Digital outlook to the governance for ease of living for common citizens of the country

Digital outlook to the governance for ease of living for common citizens of the country

Posted On: 24 JAN 2023 5:19PM by PIB Delhi

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given a digital outlook to governance for ease of living for common citizens of the country.

Addressing the Valedictory Session of the 2-Day Regional Conference at Mumbai through video conferencing, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that PM Modi has given the mantra of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ to create such a system where administration and good governance are run without unnecessary interference. He also released an e-journal on maximum governance, minimum government and also inaugurated a coffee table book on Good Governance Week – 2022.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the ease of governance aims at ease of living for common citizens of the country and to do that, obstacles of administration need to be removed. He said that under Prime Minister Modi, the Union Government has abolished around 1600 laws in the last eight years which had become obsolete, thus giving a message that the government trusts the youth of the country.

The Union Minister said that doing away with the interviews for Government jobs was another landmark decision of the Modi government which provided level-playing field to all while reducing the burden on state exchequer.

The Minister said that the Modi government has done a lot of experimentation and taken many initiatives in many spheres of the governance. He said that the administrative reforms are a continuous process but PM Modi has done value addition by giving it a digital outlook.

Dr. Jitendra Singh noted that e-governance has helped in increasing citizen participation in various processes. He said that due to digitalization, facilities like the RTI are available 24×7.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the Open Digital Platforms are tremendous force multipliers, and critical for providing affordable, inter-operable technology to the country’s citizens. He said that Digital Governance can enable massive reach and benefits in the conduct of Special Campaigns aimed at reducing pendency and institutionalization of Swachhata with the objective of providing good governance.

The Union Minister opined that the Government believes that India in 2047 would be governed by our diligent civil servants and would serve the nation with utmost efficiency, and, it is crucial to inspire and involve the young civil servants with the Vision@2047.

Dr. Singh mentioned that the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) had constituted the National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) in 2019 as part of its mandate to boost the e-government endeavours and drive digital government excellence. The biennial study assesses States, Union Territories (UTs), and focuses on Central Ministries on the effectiveness of e-Governance service delivery. NeSDA helps the respective governments improve their delivery of citizen centric services and shares best practices across the country for all States, UTs and Central Ministries to emulate. The Central government will ensure that schemes which earlier remained only in files are implemented on the ground, and Good Governance and Development are observed on the ground.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that the changes in Government of India towards improved quality of governance have to be reflected in States and Districts. The aim is to provide governance which is transparent and in adherence to established rules and procedures. This alone will make the march to New India successful. The commitment of the Government to serve the nation and called upon the delegates to be the vehicles of transformation.

Earlier, speaking at the event, Shri Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister, Maharashtra said that this E-governance regional conference is a very good initiative to promote good governance. He said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has continuously made efforts to provide good governance to the people and its key is with E-governance. He said that technology is a big leveler and it is a tool which brings everyone on same platform and prepares a good delivery system. He said that use of technology has overcome two historical problems of rigidity in governance system and leakages in our delivery system. He said that the trinity of Jandhan, Aadhaar and Mobile has changed delivery system in the country.

Secretary, DARPG, Shri V Srinivas said that this regional conference is a milestone event with a special focus on e-governance reforms. In 2-day conference outstanding e governance practices have been presented. 30 states and UTs have nominated participants for the conference. Benefits of the conf have been significant.

The DARPG is pursuing integration of State and District Portals with CPGRAMS through web API’s so that grievances can be redressed in a seamless manner. This is in accordance with the Government’s policy for One Nation-One Portal and considerable amount of work has been completed in this regard. The CPGRAMS has grown in size and quality, integration with multiple grievance redressal platforms functioning in India can provide timely and quality grievance redressal to citizens. The use of AI/ ML, data analytics can enable significant improvements in quality of grievance redressal.

Digital Transformation of Institutions is enabled by adoption of office automation – e-Office, delayering, delegation of financial powers, digital central registration units and adoption of desk officer system. Fully Digital Central Secretariat, Digital State Secretariats, Digital District Collectorates represent the Digital Transformation of Institutions. There is a need to constantly upgrade e-Office versions and equip them with data analytics to ensure increased efficiency in decision making.

e-Office was initiated with the objective of improving the Government functioning by inculcating more efficient, effective, transparent and standard office procedures. Thus increasing the accountability and responsibility in the Inter-Government and Intra-Government transactions leading to an efficient Government administration and public delivery system. It is a complete digital work place solution for Government offices and is based on Central Secretariat Manual of e-Office Procedure (CSMeOP), formulated by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG). eOffice-eFile application (eFile v7.0) was conceptualized, re-architected, developed and launched by National Informatics Centre (NIC) in June 2020, by adopting the latest tools and technologies.

One of the functions of DARPG is to showcase the select PM award and e- Governance award winning initiatives to present their innovation to all the central ministries, state and union governments and academicians for dissemination of good governance practices with a view to sharing of experience with each other and replication elsewhere.

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