The Impact of E-services on People’s Empowerment: An Investigation into E-mutation Service of Bangladesh

This research has investigated the impact of e-services on the empowerment of people in the context of Bangladesh. Amartya Sen's capability approach has guided the theoretical framework of the research. Empowerment has been conceptualized broadly to encompass five instrumental freedoms- political freedom, economic opportunities, transparency guarantee, social opportunities, and protective security- integral parts of the capability approach. The e-mutation of land is used as a representative of e-services and its impact on people's empowerment has been studied in this research. Both quantitative and qualitative data have been collected. While qualitative data has provided an opportunity to deeply understand the empowerment potentials of e-mutation service, the quantitative data indicated people's perception of e-mutation about the empowerment of people. It has been found that generally, e-services enable people to be better informed about services, bring greater transparency and create more options to receive services provided by the government. Productive time and cost saving have been identified as important results of e-mutation. However, access to e-services is constrained by various factors, including financial and technological ability and compatibility of the e-services for various sections of people. People's participation in the service delivery system is limited to lodging complaints using online platforms or hotlines.