The Indian government has come out with a visionary National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) that will definitely put India firmly on track for using IT for better governance.
However, this is not the first and only structured e-Governance initiative by the governments in India. Such initiatives had been taken up by the central government earlier in the department of customs and excise, taxation, railways, etc. Similarly, many e-Governance initiatives have been taken up at local government level like the urban local bodies. It is a fallacy to assume that e-Governance has had no impact on the poor. In fact, any savings of the government directly translates to enormous savings for the national coffers, with a multiplicative effect on the economy. Such benefits to the economy directly and indirectly helps in the upliftment of the poor, including the rural poor. In addition, there have been several e-Governance projects that have directly benefited the poor.