the participation of
citizens in decision-making through the use of
digital media) and e-Government (the use of
Information and Communication Technologies
by government departments and agencies to
improve internal functioning and public service provision). Some have also used the term
e-Government for Development, underscoring
its potential for developing nations [This term
is used by the e-Government programme of
the United Nations University International
Institute for Software Technology.]
Taken this way, e-Government is hence not
just about the Internet and the use of Internet- and
web-based systems with government and citizen
interfaces (Heeks, 2006); instead it includes
office automation, internal management, and
the management of information systems and
expert systems (Margetts, 2006). In short, it
is a process of reform in the way governments
work, share information and deliver services
to internal and external clients by harnessing
the use of digital information and communication technologies primarily computers
and networks in the public sector to deliver
information and services to citizens and businesses (Bhatnagar, 2003a). Broadly speaking,
e-government may be further divided into 2 distinct areas: (1) e-Administration, which refers
to the improvement of government processes
and to the streamlining of the internal working
the public sector using ICT-based information
systems; and (2) e-Services, which refers to the
improved delivery of public services to citizens
through ICT-based platforms.
e-Government has become an influential

concept for the reform of public administration,
and is increasingly being seen as the answer
to a plethora of problems that country governments at all levels face in serving their citizens
effectively (Heeks, 2000). Information and
communication technologies have the potential
to bring about rapid changes in management
patterns such as the breakdown of traditional
administration hierarchies and the streamlining
of decision-making within and across agencies. The use of Information Technology in
government is thus generally rolled out as part
of a broader reform or change-management
agenda whereby new technology is introduced
to solve existing problems. The reengineering
of administrative processes is possibly the
most important step for implementing an application (Bhatnagar, 2004), as it requires that
an agency implements substantial reform in
its organisational structure since using ICTs
with out-dated or inappropriate processes has
a tendency to increase inherent inefficiencies
and corruption by providing opportunities for
officials to perform corrupt activities faster
and avoid detection (Pathak & Prasad, 2005).
More specifically, process reengineering
involves the changing of mindsets and culture
of an organisations employees, the training of
these employees and the upgradation of their
skill sets, and the implementation of appropriate
supporting ICT infrastructure to enable online
processes that are useful to both the user and the
implementing organisation. It begins with the
mapping of existing methods and procedures,
usually followed by the simplification of these
procedures in such a way that the overall task
can be completed in as few steps as possible
(Misra 2005). The outcome of such an exercise
is thus usually the modification of processes
resulting in fewer steps, a reduction in the number of people needed to perform tasks, and the
automation of certain operations; particularly as
a result of complete back-end computerisation.
From a citizen perspective, services can be
delivered more rapidly, with shorter processing and information retrieval times increasing
the quality and efficiency of service delivery.
Waiting times may be reduced, as routine cases

are dispensed with quickly and access to different databases allows civil servants to cut down
processing times. Citizens also have easier access to service agencies through, for example,
information kiosks and have access to public
information at the click of a button. Increased
access to services can stimulate the openness of
government, enhancing organisational transparency, increasing accountability and reducing
corruption by taking away discretion, curbing
opportunities for arbitrary action and increasing chances for disclosure (Bhatnagar, 2003c).
Indeed, e-government pilots in some developing
countries have demonstrated a marked positive
impact on corruption, transparency and quality
of service (Bhatnagar, 2003a). Thus, although
the term e-government is primarily used to refer
to the usage of ICTs to improve administrative
efficiency, it arguably produces other effects
that would give rise to increased transparency
and accountability, reflect on the relationship
between government and citizens and help build
new spaces for citizens to participate in their
overall development (Gasco, 2003).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The ultimate aim of this chapter is thus to
contribute to the development of a conceptual
framework that is relevant to policy discussions
of e-government software platform design and
maintenance within not only an Indian, but
also a broader global context. In order to augment theoretical discussions of administrative
reform in a digitised world, this chapter uses
a case study to explore its central research issues, within which a mixed methods approach
using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data was selected in order to inform and
strengthen the understanding of the relationships
between the actors, inputs, and project outputs.
The aim of the study was, therefore, to evolve
ideas that could be generalised across similar
situations, and the research was developed in
the following steps:
In-depth review of existing theoretical

perspectives and literature surrounding
corruption and tax evasion, ICTs and public
administration, and property tax reform;
Qualitative analysis of official documents;
Collection and analysis of quantitative data
relevant to the case;
Developing case studies through in-depth
personal interviews;
Data analysis and interpretation;
Preparation of conclusions and their
validation;
Recommendations for the future.
The use of mixed-method case study research is becoming increasingly popular in the
social sciences, and is fast being recognised as
a successful approach for investigating contemporary phenomena in a real-life context when the
boundaries between phenomenon and context
are not evident and where multiple sources of
evidence present themselves (Yin, 2003). It
was thus felt to be a particularly apt way of
studying the nature and impact of actor actions,
motivations and behaviours on e-government
software platform conception and design, where
the aim is not simply to judge whether the
project at hand represents a success or failure,
but is to understand the qualities inherent in the
architecture that have made it so.
More precisely, case study research consists
of a detailed investigation of phenomena within
a given context, often with data being collected
over a period of time. The aim of this approach
is thus to provide the researcher with an allround analysis of the surrounding environment
and processes, in order that they might throw
light on the theoretical issues being investigated
(Eisenhardt, 1989). The phenomenon under
examination is thus not isolated from its context,
rather it is of interest precisely because the aim is
to observe and understand actor behaviour and/
or organisational processes and their interplay
with the surrounding environment. The use of
a case study itself is therefore not as much a
method as it is a research strategy, where the
context is deliberately included as part of the
overall design. Today, case studies are widely
used in organisational research across the social
sciences, indicating growing confidence in the

approach as a rigorous research strategy in its
own right (Hartley, 2005).
As research done by adopting this strategy
is typically done in the field, the presence of
too many observations and uncontrollable
variables makes the application of standard
experimental or survey approaches infeasible.
Further, information tends to be scattered and
generally cannot be picked up using one single
method. Case studies thus typically combine
a number of data collection methods such as
participant observation, direct observation, interviews, focus groups, ethnography, document
analysis, questionnaires etc., where evidence
may be quantitative or qualitative depending
on the research issues at hand. The approach
is consequently flexible, allowing for new
methods to be incorporated as new sources
of data and new actors present themselves.
The case study approach may thus be and has
been used for various purposes to provide a
descriptive narrative, to generate new theory, or
to test existing theory through the triangulation
of data (Virkar, 2011b).
From the above discussion, it follows that
the use of a case study for this chapter is particularly apt for two reasons. Firstly, the approach
is particularly useful for examining research
issues that require a detailed understanding of
socio-political, economic, and organisational
processes through the collection and analysis
of rich data. Secondly, as discussed above, case
study research design is also more flexible than
other frameworks such as laboratory-based or
survey-based approaches, in that it is able to
reconcile different research methods and harness the evidence gathered to generate novel
theory from any creative insights that might
ensue from the juxtaposition of data at various
points in the analysis.
URBAN PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
REFORM AND ICTS: THE
INDIAN EXPERIENCE
India, according to the 2001 national census, has
a population of 1.2 billion people 1/6 of the
worlds population living in 5000 towns and

cities and 581,000 villages across the country
(Misra, 2005). By 2025, it is estimated that the
population will touch 1.5 billion people, living
in 10,000 towns and 700,000 villages. The
country faces the enormous and unenviable challenge of managing and improving the quality
of life of its people living in fast growing and
changing local communities both urban and
local. In India, public administration has been
evolving ever since its initial inception during
the British colonial period (Huque, 1994), and
in more recent times there have been calls
from many quarters for a more comprehensive
reform of the system. The development of
urban governance structures has its roots well
after Independence when, in 1954, The Central
Council of Local Self-Government was created
to coordinate urban development issues between
the centre and states under Article 263 of the
Indian Constitution (Rao, 1986). In 1991, two
separate Constitutional amendment bills were
introduced, covering Panchayats (rural local
bodies) and municipalities respectively. These
were passed by both houses of parliament
towards the end of 1992, ratified by more than
half the state assemblies, and brought into
force as the 73rd and 74th amendments to the
Constitution of India in 1993.
The 74th Amendment, known as the Nagarpalika Act, is particularly relevant to this
paper as it provided a parallel set of reforms
for urban and transitional areas (Singh & Misra,
1993). Under the Amendment, the composition
of municipalities remained under the guidelines
of the states, subject to the population categories
outlined (5,000 to 10,000 for a nagar panchayat,
10,000 to 20,000 for a municipal council,
etc.). Nagar panchayats (half-way urban/rural
governance structures) were to be constituted
for areas in transition from rural to urban, and,
for most purposes, were combined with existing municipalities. An important feature was
the legislative creation of tiers within larger
municipalities, in the form of wards and zones,
each with their own committees.
The emphasis of reform programmes which
deal with both urban and rural local government
structures has thus been on the devolution of
responsibilities for district planning to locally

elected representatives (Madon & Bhatnagar,
2000), with the central goal of all these initiatives being to improve access to information
leading to more informed, better-reasoned
decision-making. As municipal or other urban
governments in India derive their status and
powers solely from state level legislation, laws
and practice have varied substantially across
states, and in some respects as is the case with
rural local government bodies urban local
government bodies are relatively restricted in
the scope of their activities. Urban bodies are,
however, relatively more fiscally self-reliant
than rural government agencies (cf. Bhagwan,
1983; Datta, 1984; Rao, 1986; Sachdeva, 1991
and Singh, 1996), and derive most of their revenue through the levying of various localised
taxes including Octroi4 and other transport duties
and more recently Property Tax.
Following the abolition of transport taxes
in most parts of the country property tax has
become a major source of revenue for local government agencies, particularly those
located in urban areas (Urban Local Bodies,
City Corporations or Municipalities), and
oftentimes constitutes more than 50% of the
overall revenue generated. However the levying of property tax, whilst making significant
contributions to municipality coffers, has been
subject to its own problems. On the one hand,
tax collection systems across states usually lack
uniformity and are generally characterised by
the presence of outdated procedures for assessment and collection (Datta, 1984), and on the
other, municipal authorities are often beset by
procedural inadequacies, with administrative
problems, legal issues and corrupt practices
eroding the tax yield from within (cf. Datta
1984, Rao 1986). In particular, a distinct lack
of accountability, political interference, poor
information collection and disorganisation, all
discourage the efficient enforcement and use
of such taxes effectively, and tend to result in
a large proportion of city properties escaping
the tax net, to the extent that an annual average
collection efficiency of more that 60% is rarely
achieved (NIUA, 2004).
Ineffective revenue collection ensures that,

even in relatively prosperous parts of Indian
cities, constraints are imposed on the quality of
local public goods and services like as water,
electricity, garbage collection, and roads in
such a manner that their level of provision is
strikingly low and that existing inefficiencies
inherent in public service provision are even
further compounded. A quick back-of-theenvelope calculation indicates that current tax
revenue figures are a definite cause for national
concern, as while urban area revenues constitute
over 55% of the national gross domestic product
(GDP), urban municipal revenues make up only
a paltry 0.6% and grow at a slower rate than
central or state revenues (NIUA, 2004). This
implies that even at the best of times there are
not enough funds for good roads, clean water
and 24-hour electricity for consumption by
urban residents across the country.
Parallel with these developments, the advent of the Information Age and the increased
use of Information and Communication Technologies in India and elsewhere in the developing world has resulted in the increased recognition of the great potential of ICTs possess to
contribute to the process of public reform. India
has been at the forefront of Asias information
technology boom for some time now, and has
recently emerged as one of the largest investors
in e-government initiatives in the Asia-Pacific
region. While the Indian government has in
the last decade widely acknowledged that the
expanded use of ICT in the public sector can
offer important benefits such as improved planning and monitoring mechanisms, cost savings
through rationalisation and more effective
administration and delivery of certain public
services (Madon, 2004). Overall, however,
progress is still slow, with just a handful of Indian states - such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala and Gujarat - having built a few service
delivery applications which aim to cover the
delivery of specific services to a large proportion of their population (Bhatnagar, 2003a).
In order to further the analysis of issues
affecting the impact of ICTs on administrative
reform in India, this chapter sets out a fourfold categorisation of existing e-government
projects in India. Case studies may be discussed

along different axes depending on the level of
the participating government agency, the geographic focus of the project (rural or urban), the
nature of the initiating agency, and the central
relationship impacted by the project. The four
categories that may be derived from this authors
research are explored briefly below:
1. Level of Government: Case studies may
be classified according to the level of government at which they are implemented;
more specifically as projects implemented
by local government agencies, at the level
of the state government, or at the national
government level.
a. Local Government: includes those
e-governance projects of note which
are initiated at the level of local
government.
b. State Government: covers those
e-governance projects initiated by
state government departments and
agencies.
c. National Government: Those egovernance initiatives begun by or
within national government ministries
and other national-level agencies and
institutions.
2. Geographic Focus: Projects may also be
categorised and discussed according to
the location of their target audience or in
terms of the section of the population from
whom feedback is sought namely rural
or urban populations.
a. Rural: Those projects whose target
population or target audience is primarily based in rural areas.
b. Urban: Those projects that impact
people living primarily in urban areas.
3. Nature of Collaborative Process: eGovernance projects may also be classified
according to nature of the initiating agency
or according to the context of the political
dynamic between the public and private
sectors within which the project was conceived and implemented. More specifically,
they may be discussed as government-led
initiatives, civil society-led projects, or

collaborative ventures.
a. Government-led Initiatives: are
projects initiated either wholly by
government departments and agencies
or those in which the government take
a leading role.
b. Civil Society-led Projects: include
those projects initiated within the
broader sphere of governance, involving efforts initiated wholly or
primarily by civil society bodies and
Non-Governmental Organisations.
c. Collaborative Ventures: cover those
projects initiated across sectors, generally conceived as a joint venture
between a government agency and
a private sector/ civil society entity, and having a variety of different
stakeholders.
4. Central Relationship Impacted: The final
axis against which case studies may be
classified is based on the central relationship impacted by the project under study.
Existing projects deal with improving
government-to-government functioning, government-to-citizen interactions
or government-to-business dealings.
a. Government to Government: Electronic service delivery can result in
productivity gains within government
organisations. Data may be easily
shared across government agencies
electronically, resulting in a tighter
monitoring of employee productivity,
the identification of bottle-necks in
service delivery, and the accumulation
of historical data which may be mined
for policymaking purposes.
b. Government to Citizen: A number
of States across India have developed
online systems for the delivery of
municipal services to their citizens.
Citizens benefit from shorter processing times, the availability of a plethora
of services in one place, fewer visits to
government departments, greater government accountability and reduced
corruption through the elimination of

intermediaries.
c. Government to Business: These
projects involve the online delivery
of public services to businesses and
industry and include systems such
as tax collection and e-procurement,
thus providing businesses with an
easier channel through which they
may interact with government.
PROPERTY TAX AND

E-GOVERNMENT IN INDIA: THE
CASE OF KARNATAKA STATE
The state of Karnataka is particularly interesting
when studying the various initiatives related to
the introduction of information technology in
different Indian government departments as
the ongoing processes of change in the state
have the use of ICTs deeply implicated in
them. Karnataka is the eighth largest state in
India both in area and in population (Centre for
Policy Research, 2001), and is the fourth most
industrialised state in India after Maharashtra,
Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. According to the
2001 National Census Report, the population
of Karnataka is 17.62 million people (Third
State Finance Commission, 2007), of which
over one-third live in urban areas (Directorate
of Municipal Administration, 2003). Most of the
urban population lives in Class I cities cities
with a population of over a 100,000 people.
Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka
were recently reconstituted into a four tier
system: City Corporations, administering cities with a population of more than 300,000;
City Municipal Councils, which govern those
cities that have a population of between 50,000300,000 people; Town Municipal Councils,
which oversee the running of towns that have
a population of between 20,000-50,000 people;
and Town Panchayats, which administer those
towns that have a population of not less than
10,000 people. There are currently 211 urban
local bodies in the state, comprising 8 City
Corporations, 37 City Municipal Corporations,
93 Town Municipal Corporations, and 68 Town

Panchayats plus 5 Notified Area Committees
(Third State Finance Commission, 2007) which together are run and administered by a
total of 6,896 elected representatives.
Urban Local Bodies in Karnataka are
governed chiefly by three Acts of Parliament: the Karnataka Municipal Corporations
Act (KMCA) of 1976 (which governs City
Corporations), the Karnataka Municipalities
Act (KMA) of 1964 (which governs the other
ULBs) and the Amended KMC Act of 1994
(Centre for Policy Research, 2001). Both the
KMCA and the KMA require ULBs to perform
obligatory and discretionary functions, in addition to which they also perform additional
functions laid down in the 74th Constitutional
Amendment Act (Third State Finance Commission, 2007). Major obligatory functions
include the maintenance of roads, streetlights,
sanitation, water supply, registration of births
and deaths, public immunisation and regulation
of residential and non-residential construction,
whilst discretionary functions include the
formation and maintenance of parks, schools,
libraries and hospitals.
Under the manual system, first laid down by
the British in the latter half of the 19th century, the
collection of property tax in Karnataka centred
around three registers: the Assessment Register
or the MAR 19 which contained information on
all properties in a municipality, and included
details such as the location of the property, plot
size and built-up area; the Demand, Collection
and Balance or DCB Register which contained
information about property tax payments; and
the Mutation Register (Directorate of Municipal
Administration, 2007). Prior to 2000, property
tax was assessed and recovered by a tax officer,
who paid annual visits to all the properties in
the area allocated to him and was expected to
correctly assess and collect property tax, noting property details and payments made into a
handbook which was then used to update the
tax registers.
The method for assessing and recovering
taxes described above remained in operation
until the late 1990s, when property tax in
Karnataka was calculated according to its

expected annual rental value (ARV) i.e. the
estimated value of rent a property might bring
in for the coming year. The problems with this
system, however, were many as the amount of
tax that could be levied was often calculated
at the discretion of the tax collector. Thus in
some instances anecdotal evidence suggests
that some collectors were either paid bribes or
harassed by influential citizens who sought to
use their political clout to have their properties
undervalued or ignored completely. In other
instances, owners were put under pressure from
local tax officials and were being regularly
charged excess tax. In response to numerous
complaints, the government introduced a SelfAssessment System (SAS), by which citizens
were made responsible for filing their own tax
returns according to set parameters (Directorate of Municipal Administration, 2008). The
provisions of the SAS were simple:

Certainty: Tax would be calculated according to a specified rateable value across

the city, which was valid for 5 years;
Safeguards on Assessments: A maximum
and minimum cap on taxes was fixed;
Enforcement: The scheme provided
for a 5% random scrutiny of tax returns
documents;
Appeals: An appeals process was available
to those citizens who wished to challenge
decisions (Rao, 2003)
The chief goal of the SAS was straightforward: to get property owners to voluntarily
declare their property tax liability and pay their
taxes within a set time to avail of the benefits
of the scheme. The scheme was made optional
to avoid any legal challenges, with a proviso
that those who chose to opt out of it would be
assessed according to a similar yardstick by an
assessor after he made a visit to the property
(Rao, 2003).
It is interesting to note that whilst Karnataka (and more particularly its capital city
Bangalore) has become a centre of global
software development and is experiencing
rapid growth in demand for civic services, its

municipal bodies have been hard-pressed to
find the resources and capabilities to provide
the services required to cater for the growth in
population and associated demands on infrastructure. Physical infrastructure is generally
inadequate and often poorly maintained. As
cities grow there is a continuous migration of
people into them from the rural areas in search
of work, and a continual increase in the number
of urban poor, with over a quarter of the urban
population not having access to proper sanitation. Bureaucracies are often under-funded and
unable to mobilise adequate resources needed
for their effective functioning. They are often
overstaffed and their employees underpaid.
Record keeping and other bureaucratic functions
tend to suffer as they are generally manually
carried out, with little attention paid to maintaining proper standards, often hampered by
antiquated rules and procedures and rarely open
to citizen scrutiny.
Revenue collection is thus often poor: for
instance, a look through existing documents
for nominal figures of property tax collection
indicates that, when adjusted to take into account inflation, revenue from property tax has
been stagnant over recent years (Madon et al.,
2004). In Bangalore alone, one survey estimated
that for the year 2002-2003, of the 720,000
properties in the city, only two-thirds of that
number (around 530,000 properties) had been
taxed, with the estimated loss to the Revenue
Department being close to Rupees 3 billion
(approximately US $68.3 million) (eGovernments Foundation, 2004) a poor reflection on
the efficiency of the citys municipal corporation to extract essential revenue to meet the
infrastructural demands of Bangalores rapidly
growing population. Consequently, there has
been growing pressure from citizen groups,
international agencies and the local media on
the city corporation and the state governments
Urban Development Department to rationalise
the existing revenue collection structures, and
particularly improve the collection of property
tax, within the state.
COMPUTERISING PROPERTY
TAX: THE NIRMALA
NAGARA PROJECT
In recognising the need to turn property tax
in to a productive tax instrument, Bangalorebased technology non-profit eGovernments
Foundation developed the eGov Property Tax
Information System (PTIS) to aid in the establishment of a rigorous and efficient revenue
system. The Foundation collaborated with the
Directorate of Municipal Administration (the
state government coordinator for Karnatakas
municipalities) and the Survey of India (the
apex central government mapping authority)
in a partnership that aimed to improve tax
collections using Geographical Information
Systems (GIS)-based property mapping. The
project, reckoned by some to be among the most
ambitious municipal e-government projects
in the country, included the digital mapping
of over 3000 square kilometres of urban area,
and involved the improvement of property tax
record-keeping through the filling out over 7
million property register forms for an estimated
2.5 million properties across 57 municipalities.
The key aim of the project was to streamline municipal systems in Karnataka through
government process reengineering, better record
keeping and the use of IT tools and technologies, thus improving tax revenues and payment
compliance. The implementation of the software
was taken up by the Karnataka State Urban Development Department as part of their Nirmala
Nagara (or Clean City) initiative, which was
funded in part by the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) to the tune of US $5 million, and whose
ultimate aim was to bring about greater transparency, accountability and increased efficiency
within the municipalities, and the smoother
delivery of services to the citizens living in
urban centres. The eGovernments Foundation
provided the software and IT consulting free to
the government, and was paid for service costs
only. The Survey of India (which conducted the
street-level surveys) footed half the cost of the
project, whilst the other half was paid for by
the Karnataka state government.
The aim of the project designers was to

create an internet-based back-office database
for monitoring all aspects of property taxation
property identification, tax dues assessment
and revenue collection. Property records for
an entire city were to be contained on a central
server, accessible over the Internet on secure
networks to designated payment centres in
each of the participating towns and cities. The
back-end technology ultimately consisted of
an Oracle database built on an open-source
software platform, with the architects using J2E
and Java technology to build the back-end application servers. In some cities, Personal Digital
Assistant (PDA) devices were to be integrated
into the system so that revenue officers could
go out in the field to collect taxes, and use them
to upload data back into the system in real time
to keep records up to date. The immediate users
of the system were thus senior state revenue
officials, municipal tax administrators and local
tax collectors, who would use the system to assess taxes, monitor tax compliance and issue tax
certificates. Citizens would eventually become
indirect users by being able to have access to
their property records online.
The unique feature of the system was to
be its use of Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) or online virtual mapping, to visually
aid the revamping of the addressing system
and to help tax officials bring as many properties as possible under the tax net. The use of
geographic information systems has become
a fairly widespread developmental practice
(Odendaal, 2002), and as a system it is a powerful tool for facilitating visual decision-making:
by capturing, storing, and analysing all forms
of spatially referenced information digital maps
enable the end-user to monitor and manage the
logistics of the development process. Creating
such a database is, however, a time-consuming
process as it requires an extensive survey in order
to get a detailed idea of not only the property
being surveyed but also the geography of the
surrounding area. It was therefore decided that
while the property tax application would go live
in all 57 Nirmala Nagara cities and towns, the
GIS component would be deployed in only 18
selected cities: first in the 7 municipalities of

Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Mysore,
Byatrayanapura, Tumkur and Hassan, and then
in the remaining 11 municipalities of Mangalore, Bijapur, Udupi, Mandya, Bommannahalli,
Dasarahalli, Mahadevpura, R.R. Nagara, Yelahanka, K.R Puram, and Kengeri.
The pilot project testing the PTIS together
with its GIS mapping component was set up in
the Bytrayanapura City Municipal Corporation
and run by the eGovernments Foundation together with the Urban Development Department
between July and August 2003. In addition,
details of property tax records for selected
wards within Byatrayanapura were collected
and a total station survey of the area was done
in conjunction with the Survey of India (SoI)
and the Directorate of Municipal Administration
(DMA). Based on the experiences of the pilot,
potential barriers relating to data, people and
technology were identified, and a workflow
designed to overcome them and proceed with the
implementation of the computerised Property
Tax Information System with GIS across the
remaining areas of the state.
CHALLENGES TO EFFECTIVE
IMPLEMENTATION
The first challenge encountered was a serious
lack of good data, with the non-uniformity of
data collection structures in existing government systems posing initial problems for system
designers. The absence of a robust process of
data validation, issues of poor data integrity
and accuracy and incomplete/missing data were
found to further compound issues during the
implementation of the system. Difficulties arose
chiefly from haphazard addressing systems
and poor record keeping, and the consequent
inability of government agencies to uniquely
identify properties within cities and towns for
tax purposes (The eGovernments Foundation,
2003). The need for a standardised method for
property numbering and street naming was thus
essential, with each property needing to be assigned a unique Property Identification (PID)
Number, based on its municipal number, street,
and administrative location so that it might be

identified on the database.
A two-pronged approach was further used
in order to improve the quality of data. First, to
rectify the lack of standardisation in addressing
systems across the state, the eGovernments
Foundation put together a comprehensive
set of street naming and property numbering
guidelines for use by local government agencies
across the board. The data format was designed
to be both compatible with the existing recordkeeping system as well as the proposed computerised database. Second, it was decided that
a new property register had to be put together
for each municipal authority before computerisation could be undertaken. The new register
would contain comprehensive information on
each property within the municipal district,
which would be gathered in stages through
the use of 3 forms known as Form A, Form
B and Form C. These three forms would not
only collate existing information gleaned from
current registers but integrate it with details
obtained from a ground survey of the properties. The PTIS would be considered ready for
use once the combined data was uploaded to
the digital database.
In addition, project designers also faced
a number of key challenges related to change
management, in particular those dealing with
personnel issues. Government staff especially
those who worked in smaller municipalities
were often found to be low on core competencies required to work with and maintain
a computerised system. Further, anecdotal
evidence gained from discussions with senior
government administrators suggested that officials within the civil service (particularly those
in the lower ranks of the cadre directly involved
with the collection of taxes) and government
I.T staff (especially those posted to smaller
municipalities) were extremely suspicious of
the new system and were altogether resistant
to the proposed changes5.
Training and capacity building thus became
central to the successful implementation of
the computerised system, with the eGovernments Foundation holding a number of training sessions and workshops for government
employees, ranging from established state

Revenue Department officials (Bill Collectors, Revenue Inspectors, Revenue Officers
and Commissioners/Chief Officers) to newly
hired software engineers. In one instance, for
example, more than 200 survey engineers were
given field survey training for a month on the
renaming of roads, the renumbering of properties, collecting data using Forms A, B, and C,
and the detailing and sketching of properties
for use in the compiling of the new register.
These trained engineers were then used to train
a further 600 hired engineers recruited to maintain the system. Further, forty-five government
employees were trained on the GIS software
in order that they might liaise with people at
the Survey of India, and at least 2 people from
each municipality (1 engineer and 1 member
of the IT staff) were trained to run the software
and analyse GIS data (Directorate of Municipal
Administration, 2008).
Finally, there were challenges relating to the
technology itself and the implementation and
use of the system. Based on the results of the
pilot, the user interface was also redesigned to
make the system as user-friendly as possible, and
the programme itself was coded to automatically
generate daily reports. Both featured required
users to possess only a basic level of training
on the system. With such a wide distribution
of municipalities, project management was a
complex affair, and keeping on top of details a
necessary but time-consuming process. In order
to monitor the implementation process and increase accountability, the eGovernments Foundation devised a ranking system whereby the
performance of the municipalities was ranked
weekly according to a set series of weighted
parameters. The rankings were reviewed by
the Urban Development Department, and an
average monthly rank for each municipality was generated. In order to ensure official
commitment to the project, the outcome of the
each Local Commissioners Career Progress
Report (and therefore their transfers, promotion, and pay) was affected by ranking of their
municipality. Commissioners of municipalities
located in the top half of the table (Ranks 1-29)
were given incentives to carry on with their

good work, while the commissioners of those
in the bottom half (Rank 30 and below) were
summoned to Bangalore each month to explain
their poor progress.
RUBBER HITS ROAD: THE

PROPERTY TAX INFORMATION
SYSTEM IN FIGURES
In order to determine the success or failure of
the project, this chapter analyses Property Tax
data for 56 Nirmala Nagara cities6 under the
Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) for the tax years
2002/03 2005/06, obtained by this author from
the Directorate of Municipal Administration
(Vijayadev, 2008). Data analysed included the
total annual revenue accrued from property tax
under the Self Assessment Scheme for the years
covered, total number of properties assessed
annually for the same period, and the annual
average revenue per property. Separate analysis
was also conducted to compare the performance
of those cities where GIS mapping had been
implemented with those where GIS mapping
was not implemented.
Figure 1 illustrates the total property tax
revenue collected from 2002/03 to 2005/06. It
may be seen that from 2002/03 to 2004/05, property tax revenue collections rose overall from
Rs. 826 million to Rs. 962 million. However,
in 2004/05 revenue accruing from property tax
remained virtually unchanged, with collections
totalling Rs.956 million, before falling sharply
to Rs. 633 million for the tax year 2005/06. A
closer look at the figures reveals that whilst on
the one hand, for cities in which GIS mapping
was implemented, tax revenues rose during the
period 2002/03 2004/05 from Rs. 549 million
to Rs. 721 million, revenues fell in those towns
and cities where GIS was not implemented, from
Rs. 276 million to Rs. 235 million during that
same period. Both sets of cities experienced a
drop in revenue for the tax year 2005/06. It must
be noted that the drop in 2005/06 was unexpected
and large (particularly for those cities in which
GIS was implemented) and for which a robust
explanation could not be deduced. Further, the

sharp drop in total revenues for that year was
largely the result of the inexplicable drop in
revenue collections for GIS cities.
Figure 2 shows the number of properties
(both land and buildings) brought under the tax
net for the period 2002/03 to 2005/06. Overall,
the number of properties assessed for tax in the
Nirmala Nagara towns and cities increased from
1,736,995 properties in 2002/03 to 2,345,671
in 2005/06 (an increase of 35%). Cities where
GIS mapping was implemented experienced
a consistent rise in the number of properties
brought under the tax net from 876,416 property units in 2002/03 to 1,316,994 in 2005/06 (a
50% increase); as did cities where GIS was not
implemented, which saw the number of properties rise from 860,579 properties to 1,028,677
properties (an increase of 19.5%) during that
same period. As in the case of total revenue
collected, the increase in the total number of
properties was largely driven by the increase in
the number of GIS properties, where out of a
total increase of 608,676 properties, GIS properties accounted for 440,578 properties (72.4%).
Figure 3 indicates the change in the average

revenue per property during the period 2002/03
to 2005/06. Overall for Nirmala Nagara towns
and cities, the average revenue per property
fluctuated over the given time period, first rising
from Rs. 475 per property in 2002/03 to Rs. 506
in 2003/04, remaining virtually unchanged at
Rs. 491 in 2004/05 and then falling to Rs. 270
per property in 2005/06. A similar trend holds
true for properties in those towns and cities
where GIS was implemented the average
revenue per property first rose from Rs. 627
per property in 2002/03 to Rs. 703 per property
in 2004/05, and then inexplicably fell sharply
to Rs. 340 per property in 2005/06. For those
cities and towns that did not implement the GIS
component, the Average Annual Revenue per
Property declined continuously from Rs. 321
in 2002/03 to Rs.180 in 2005/06.
Thus overall, for the 56 Nirmala Nagara
towns and cities analysed, the data shows while
the number of properties brought under the
tax net steadily increased from 2002/03 to
2005/06, revenue collected under the Self Assessment Scheme system fluctuated rising
significantly from the first to the second year,
Figure 1. Total property tax revenue collected under the self assessment scheme from 2002/03
2005/06 (Source: Author analysis of data on Property Tax: figures issued by the Government
of Karnataka)
Figure 2. Total number of properties assessed under the self assessment scheme from 2002/03
2005/06 (Source: Author analysis of data on Property Tax: figures issued by the Government
of Karnataka)
before falling marginally in the third year and

then dramatically reducing in the fourth year.
One may conjecture, therefore, that the SAS
allows for the undervaluation of the declared
tax per property, possibly in collusion with tax
assessors, and that such a fluctuation in revenue
is indicative of poor compliance, as a steadily
increasing number of properties brought under
the tax net should otherwise logically result in an
increase in revenues for the government. Poor

compliance appears to be a direct cause of the
dramatic fall in revenue in 2005/06, with figures
indicating a compliance percentage of as low as
3% in some towns and cities (Vijayadev, 2008).
A deeper analysis brings to light an interesting difference between those cities and towns
where GIS mapping was implemented and those
where it was not. Revenues in GIS towns and
Figure 3. Changes in average revenue per property from 2002/03 to 2005/06 (Source: Author
analysis of data on property tax: figures issued by the Government of Karnataka)
cities rose steadily from 2002/03 to 2004/05,

with the number of properties brought under
the tax net increasing at the same time. The
average revenue per property also rose, as is
to be expected. However, for the same period,
cities and towns where GIS mapping was not
implemented experienced a steady decline in
revenue, despite an annual increase in the number of properties assessed. One may conclude
that the implementation of the Property Tax
Information System marginally improves compliance (and consequently revenues) in those
cities which have used GIS mapping techniques,
as these maps help to better identify properties
and their characteristics, allowing for a more
accurate calculation and collection of tax and a
resultant reduction in instances of tax evasion.
However, relatively low average revenue per
property, even in those cities where GIS has
been implemented indicates that there are still
loopholes in the assessment and collection
processes, and that while people are declaring
their properties they appear to be undervaluing
them, either on their own or in collusion with
the local tax officials. This is particularly so
because GIS mapping has been rolled out in
some of the larger cities and towns in Karnataka
and the average value per property should be
rising sharply as these cities grow.
DISCUSSION: AN OVERVIEW
OF KEY RESULTS
alter the old system, but instead worked within

existing legal and administrative frameworks
to digitise (and thereby streamline) existing
methods of tax assessment and collection.
Therein lies the problem. Whilst the
system has improved back-office processes
significantly it does not, in its current form,
possess any mechanism to improve compliance and aid enforcement. Accountability is
currently very low there is currently no way
to completely prevent arbitrary assessments and
it is difficult for the state government agencies
based in Bangalore to monitor the accuracy of
tax calculation and collection, particularly in
remote corners of Karnataka. In other words,
the introduction of a computerised database is
not enough to close existing loopholes in the
self-assessment process. People are still able to
undervalue their properties (either on their own
or in collusion with tax officials), resulting in
low revenue collections despite more properties
being brought under the tax net, and do not seem
to be aware of the importance of property tax
revenue to the well being of the common good.
Thus, whilst the process of tax administration
has been successfully streamlined, simplified
even, the system has only partially succeeded
in achieving its other stated aim of improving
tax collections in the state and calls into question the overall viability of such a top-down
approach. This chapter sets out three suggestions
to help bolster the functioning of the PTIS and
improve revenues:
The Property Tax Information System uses

automation to improve data management,
reduce the use of discretion by manual operators, and to make tax collection processes more
transparent. Project designers sought to ensure
top-level commitment by not only tying in the
implementation process with each municipal
commissioners career progress report and
transfers, but also regularly taking to task those
commissioners whose municipalities failed to
meet implementation targets. In order to circumvent the inevitable opposition from those
lower level staff who stood to lose the most from
these changes, the project did not dramatically
1. Online Property Tax Calculators: accessible to both government officials

and citizens, may help reduce arbitrary
assessments and allow for accurate calculation and collection of tax. On the one
hand, citizens would be able to accurately
calculate property tax online prior to filing their returns, thereby being aware of
exactly how much tax they owe the government and reducing instances of erroneous
assessments. On the other, tax officials
would be able to accurately compute how
much tax they ought to be receiving, thus
aiding enforcement by thwarting attempts

by citizens to undervalue their properties.
2. Independent Tax Audits: instituted to
bolster the tracking currently done through
the use of GIS maps by making monitoring processes more robust. Whilst audits
are currently carried out in-house by local
municipalities, there is ample scope for the
results of these exercises to be manipulated
by people who have vested interests in
manipulating data. An option would be to
have a department in State Government
audit municipal tax collections in order to
reduce the effects of those vested interests
and to avoid biased assessments.
3. Graded Levels of Scrutiny: introduced
to help tax enforcement. Although, as
discussed earlier, the SAS provides for the
random scrutiny of 5% of all returns filed,
this chapter proposes that the number of
declarations scrutinised should increase
depending on the size of property being
assessed and the population density of
the locale, with more returns from bigger
properties being scrutinised more closely
and in greater number. Further, information
regarding property transactions should be
available to the monitoring authority in
order to help them verify that the correct
data is being used.
CONCLUSION
In modern times, people and their governments
have struggled to find easy, cheap, and effective
ways to run countries. ICT-based applications
have the potential to revolutionise patterns
of communication between authority and
citizenry, radically restructuring politics and
governance at all levels by making systems
more integrated, transparent, and efficient.
India, too, is experiencing dramatic changes in
its development agenda. Technology and highcalibre professionalism are available for municipalities and state governments to use in ways
previously not thought possible, and new crop
of responsive, technology-savvy politicians
seems to be emerging within governments and

government agencies to take advantage of such
opportunities. As more and more national,
state, and local bodies sign up to the Indian egovernment agenda, it is important to note that
a number of major issues remain unresolved.
Added to this, there is a tendency for power
lites to lose touch with ground realities when
devising projects for their organisations as well
as for their citizens, especially when planners
comprise the higher echelons of government
and operate within a top-down command-andcontrol system of management which runs
contrary to their non-profit partners. There is
also a danger that high-level project planners
will, in looking at macro-outcomes, ignore
outliers and how these may precipitate unexpected turns of events. This holds particularly
true when existing patterns of communication
and information exchange fail to be flexible or
unable to adapt to changing situations.
The eGovernments PTIS is unique in that,
not only is it one of the few e-government
applications rolled out in India to reform the
municipal government processes, but also it is
a striking example of a working partnership
between federal and state government agencies,
municipal government bodies and a private notfor-profit software development firm. However,
its full impact is yet to be determined, and while
on first examination project indicators point
to it having the potential to be a successful
example of e-government in India, a measure
of its success or failure will only be gained after
a slightly longer period of time.
Should the system flourish, there are still
uncertainties as to whether it would be possible
to repeat such success elsewhere whilst it
is clear that there are currently a number of
reform-minded individuals willing to push
e-government projects from both within and
outside the government, the use of information
technology is only gaining ground in a few key
states like Karnataka, and the rare combination
of political vision and political will is still missing in most parts of the country.
And finally, the broader debate surrounding
prioritisation of issues in Indias development
agenda still rages. While it is recognised that

ICTs are strategically important to the country
(Schware, 2000), and the need for investment
in e-government is widely accepted, questions
relating to the balancing of investment in ICTs
with the need to give priority to investment
targeting other basic needs still need to be
answered, and there is apprehension in some
quarters that money used for e-government will
absorb scarce developmental resources whilst
not delivering on potential benefits. This fear
is not without reason India accounts for close
to 26% of the worlds poor (Roy, 2005), and it
is still unclear whether administrative reforms
stimulated by e-government will in the long run
feed into Indias other development goals, or
simply divert resources away from areas where
they are needed. Only time and further research
will be able to tell.
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For example beginning with Norman Angell

in 1910 right up to Peter Drucker, Alvin and
Heidi Toffler and Esther Dyson in the 1980s
and 1990s. For greater detail see Robert O.
Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (2002) Power
and Interdependence in the Information Age
in Elaine C. Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye Jr.
(eds.), Governance.com: Democracy in the
Information Age, p. 161
2
There is currently a fierce debate raging in
development circles as to the efficacy of such
conditionalities and their impact on development. Some aid donors argue that the linking
of conditionalities such as internal political and
economic reform to development assistance
such as debt relief is a trend in the right direction, while others worry about such a system
creating a divide between winners and
losers and leaving behind those countries
most in need of help. For a detailed discussion of this debate, see G. Shabbir Cheema
(2005) Building Democratic Institutions:
Governance Reform in Developing Countries,
pp. 56
3
The term online need not necessarily imply a
connection to the Internet. It implies that transactions access/ update databases immediately
to minimize errors and speed up processing. If
applications are submitted electronically, the
movement and processing of documents is also
1
subsequently electronic. The resulting benefits

could be more transparency, empowerment,
greater convenience, less corruption, revenue
growth, and cost reduction.
4
Octroi: A tax levied by a local authority
on certain categories of goods entering its
jurisdiction.
This could be for a number of reasons: a fear of

redundancy, loss of bribes or pocket money,
or a simple lack of exposure to technology.
6
No data was available for the 57th city, Mangalore
5
Shefali Virkar is research student at the University of Oxford, UK, currently reading for a D.Phil.
in Politics. Her doctoral research seeks to explore the growing use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to promote better governance in the developing world, with
special focus on the political and institutional impacts of ICTs on local public administration
reform in India. Shefali holds an M.A. in Globalisation, Governance and Development from
the University of Warwick, UK. Her Masters thesis analysed the concept of the Digital Divide
in a globalising world, its impact developing countries and the ensuing policy implications. At
Oxford, Shefali is a member of Keble College.

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International Journal of Organizational and Collective Intelligence, 4(1), 1-23, January-March 2014 1

Wired for Change?

Information and Communication

Ecology of Games, e-Governance, e-Government, ICT for Development, Information and

which reached nearly one-quarter of the world

processes and challenging public agencies to

their borders, are forced into lowering labour

to the participative and deliberative processes

developing world, where a major development

To initiate a process of reform in the way

The term e-governance thus encompasses

e-Government has become an influential

Waiting times may be reduced, as routine cases

In-depth review of existing theoretical

sciences, indicating growing confidence in the

worlds population living in 5000 towns and

responsibilities for district planning to locally

Ineffective revenue collection ensures that,

projects in India. Case studies may be discussed

initiatives, civil society-led projects, or

corruption through the elimination of

PROPERTY TAX AND

93 Town Municipal Corporations, and 68 Town

Karnataka was calculated according to its

Certainty: Tax would be calculated according to a specified rateable value across

rapid growth in demand for civic services, its

The aim of the project designers was to

selected cities: first in the 7 municipalities of

and administrative location so that it might be

employees, ranging from established state

were given incentives to carry on with their

RUBBER HITS ROAD: THE

explanation could not be deduced. Further, the

Figure 3 indicates the change in the average

before falling marginally in the third year and

increase in revenues for the government. Poor

cities rose steadily from 2002/03 to 2004/05,

alter the old system, but instead worked within

The Property Tax Information System uses

1. Online Property Tax Calculators: accessible to both government officials

aiding enforcement by thwarting attempts

seems to be emerging within governments and

agenda still rages. While it is recognised that

Dillinger, W. (1988). Urban property taxation in

Centre for Policy Research. (2001). The future of

Directorate of Municipal Administration. (2008).

Chadwick, A., & Howard, P. N. (Eds.). (2009).

Directorate of Municipal Administration. (2007).

Cheema, G. S. (2005). Building democratic institutions: Governance reform in developing countries.

Drezner, D. W. (2004). The global governance of the

Ciborra, C. (2005). Interpreting e-government and

Flatters, F., & MacLeod, W. B. (1995). Administrative

Madon, S., & Bhatnagar, B. (2000). Institutional

Lewis, A. (1982). The psychology of taxation. Oxford,

Misra, S. (2005). eGovernance: Responsive and

Madon, S. (1993). Introducing administrative reform

Madon, S. (2004). Evaluating the developmental

National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). (2004).

Newman, J. (Ed.). (2005). Remaking governance:

Rhodes, R. A. W. (1996). The new governance:

The Economic Times. (2008). Urban India gets

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

For example beginning with Norman Angell