E-Governance and Public Service Delivery at the Grassroots: A Study of ICT Use in Health and Nutrition Programs in India

E-Governance projects continue to witness sustained policy focus in low- and lower middle-income countries such as India. Not many e-Governance projects are, however, associated with improved performance leading to an enhanced public value, especially in the grassroots delivery units of government organizations engaged in provision of development services to people. Based on a case study of Information and Communication Technology use in public health and nutrition programs in the Indian province of Karnataka, this paper argues for a need to shift the design focus of e-Governance projects. While the grassroots functionaries in such organizations have a critical role in meeting performance goals, e-Governance designs have been largely oblivious to the need of improving their overall work content and environment. Our findings suggest that it is time e-Governance projects in government organizations engaged in public service delivery acknowledge and rectify this incongruity to be more effective in achieving a broad set of governance outcomes and justify huge investments being made on them in relatively resource-constrained regions of the world.