With strong leadership and many successful e-governance projects, Chhattisgarh aims to take the intervention of technology in governance to the next level. While sharing his views about government works in the area of technology, A.P. Tripathi, Special Secretary, Commercial Tax Department, Government of Chhattisgarh said, “There has been gradual improvement in the use of technology in the state. Even in commercial tax department, we have been able to manage initial hiccup in relation to GST due to availability of right technology driven solutions.”
With the focus on the digital transformation of the government departments in Chhattisgarh, Indian Express Group’s Express Computer magazine in partnership with technology giant Microsoft organised a conference called Express Digital Governance Series – in Raipur. Senior officials from different departments, experts, and IT heads of state corporations came together to discuss and deliberate about digital transformation that the state can take to bring efficiency, transparency and good governance.
The conference kicked-off with a welcome address from Mohd Ujaley, Principal Correspondent, Express Computer. While delivering his introductory speech, Raghuvesh Sarup, CMO, Microsoft India said that the significance of technology intervention in government is well known. States after states are adopting modern technology to improve their efficiency. He said that project like Aadhar have shown how integration of technology with good collaboration between government agencies and private firms can improve the delivery of government to citizen services.”
After keynote address, Bhaskar Basu – Director Product Marketing, Microsoft India spoke about the importance of collaborator for government department. In his presentation on enabling productivity in the mobile first world, he presented details overview of Microsoft Kaizala. This product is being used by some of the state in India like Andhra Pradesh for collaboration purpose. He asked the official from Chhattisgarh to look into the functionalities and how this could be used in the state.
The conference featured a panel discussion on “Emerging Technologies for Effective e-Governance” moderated by Mohd Ujaley of Express Computer. The panelists discussed about various challenge faced by the Chhattisgarh and how emerging technology like cloud, virtualisation, mobility solutions could help the state in delivering people friendly services.
Participating in the debate, G.P. Singh, IGP, Government of Chhattisgarh talked about CITIZEN COP app he has launched in the state to improve safety, security and access to police services. He said that the app has all the necessary contact details and high-end features in an easy to use manner for citizen. He said, “This has been possible because of reliance on technology.”
Agreeing with Singh, A.P. Tripathi, Special Secretary, Commercial Tax Department, Government of Chhattisgarh said that technology has indeed helped but we also have to ensure that those are used in best possible manner and proper cyber security hygiene is followed.
Participating in the debate, Aditya Shukla, SeMT Head, Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHi PS) informed about different IT related programmes run by the state government. He asserted that state is taking all necessary action to ensure that government to citizen services are provided in friendly-way.
Sharing his views on cloud technology, Manish Lodha – Director Sales – Microsoft India said that cloud technology has completely changed the way people use to imagine the IT infrastructure. Now, they are able to launch services quickly and with less cost.
Talking about smart city projects, Avinash Bhoi, COO, Raipur Smart City Ltd shared about how his organisation is using technology in making Raipur a smart city. He said that technology is an integral part of smart city project as there is going to be large number of connected devices. He was of the view that with smart city, cities will have to mine the data properly.
Replying to many questions raised by the panelists, Deepti Dutt, Director, Smart Cities, Microsoft India gave broad overview of use of ICT in smart city. She emphasised that ICT has immense role to play in smart city as the smart city will be more connected and will generate more data.
After the panel discussion, Vikram Malhotra, Technology Expert from Microsoft India gave a presentation on ‘Actionable Insights for E-Governance delivery’ in which he discussed and showcased some solution which has helped different states in proper planning of e-governance schemes.