The study investigates the grievance redressal capability of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) in a unique e-governance project, `Gyandoot', currently running in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh. The category of `questions, answers and suggestions' in the project accounted for biggest number, followed by the complaints of public facilities like water, aanganwadi, income and birth certificates, etc. Medical problems topped the list with 83% of the grievances being redressed. More importance was given to the `questions, answers and suggestions' category where 34% of them were solved within a single day and some on the very day itself. The exceptionally quick response was evident in one-fourth of the complaints which were solved within a single day's time and that too completely online, right from receiving till disposal. The project opened channels of vertical and horizontal communication. Whistle-blowers and other socially-conscious people found the project handy to communicate any wrongdoing to the district administration. However, the euphoria dwindled in subsequent years as the Deputy Commissioner was transferred. The redressal service suffered partially due to people's tendency to settle their personal scores who very often filed the wrong complaints.

The words information, communication and technology are axial to the discourse on information society and have even formed a subfield of their own. The credit goes to the armies worldwide for exporting many of their developed concepts to the civilian domain. Information, communication and technology, are perhaps such three most important elements. Armies heavily relied on information and communication to plan their routine and specialised operations whereas technology was relied upon in executing this information-enabled action plan. Hitler used IBM's punch card technology to identify and eliminate Jews in Germany in 1933 and 1939 censuses. Satellites and Internet were the brainchild of Soviet and the US armies respectively, which later on found their way into the academia and this was the by-product of war-time communication network. According to renowned futurologist Alvin Toffler, every society passes through three stages or `waves'. Agriculture (first wave), industrial (second wave) and information (third wave); the latter forms the culmination of all the waves and the same is now traversing the society. An `information society' was envisioned where most of its people would be involved in the information-related activities. According to Heeks, ICT is "electronic means of capturing, processing, storing and communicating information", usually in a digital form.

A citizen is the epicentre of democracy. Unfortunately, governments worldwide realised the importance of ICT very late. Neither the role of information and communication was valued nor the technology. It was in 1990 when the West witnessed a boom in IT sector, the idea of citizen service started gaining currency. The developing countries lagged behind compared to their developed counterparts in technology adoption. Also, the adoption rate of communication was slow vis-à-vis its information and technology counterparts. World over, the main reason for project failures is not technology but communication.

Governance And Public Policy Journal, Neoliberal Globalization, Economic Crisis, Financial Crisis, Government Projects, Financial Resources, Eenvironmental Degradation, Neocolonialism, Economic Recession, International Political Systems, Symbolic Interactionism, Global Warming, Gross Domestic Product, Economic Sectors, Democratic Systems, Neoliberal Capitalism, Financial Markets.