Reimagining Public Service Delivery in the Phygital World

 

Abstract

This document envisions a transformative approach to public service delivery by integrating digital technologies into a unified, inclusive platform. Current e-Governance initiatives, while impactful, are fragmented and often inaccessible to a significant portion of the population. By leveraging technologies used in successful eCommerce and digital health platforms, we propose an open digital network that consolidates public services, ensuring seamless access, efficient grievance handling, and robust data security. This network would integrate digital repositories, payment systems, and service agents, while addressing the digital divide through physical service centers and inclusive interfaces. The proposed system promises enhanced service quality, cost efficiency, and government transparency, ultimately providing a more equitable public service experience for all citizens.

Introduction

In today's digital age, e-Governance has revolutionized how governments manage data and interact with citizens. Various applications and websites, such as Umang, Aadhar, UPI, and Digilocker, have significantly impacted public service delivery. However, these services often remain fragmented and inaccessible to a significant portion of the population.

This document envisions a unified, inclusive, and efficient public service delivery system that leverages the best of digital technologies while ensuring accessibility for all citizens, including those who are digitally challenged.

The Current Landscape

Currently, citizens need to navigate multiple applications and portals, each with unique authentication requirements. For both the citizens and the government, there are silos across departments.  It is difficult to realize services that span multiple departments.  Government cannot analyze data across departments.  Implementations such as Umang, bring multiple services on one platform.  However, this is more like aggregation of disconnected services.  This fragmentation complicates data tracking and poses risks to citizen privacy and data security. Moreover, the benefits of these digital services are often limited to the digitally literate and well-off, leaving many services beyond the easy reach of a large section of society.

The Vision: An Open Network for Delivery of Services

Imagine a system where public services are as easy to access as eCommerce platforms, allowing citizens to:

• Avail all government services through a single, seamless platform.

• Track service requests to completion.

• Raise grievances effortlessly.

For the government, this unified platform would enable:

• Comprehensive performance analysis across all services.

• Cost-effective service delivery.

• Involvement of private providers and agents, ensuring scalability and traceability.

Key Components of the Proposed System

Common Digital Network

• All services would come together on a common digital network or services network.

• Citizen applications could connect to this network, providing a catalog of applicable services, tracking, and grievance mechanisms.

Digital Repositories

• Public services often require proof of entitlement (age, gender, caste, income, address, etc.).

• These could be stored in digital repositories connected to the network, shared only under citizen's informed consent.

Integration of Service Agents

• Many public services require actions fulfilled by private service agents.

• Integrating these agents into the network would provide a seamless experience for citizens, a marketplace for providers, and quality tracking for the government.

Digital Payments and Billing

• Mechanisms like UPI and Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) could be integrated for efficient payment processing.

Inclusion and Accessibility

• The system must address the digital divide by connecting physical service centers and agents to the network.

• Services should be available in native languages, audio formats, or braille to ensure inclusivity.

Citizen Data Registries

Consent and privacy are paramount in the digital future of citizen service delivery. A unique characteristic of public services is the need for proof of entitlement.  Services often have age, gender, income, caste or other requirements.  Digilocker has made the process of storing and sharing certificates simpler.  Aadhar authentication is sufficient as the sole proof for many services already.  While it is possible today to store and share other certificates via Digilocker, this isn’t today possible in a manner similar to Aadhar.  Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) aims to take this further and is already showing promise for financial data via the Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) and in health data via Unified Health Interface (UHI).  Services require a diverse set of inputs and there is opportunity for advancement here via registries that can share data in a privacy preserving manner under user consent.  Imagine if instead of sharing complete Aadhar detail in addition to caste certificate and an income certificate a trusted registry could issue a certificate that a certain person is an adult female, less than 40 years of age, who belongs to a schedule tribe of an eligible category and comes from a family with income less than 5 lakhs. This style of aggregated information could enable service entitlement to eligible citizens without unduly sharing detailed personal data beyond what may be necessary.

Enhanced Citizen Experience

A citizen today has to undergo significant hardships while availing a public service.  Various departments offer different portals or applications.  Where there are common applications such as Umang available, the individual services are still isolated.  Many services require multiple physical visits to multiple departments.  The onus of aggregating the approvals across multiple departments is often on the shoulders of the citizens. Many touts and agents step in to help smoothen the process - but this is at a tremendous cost to both citizens and the government.

Many services require physical action - a pothole to be filled, a road to be dug, solar panels to be installed, etc. These are often performed by authorized private contractors.  These services are sometimes paid for by the government, subsidized by it or entirely performed in the background. It would be valuable if these players could all be integrated on the same system to provide a seamless citizen experience and quality oversight to the government bodies. 

A standard interface and service network could:

• Provide a unified interface for all public services.

• Simplify eligibility verification through enhanced data registries.

• Integrate payment systems for seamless transactions.

• Enable effective grievance tracking and resolution.

Moreover, this could be available via multiple applications or service centers - all working on top of the common and open network via standard interfaces.

Ensuring Accessibility for All

Digital delivery of services is a boon.  Yet it can also be divisive.  Even as over 70% of Indian’s may have access to smartphones - there is a substantial population that is either not having the access or is not trained to avail advanced digital services in a manner that secures their needs.  It is essential that the solutions are accessible to people in a language they can understand - including accessibility to the physically challenged.  The new age solutions should be available to all citizens - not just the privileged ones.

Digital services are also creating a new form of exclusion - exclusion due to data errors or due to limited digitization of data.  A small mismatch of names across two records for example can prevent progress.

To prevent exclusion due to digital barriers:

• Physical citizen service centers or portable terminals should be connected to the network.

• Customer-facing agents should be empowered to review and authenticate credentials, minimizing data inconsistencies.

Government Benefits

The government is now largely digitized.  Yet, this digitization is in silos.  Systems across departments are isolated.  Sometimes, even information within a single department can be on separate systems that are harder to aggregate.  Each department then also attempts to create their own interface by way of web portals or applications.  The Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) has enabled easier payment of bills or fees.  However, this does not always present an appropriate receipt and is limited to payments.  It is a significant challenge to aggregate and analyze effective utilization across these services.

A unified system would:

• Enable standardized tracking of service quality and impact.

• Simplify citizen interfaces, allowing service providers to focus on service delivery.

• Achieve integrated service delivery without the need to integrate the backend systems.

• Ensure transparency and adherence to data protection laws.

Private Participation

Enabling private application developers to offer citizen interfaces can enhance user experience and free public service providers from developing bespoke applications. Private contractors can also be integrated into the network, allowing for smoother service provision.

Future Possibilities

A unified service network opens up possibilities for:

• Aggregated services for better user experiences.

• Proactive identification of eligible beneficiaries without compromising data privacy.

Such a network can also enable AI agents to assist both the citizens and the government in easier and efficient service delivery.

Examples

For instance, the Pradhanmantri Suryoday Yojana could leverage this network to simplify application and approval processes, ensuring efficient subsidy distribution while maintaining data security.

Conclusion

While current e-governance initiatives have simplified service provisioning, they remain fragmented and complex. By building on existing successes and integrating proven technologies from eCommerce, mobility, and health data management, we can create a radically different public service delivery model. This model would be simpler, universally accessible, and allow for private sector participation, ultimately enhancing service quality and government transparency.