The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh presented the National e-governance Awards during the valedictory session of the two-day 21st National Conference on e-Governance in Hyderabad today. He presented 19 awards in 8 categories for their commending efforts in use of technology. In each category, the gold carried Rs.2 Lakh cash prize & citation and silver carried Rs. one Lakh award.Addressing the concluding session of the Conference, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the main aim of e-governance should be ‘ease of governance’ leading to ‘ease of living’ of people. This is essential for the emergence of a ‘New India’ that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi envisages, he added. He further said that the Government had taken over with the commitment to give "maximum governance, minimum government" and at the same time, switch-over to e-Governance.Dr Jitendra Singh said that the regional conferences organised by the DARPG indicate that the Ministry of Personnel has taken the conferences out of National Capital Delhi and moved to different places of country. In our successful bid to hold Regional Conferences on Governance, the Ministry in the last three years has covered venues such as Guwahati, Jammu, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam, Jaipur and Hyderabad.
Highlighting the achievements of Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Dr Jitendra Singh said that CPGRAMS portal has emerged as a role model, not only receiving nearly seven-times more number of complaints compared to earlier years, but also registering about 90% disposal on an average. He said the Department received 16 lakh grievances this year compared to 2 lakh grievances 3 years ago, because of better response from the government. He called upon the State governments to follow the best practices developed by the DARPG and the Ministry of Personnel.In the last three years, he said, the Ministry of Personnel and the DARPG have not only become very much visible, but have established credentials as important organs of the government which innovates, researches and evolves models for others to follow. It has grown as a true R&D (Research & Development) wing, living up to the Mantra of "reform, perform and transform", he added. He also mentioned some other government decisions like doing away with attestation of documents by gazetted officers, no interview for lower level posts in the government and scrapping of more than 1500 obsolete rules. These measures helped in ease of living of citizens, he added.Dr Jitendra Singh laid out the Government's target of universalizing Digital Literacy by the year 2022 and the optimum use of JAM trinity based on "Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile". He also enumerated several unique initiatives taken in last three years, which include a total revolutionizing change in the format of PM Excellence Awards and switch-over to Pension Portal.
Pointing out the youth demographic profile of the country, the Minister called for making government schemes youth-centric that would assist in creating a ‘New India’. He said Prime Minister's Excellence Awards have induced competition among young bureaucrats to perform better.During the function, the awards were presented in various categories including Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering, Outstanding performance in citizen centric service delivery, Innovations in existing projects of Government Departments other than PSUs, Use of Spatial Technology and GIS in e-Governance, Innovative Use of ICT by Central Government PSUs/State Government PSUs, Outstanding initiative in e-Governance by Academic/Research Institutions and NGOs, including Cooperatives/ Federations/Society, Replication/Adaptation of the best e-Governance projects/ practices awarded during 01.04.2014 to 31.03.2017 and Best District level initiative through ICT in (i) North East States; (ii) Hill States + UTs; (iii) Other States.Secretary DARPG Shri K.V. Eapen, Addl. Secretary DARPG Ms Vasudha Mishra and Addl. Chief Secretary Telangana Shri Ajay Mishra also spoke on the occasion.The conference was inaugurated yesterday in Hyderabad. The theme of the Conference this year was, ‘Technology for accelerating Development’.