The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari and the Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (I/C), Prime Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh and the Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, Shri Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the 19th National conference on e-governance in Nagpur today.The conference aims at discussing various aspects of e-Governance ranging from Technology Enabled Services to Cyber Security framework and is being attended by senior officers from the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India and Secretaries, General Administration Department (GAD) from different States.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Gadkari said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi , the government is very progressive in outlook and hoped the new methods of governance will be effectively adopted very soon. He stressed the need for a visionary approach in carrying forward the campaign for e-Governance. He also emphasised the importance of decisiveness in administration.Nitin Gadkari also emphasized the role of collective efforts in working towards development. He also said Good Governance needs the help of e-governance for its success. He underlined the importance of e-governance in fast-track decision making management with transparency in a time bound manner. He also expressed confidence over the various plenary sessions to be held in the 2- day conference which will provide guidance to stake-holders and delegates in IT field. As the management depends on teaching, training, research and development, the 2-day conference will provide a big opportunity for understanding the e-governance and its various aspects, he said. Highlighting the importance of e-Governance in present time, Dr Jitendra Singh said the e-governance should aim to ensure that it reaches to the last man of the country and accomplish the goal of ‘Antodaya’ and secondly it has to be directed more towards upliftment of youth who are the backbone of the Flagship programmes of Central government like Start-up India, Digital India and Make in India.
Dr. Jitendra Singh emphasized the role e-governance in grievances’ redressal Mechanism and provision of citizen-centric online services. He informed about facility of ‘Pension Portal’ launched by Department of Pensions through which nearly 8 lakh pensioners have lodged online complaints regarding pension related queries and the Department of Pension has cleared about 6.5 lakh grievances. Rests of the grievances are pending due to technical issues, he informed. He also enlightened the delegates in the conference about steps taken in respect of good governance like abolishing the interview process for group ‘C’ and ‘D’ posts of Central government and adopting single page form systems for application of jobs, passport, bank loans etc. Essential tool for operation of e-governance is bureaucracy. Dr. Singh also stressed the importance of creating the work-friendly environment for bureaucracy. Mentioning the recent method of selection process in Civil Services examination, he also informed that an expert Committee is constituted for re-examining the pattern of Civil Services examination to provide a level playing field for all the candidate belonging to different educational and social background. Dr Jitendra Singh said that the e-Governance is aimed at achieving the ultimate objective of achieving “maximum governance, minimum government” with citizen-centricity at its core. This can be achieved through ease and transparency in governance for which, during the last one-and-a-half year, the Central government has introduced wide series of revolutionary measures.
Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that DoPT and ARPG are pursuing implementation of e-Office in all the Central Ministries and Departments and so far 24 Ministries in Government of India have initiated the process of implementation of e-Office. Some of these, for example like Ministry of Panchayati Raj has already achieved 100% e-Office platform, while Ministry of Rural Development has achieved 90% of it, he added. Dr Jitendra Singh also informed that in its meeting held yesterday, the Union Cabinet gave a formal approval to an MoU with the Government of United Kingdom which would offer India an opportunity for exposure to the best practices in achieving a higher rating in the e-Governance Index during next two years. In the inaugural function books on e-governance, back-ground papers, uncommon excellence, compendium on selected papers, report on decade of e-governance were also released.
The Secretary of Department of Administrative Reforms, Public Grievances (DARPG), Shri Devendra Chaudhry explained the overall nature and the plenary sessions to be held in the conference. He explained the importance of theme ‘GATI’ for the conference and also said that it emerged out from the Prime Minister’s concept of “Art (Accounting responsibility, Transparency) for Governance’.
Shri Swadhin Kshatriya, Principal Secretary Government of Maharashtra, Shri Vijay Kumar Gautam, Principal Secretary (Information Technology Department), Government of Maharashtra, also expressed their thoughts on the occasion. Large number of delegates from 15 states of the country, students of engineering colleges and citizens attended today’s inaugural function. Before the inaugural event, plenary session on theme of the GATI- Governance with Accountability Transparency & Innovation for Citizen Centric Services was also arranged in the presence of Shri Devendra Chaudhry, Secretary of Department of Administrative Reforms, Public Grievances (DARPG) and other distinguished experts on the subject.