CHAPTER 5 E-GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC SERVICE TRANSFORMATION 72
5.2 Inclusion and Empowerment: A Case of MOLESS (Ministry of Labor,
It's critical to note that Nepal's public service delivery landscape has changed considerably in the preceding two decades, moving from a unitary to a federal system that provides services to people's doorsteps. The public service sector in Nepal gained traction with the introduction of civil service reform and the promotion of basic infrastructure reform, power devolution, service motivation programs, alternative interventions in service delivery, and the deployment of e-governance. A wide range of governmental services is now available to the public via the civil service governance
system, including manual and online options. More than 2500 branches and branchless service outlets are spread among 211 service centers. However, urban areas are home to the majority of government service providers. In remote places, just a few public service providers offer services that are both difficult to access and underserved. There are therefore two-thirds of the population who are excluded from official civil services, and spatial concentration is still a major problem. As a result of federal incentives and restrictions, fiercer competition among government employees for e-service delivery reduced service costs and entry hurdles, resulting in a tremendous geographic expansion and an increase in access to public services.
The concentration of the trade, real estate, and large manufacturing industries, as well as an unfriendly working environment, a lack of knowledge about public service activities, and fear of high-risk activities have all played a role in keeping a large segment of the population from using e-governance services in the labor, employment, and security sectors. Therefore, the issue for policymakers is to devise a method that enables the low-cost delivery of public services in a customer-friendly manner without putting service users at needless danger and expense. Online service platforms are the greatest models for public services in this respect. This is why they've grown so quickly in the previous several years.
The urgent need for the development of e-governance services, especially through ICTs, is to encourage entrepreneurship, promote self-employment, provide income for the disadvantaged, and ensure inclusive economic growth. Concerning e- governance reform in the Nepali civil service, the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security is emerging as a key actor. After mobilizing more than NPR 25 billion in cash for workers in January 2019, a reserve fund of NPR 2.5 billion has been set up for job creation, with a deposit of NPR 120 billion and a loan of NPR 102 billion provided for reform in employment promotion. More than 30 thousand people are employed in offices as a result of this process, which includes 2.3 million members, nearly half of them are women. Women outnumber males in the formal sector for the first time. Comparatively speaking, the ownership of such a plan is much more inclusive than that of the production business. In an institution where there is a 10-fold higher level of operation in government institutions than private organizations, only a few promoters and borrowers receive the same amount of credit as the Ministry has granted
to millions. This shows how inclusive the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security's public services are, and how civil service institutions are compared to non- governmental groups. Other than public service centers, ICT-based virtual platforms also conduct some public awareness activities; in particular, online portals, web pages, and blogs usually provide this service. When all civil service offices are using e- governance, the savings in both time and money are significant. This demonstrates the Ministry's importance in the financial industry. Government offices have played a critical role in social inclusion, as shown by Census 2012, which shows that the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security serves 15% of the people who have access to e-governance services, compared to other ministries that cover 13% of urban residents and only cover 9% of rural residents (CBS, 2012). Because 40% of the borrowers still use family and local money lenders for social financing, and because borrowers make up only 22% of service searchers, online businesses have a lot of room to grow their business in the social security industry. Some people are concerned about the sustainability of e-governance infrastructures when they operate under the high- interest regime, provide risky data manipulation services, and deal with clients who are either out of the loop or are secondary level servers created solely for back end serving purposes. Data security and handling of new software present some serious challenges, such as the need for appropriate legislation to regulate such services, effective supervisory and monitoring arrangements, adherence to member-based public service activities, implementation of good governance practices, implementation of internal controls, adherence to ethical practices in e-governance, and restraint of the temptation to create and distribute ill-gotten gains. Concerns have also been raised about unethical cyber practices being imitated and an over-concentration on open-source in high-risk areas like client access. Public service centers must explore innovations, be resourceful in designing services that meet people's requirements and be ready to work in challenging environments such as remote settlements, sparse populations, limited resources, and socially excluded areas.
The Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security has proposed many social responsibility projects to broaden its scope in the community's socio-economic advancement. Table 5.10 demonstrates the creative CSR's use of social security welfare.
Table 5.10 Purpose of Social Security Schemes
S.N. Purpose of Social Security Schemes Respondents (%)
1 To expand the public service coverage 35
2 To increase service capacities 15
3 To serve society welfare 12
4 To provide support for poverty alleviation 28
5 To follow policy reform 10
Source: Field Survey, 2020.
Table 5.10 shows that the objectives of the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security involved an expansion of public service coverage, an increase in the level of quality service, service to the society, support for poverty alleviation, and following the national security social responsibility policy. About 35% of the respondents rated for coverage of the public services, 15% for the increase in access to ICT infrastructures, 28% for support for poverty alleviation, 12% for serving the society, and only 10% rated for following the national policy reform.
The benefits from the social responsibilities were measured based on indicators including social safety and risk minimization, getting more profit from the investment, social and financial security, regularity in service, fulfilling needs, and a safe future of labor and employment. Figure 5.4 represents the different ratings of benefits of public services reform schemes.
Figure 5.4 Benefits of Public Service Reform Schemes Source: Field Survey, 2020.
Figure 5.4 displays that 25% of employees, the majority, said that the benefit of the public service reform schemes was to get more employment benefits, 20% each rated for financial safety and risk minimization as well as regular support of ICTs, 19%
for social security, 11% for capacity building schemes, but only 5% rated for access in data.
The relation of e-governance reform with the socio-economic development of labor and employees were assessed under indicators as cybersecurity and data safety scheme development relation, economic development helping employees to grow, social security scheme as the prime need for the development of the country as well as an indicator of no relation. Figure 5.5 presents the different ratings of the respondents on the indicators of relation.
Figure 5.5 Relation of E-Governance Reform Source: Field Survey, 2020.
Figure 5.5 shows that 42% of the respondents identified that e-governance and quality in service delivery were related, but 27% marked that digitization helped public service transformation to grow. On the other hand, 23% rated social security scheme as the prime need for public service delivery, and only 8% rated having no relation with the scheme, and public service delivery.
Employees' socioeconomic position defines the state of people's socioeconomic wealth and how they have been surviving in the societal context. The Ministry's influence and service design are viewed as a change component for long-term survival in general. Participants in the study rated their socioeconomic success in sample Ministries. There were sixty-five questions, among which fifty-three questions were objective and twelve questions were subjective related to the details of all employees including income, expenditure, profession and economic status and causes of the social security threats. The sample services under e-governance were assessed based on the rating of the respondents and interview as well as group discussion.
Some key results and discussions of survey research of MOLESS have been identified. The majority of the employees of the survey area believed that they have taken e-governance with ICT back up as a vital tool for social responsibility for targeted
groups to address the service required including veterans, children, marginalized people, and females in the community. Support for the pension, scholarship to the children within the members and also in the community were crucial for the socio- economic development through MOLESS. At present, the investment in agro- production and the energy sector for people's economic upliftment is popular due to the governmental and non-governmental subsidies. MOLESS is providing digital support services under e-governance in the areas of clean and green environment management as well.
The MOLESS has increased digital transformation in its data management from the past few years due to the development of ICT-based service activities, entrepreneurial activities, training to the people for ICT skills, infrastructure management, education, and power backup support, etc. Most of the participants in FGD agreed that the increase in the quality of public services at present compared to the past ten years is due to the controlled use of digital devices, managing diversity, and addressing the marginalized, poor people, and also the different stakeholders based on their needs for e-governance promotion.
One of the female employees with regret said that,
“I had a hard life in the past twenty years as I had to carry out manual recording service to the people with delays in time and with the high cost of delivery even in case of day-to-day services. Ahah! It is our luck that for a few years the MOLESS has been running a digital platform of e-governance for all public services. Thanks to our chief executive for her hard work in managing digital infrastructures and training in handling software. Our life has become a little more comfortable”
They gave the reasons for increasing cyber safety as being due to the overall service coverage developed in recent years that has gained momentum and fame in society. Other causes of increasing the services are controlling the internal control activities, decreasing vulnerability, and increasing safety measures of the needy ones.
The respondents gave the reason for the need of the Ministries as being mainly due to the increased risk in the system and possible hacking. The other causes of
increasing cyber threats are listed as need of control increasing the virus infection in the sensitive data bank, controlling the hazards, managing of controlled data circulation, and environment-friendly newly constructed infrastructures to be built for the e- government system protection.
The analysis of the field survey indicated the number of electronic resources in the territory that has continuously been increasing over the last ten years. The quantity of production and manipulation of electronic documentation activities throughout the year is increasing; especially the fragile condition of the system security is drastically influential for the evolution of ICT technology increase from the last ten years. The quantity of data production and reduction of unnecessary buck items was generally constant for the past ten years.
The pattern of a growing shift in public service activities of the MOLESS has been increasing for the past ten years. The pattern of support of employees was constantly increasing as before, but it has been raised slightly in recent years.
One of the participants who had her service in the MOLESS informed,
“I had observed many people coming to MOLESS counter with the hope of quick service and return with a happy smile in favor of MOLESS as they got e- based service support in a crisis.”
The quantity of public service activities has sharply increased over the past ten years. More than 50% of the respondents said that there was a significant difference in the decrease of invulnerability in the security of documents, but, nowadays, new cyber problems and system hacking situations are identified and realized as the problems of poor service.
The majority of the respondents said that there was more demand for e- governance activities and modern technology use in the system through MOLESS support. Some participants were surprised because of an increase in their motivation status in the few years of their involvement. One of the participants said,
“I could not manage support service for one year at the counter in the past, but thanks to the MOLESS which managed software for me, now I regularly serve
ten times the number of people as before within the same period. I have even been capable to deliver service from my home both in offline and online modes”
Most of the respondents agreed that there was more support around the area and MOLESS due to the flexible e-governance activities, and control of illegal activities.
Most of the participants also believed that there were more new coming schemes with the MOLESS to support them and the e-governance system due to the protection of social harmony that had changed over the past ten years.
Moreover, most of the respondents agreed that e-governance activities in the past were difficult, but MOLESS has been pivotal for the poor and needy employees to come out of the vicious cycle of inefficiency. They said that there was more production of service outputs due to the regular supply of documents, datasheets, and even hardware management by the ICT experts. Some of the respondents pointed out that there was increased production of new ICT products due to the use of the facilities of good e-government policies and the use of rules, regulations, and procedures.
In addition, the participants said that the migration of data from the old manual records was less than the data migration at present. They also said that there were reasons for migrating due to the facilities of education, networking, data transportation, security measures, and ICT resources. The respondents concluded that there was a reason for migrating data due to a lack of ICT devices, and there was a reason for migrating data patterns in the service centers due to data mining. The chief executives have made employees cooperate and resolve conflicts thus maintaining harmony in the Ministry.
As a move to conserve ICT resources and give support to the e-governance system, the majority of the employees agreed that they were dependent on the traditional manual services for public service purposes. The low motivational scheme, costly services, and delay in delivery were commonly reduced due to the growth of the digitalization of system procedures. At present, e-governance policy options and disbursement of delivery modalities through online and offline platforms have been popular due to governmental and non-governmental support to the public. The Ministry and associated institutions have been increasing the use of ICT for the past few years due to the development of information technology resources through awareness and
policy formulation. The participants gave the reasons for increasing the e-governance participation in the development of quality service devices in recent years through MOLESS. Other causes of increasing the e-services were controlling the data manipulation, decreasing poor management and fraud transaction of data in open sources, and even public support through the self-learning platforms available about the digital software.
Over the last ten years, the quantity of public service activities has been continuously increasing both in quantity and quality through digital platforms. Few respondents have agreed to faster execution of surfing responses, disbursement of support than in the past due to the start of the ICT-friendly climate. The entrepreneurial activities around the service centers can be seen due to the Ministries in action. In comparison to the previous ten years, certain new social welfare activities can be found throughout the area, and Ministries exist as a result of sustainable management.
The majority of the employees in the sample areas were found with good condition in ICT knowledge due to the increase in the number of trained employees.
The proper service condition of the employees was the cause of the increase in the ICT tools production compared to the past ten years. During the discussion, they demanded support for the modernization of digital infrastructures and training for using modern technology in e-governance. Farmers also pointed out the management of the market for selling their digital products for the sustainability of their profession of electronic services through MOLESS. Small numbers of service seekers had the good facility of training in offline and online modes as they got access from anywhere and at any time with client’s flexibility.
The respondents were interested to develop online and offline service products for their secure delivery even provided through open sources. Employee respondents expected financial, technical support, and training from the government and other agencies. The sample respondents were found to be less careful about the impacts of the digital divide in the region.
The economic status of respondents improved compared to that of the past ten years. The majority of the employees realized that there was the availability of choices, competitive prices, and more advanced technology in transforming digital information at the nearest point. The respondents who were related to the Ministry benefited from
easy and subsidized schemes and more reliable resources due to the grouping work and use of ICT resources, software modification, and also extension services. Additionally, they received ICT support from supporting organizations and the non-government sector.
5.3 Alternative Approach to Social Cohesion: A Case of MOPIT (Ministry