Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar addressed the 16th edition of India’s leading forum on e-governance here today.
Talking to over 100 senior decision makers across several states and Government departments like Indian Railways, the Department of Electronics & IT, National Informatics Centre, CIDCO, Karnataka State Police and many more he said, “For e-governance to succeed, people should be e-literate and not illiterate. What’s more, e-governance is something that happens over a period of time and cannot be done in one shot. Having said that, we have a lot of the basic infrastructure and connectivity in place and are ready to take it to the next level.” He also spoke about the larger challenge of changing people’s mindsets.
Talking about e-gov initiatives in Goa, Parrikar said that the state is 100% broadband compliant. He shared the success story of the e-Payment processes and the establishment of Mahitighar – information kiosks across the panchayats in Goa.
The theme for the 16th edition, which will go on till June 14, is “e-Services to e-Participation: Towards Transparent Governance.
In his opening note, Anant Goenka, Wholetime Director & Head – New Media, The Indian Express Ltd, said, “For over 80 years, the Express Group has fought for transparent governance. Express Technology Sabha was started with a belief that digitizing government will create a participatory environment in India and we must do our part to encourage and facilitate effective and inclusive governance.”
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Some of the sessions at the Sabha include: Transforming Governance through Social Media, Open Data Initiative of the Government of India, Challenges and the Way forward for the Government Cloud, and Developing Trust in e-Governance through Security, among others.
At the event, Goenka commissioned India’s first-of-its-kind e-Governance report to be put out in collaboration with knowledge partners PricewaterhouseCoopers at the next Tech Sabha in Feb, 2015. A special edition of Express Computer and a redesigned web and mobile site expresscomputeronline.com were also launched by Parrikar.
The event is supported by the National e-Governance Plan and the Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India.