Delhi topped the list of best e-governed states in India in 2007 in a survey conducted by Dataquest IDC. According to Prasanto K. Roy, Dataquest’s chief editor, Delhi met nine of the 14 parametres for best e-governance in the survey, rising to the first position from being number three on the list for 2006.

The survey was conducted on the citizens, businesses and IT officials in 20 states by CyberMedia’s Dataquest publication in association with the technology research firm, IDC India. According to the report published on March 21, citizens gave maximum marks to e-initiatives in the fields of education, income tax and transport services. The survey also revealed that citizens were the most dissatisfied with the initiatives in employment exchanges, police and security and the judiciary.

Of the 20 states surveyed, Delhi scored the best on police and security, with Gujrat ranking the lowest. Chattisgarh surprised everyone by topping the list with the best educational initiatives. In fact, Chattisgarh made the biggest jump, rising from the fourteenth position in 2006 to raking third on the list for 2007. Himachal Pradesh and Punjab gained in ranking from the 2006 levels due to the progress made in citizens gaining easier interactions with the government.

Goa received the highest score on the e-readiness quotient, a measure of the success of new e-governance projects in a state. Delhi and Uttarakhand were second only to Goa on e-readiness. Goa had topped the e-governance survey for 2006 and fell to second position in the overall survey in 2007. On the other hand, India’s IT capital, Bangalore, fell from the second position in 2006 to the ninth position in 2007. The worst e-governed states in 2007 were Jharkhand, Gujrat and Haryana.

Businesses reported greater satisfaction than citizens with the e-governance projects in almost three quarters of the states surveyed. This is possibly due to businesses benefiting from the progress made in the areas of supplies and provisions, power generation and transmission and government tenders and contracts. The biggest surprise of the survey, however, was that Assam received the highest score for passport services for businesses while Delhi came in first for the best judiciary services among the respondent states.

Now the only thing to look out for is the extent to which these e-governance projects are impacted by the forthcoming elections in many states and the general elections in 2009.