" The growth and impact of ICT in India has been nothing short of a revolution. Within a very short span, we have seen these technologies becoming the very bread and butter of the common people. A major spin-off of the phenomenon has been in the area of governance. Most of the States and Union Territories host websites while many of Central Ministries/ Departments provide online facilities such as the submission of forms, taxes etc. While bringing the government closer to the people, this has also brought about a major change in the attitude towards provision of public service. Together with the help of enabling legislation, there is an encouraging trend towards a more pro-active, responsive and accountable delivery of public services. Successive e-Readiness Reports had the mandate of bringing out the relative performance of the governments of Indian States/UTs in their efforts to utilise the potential gains from being e-Ready in the matters of governance and public service delivery. "

" The e-Readiness Report 2006 is the fourth in a series. It retains the broad methodology adopted in the previous reports thereby allowing for a comparison of the relative ranks of the states with the previous years. The Report has also broadened the scope of the study by carrying out an analysis of e-Readiness of select Central Ministries/Departments and also by incorporating a chapter on Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), which attempts to analyse the impact of ICT initiatives on poverty. "