The Punjab Government will soon have a special IT Cadre for effective implementation of its ambitious e-Governance initiatives as part of the `Digital Punjab’ mission.The decision to create such a cadre was taken on Monday by the Council of Ministers at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.The selection criteria as well as the management of the cadre for various categories of posts would be finalised by a committee constituted by the Chief Minister. The personnel recruited under the cadre would be deputed to various state government departments for the purpose of extending technical guidance and support for e-governance programme/initiatives.The cadre will provide technical assistance to the departments involved in the execution of various e-Governance/m-Governance projects by ensuring their timely implementation, as well as support in Business Process Re-engineering and Simplification of the processes. The move will also help foster the state’s IT capabilities by building a cadre of IT professionals to be recruited through a well-structured process, an official spokesperson said after the cabinet meeting.The need for the cadre was felt by the government on account of the general lack of capacity in various departments for proper implementation of Administrative/Governance Reforms, e-Governance and backend computerisation initiatives. The specialized IT manpower would help the departments coordinate closely with the Department of Governance Reforms, enabling efficacious implementation of Enterprise Architecture and various e-Governance Projects including e-Office.Notably, the Punjab government envisioned the ‘Digital Punjab’ project to transform the state into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy by transforming the old established physical ways of doing business and providing government services in new ways that are optimised around real-time system.In furtherance of the Digital Punjab programme, the Punjab Transparency and Accountability of Delivery of Public Services Act, 2018 was enacted with the aim to provide government services within the stipulated time-limits in an electronic manner, by leveraging reforms and emerging technologies.