Panel Discussion on ‘How Government Entities Can Harness New Technologies to Set eGovernance Standards’

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Panelists in this video:
+ Sumnesh Joshi, Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Communications & IT, GOI (Moderator)
+ K S Meena, Special Secretary, Urban Development Departmetn, Government of NCT of Delhi
+ Parul Gaur, Special Secretary, IT, Arunachal Pradesh
+ Sarita Sunil Narke, Additional Collector & State Director, Land Records, Government of Maharashtra
+ Dr Binu Francis, Secretary, Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
+ Dr Abhishek Roy, Head, SeMT, Dept of Personnel & Administrative Reforms & e-Governance, West Bengal

Key Highlights:
[1] Sumnesh Joshi, Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India (Moderator):
+ The Govt of India is implementing a project that aims to provide high speed 4G connectivity in the less connected or unconnected villages. The project is using Made in India solutions.

[2] K S Meena, Special Secretary, Urban Development Department, Government of NCT of Delhi:
+ The Govt of Delhi has implemented a scheme for doorstep delivery of services. A helpline – 1076 is launched through which citizens can connect with the government departments and avail various services at their doorstep.

[3] Parul Gaur, Special Secretary, IT, Arunachal Pradesh:
+ Arunachal Pradesh is the biggest user of e-file and e-office in the entire north-east. Earlier crowds of people used to reach out to the government offices, especially in summers. After implementation of e-office, citizens can avail services online and this the footfall to government offices reduced dramatically. Also, Arunachal became the first state to adopt e-cabinet through which the entire cabinet runs on tablets in a completely paperless fashion.

[4] Dr Binu Francis, Secretary, Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala:
+ We have developed a Trivandrum app for various civic services including water distribution. Around 99 percent of the households are covered. Through the app, people who are still not connected with the water supply, can demand the city corporation for water and the resource is delivered to their homes at reasonable rates.

[5] Dr Abhishek Roy, Head, SeMT, Dept of Personnel & Administrative Reforms & e-Governance, West Bengal:
+ We need to move up from the status quo of e-governance to predictive and smart governance. We should look ahead in time when the government should reach out to the people for providing various services/documentations and not vice versa.

[6] Sarita Sunil Narke, Additional Collector & State Director, Land Records, Government of Maharashtra:
+ When we use data entry as the first module, that’s where we require smart technologies like OCR with some discretion to convert the hand written data into computer-legible format. Further, there’s a need to deploy AI based tools to smartly automate the processes that could enhance the department’s efficiency and productivity.