Ramesh Chandra Misra
Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India
“The 13th National Conference on e-Governance is an endeavour to introspect as to whether the e-Governance initiatives of the recent times have positively impacted the lives of the citizens and touched that section of the society which hitherto remained uncovered by the public service delivery mechanism.”
The XIIIth National Conference on e-Governance is being organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India, Department of Information Technology, Government of India and Department of Information Technology, Government of Rajasthan. The Conference will be held from 18th -19th February 2010, at Birla Auditorium, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. The forum of this annual Conference is utilised to create awareness and generate debate and deliberations on issues and challenges related to e-Governance initiatives in the country.
Objective
The objective of the XIIIth National Conference on e-Governance is to recognise and promote excellence in implementation of e-Governance, upgrading the standard and quality of administration, particularly in social and public services. The conference aims to provide a knowledge-sharing platform for policy makers, practioners, industry leaders and academicians to deliberate and develop an actionable strategy for bringing in transparency and good governance.
Background
Every year the Department of Adminstrative Reforms and Public Grievances organises the annual National e-Governance Conference along with the Department of Information Technology and a State Government. Senior officers from Government of India, secretaries from states and Union Territories of India, government decision-makers, academicians, technical experts, non-government organisations (NGOs), public sector executives and service providers participate and interact, exchange opinions, discuss issues, problems and also analyse various solutions, frameworks and necessary action plan for firming up the road map for e-Governance. At each conference, the attempt is to have a new state partner. These conferences thus provide a forum to showcase various e-Governance initiatives taken by various state governments, industries as well as to familiarise the government sector with the latest technologies and techniques being adopted across the different governments. The various states where the National e-Governance Conference have been held till date are: Hyderabad, Bhubneshwar, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa, and Bhopal.
The theme of the National
e-Governance Conference has evolved over a period of time. Previously, the conference used to be focussed on broad themes, but gradually the themes have now come to focus on a few sectors.
Theme of the XIIIth e-Governance Conference
Theme of the conference is ‘e-Governance from Citizens perspective’. The conference will explore how use of ICT has transformed governance from the perspective of the beneficiaries of the services. It is an attempt as a reality check to ascertain the outcome of the services rendered and whether it has achieved the intended objectives of transparent, effective, responsive and accountable system of governance.
The Programme
The conference sessions are:
e-Governance from Citizen’s Perspective With huge government spending on technology for improving service delivery and enhancing internal efficiency, there is a great need to assess the landmarks covered so far in achieving citizen centric governance.
Leveraging mobile technology for better service delivery- Financial inclusion through mobile technology India with a base of 500 million plus mobile subscribers, has huge potential to utilise this affordable, handy and popular platform for enhancing the service delivery.
Public Distribution System (direct access to the citizens through e-Governance)
e-Government ensures benefits going right in to the hands of the targeted beneficiaries, increases the visibility in government spending and allocations and puts information in public domain and create an opportunity for social audit.
Focus sector- Education (ICT in education – enhancing quality and reach).
IT and Communications eliminate distances, speedily delivers information and enables access to resources and knowledge, across geographical boundaries.
The panelists include the key decision makers from the government across various sectors such as National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Education and Research Network (ERNET), National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), to name a few; corporate heads, technical experts, academicians and NGOs.
e-GOVERNANCE COMPENDIUM
Papers from adminstration, academia and industry are invited on the below mentioned themes. All papers received are evaluated and winning contributors gets published in the Compendium. The themes of this year’s Compendium are: e-Governance from Citizen’s Perspective; Leveraging mobile technology for better service delivery; Financial inclusion through mobile technology; Public Distribution System (direct access to the citizens through e-Governance); Focus sector- Education (ICT in education – enhancing quality and reach).
NATIONAL AWARDS FOR e-GOVERNANCE
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India presents National Awards for e-Governance every year, to recognise and promote excellence in implementation of e-Governance initiatives.
CATEGORY OF AWARDS
1. Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering
2. Exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT-based Best Practice
3. Outstanding Performance in Citizen- Centric Service delivery
4. Innovative Usage of Technology in e-Governance
5. Exemplary Usage of ICT by PSUs
6. Best Government Website
7. Sectoral Award (Focus sector for 2009-10: Education)
ACHIEVEMENTS
The National Conference on e-Governance has been a very useful event as it has led to very concrete recommendations/outputs. The concept of e-Governance plan at the national level emerged out of the deliberations of this conference as it was felt that there is a lot of duplication of efforts, so why not have a common infrastructure and a common philosophy.
Similarly the National Institute of Smart Government was an output of these conference, as it was felt that the competency of the private sector needs to be utilised by the government. Thus, these conferences have proved to be a platform for e-Governance initiatives and their percolation among the masses in terms of Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizens (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B).
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