The Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad addressing at the presentation ceremony of the Digital India Awards 2016, in New Delhi on December 19, 2016. Shri P.P. Chaudhary , the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology , Secretary Ms. Aruna Sundararajan and other dignitaries are also seen.
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has called for working towards ensuring India becomes a “digitally empowered” country, saying the government is set to launch a new programme “Digital Village”.
Speaking earlier this week on the occasion of Digital India Awards 2016, marked to honour excellence in e-Government initiatives, in the national capital, the central minster said the Government will soon launch a new programme “Digital Village to offer services like health and education in villages” with the help of technology.
The programme “would be rolled out in 100 villages initially” and will be expanded later, he added.
Stating that it would be a collector-driven initiative, the minister said a collector with the help concerned local bodies may select a village “to provide health, education and other virtual world service through Wi-Fi connectivity”.
At the event, e-governance service of departments from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, and Punjab won Digital India awards.
The awardees were felicitated in various categories: exemplary online services category, Vyas (Department of Commercial tax Uttar Pradesh) won the platinum award, e-Permit (Government of Gujarat) and One stop clearance (Government of Punjab) were awarded with gold and silver respectively.
In Open data champion award category, Ministry of Family and Health Welfare and other departments under Directorate of Marketing and Inspection won gold.
Rajya Sabha and National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) won silver awards each.
My Gov, an initiative by Ministry of Electronics and Information technology, won platinum award.
Online Management, Monitoring and Accounting System of Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojna (PMSY) won gold and Coimbatore Municipal Corporation was awarded with silver in the Most Innovative Citizen Engagement category.
In outstanding Digital initiative category, Surat Municipal Corporation was awarded with a platinum award. Greater Vishakhapatnam Municipal Corporation and Madurai Municipal Corporation won gold and silver award respectively.
In Best mobile application award category, citizen mobile App (Government of Jharkhand) bagged platinum award, midday meal mobile application won gold and Garv won silver award.
Various ministries and departments were felicitated under Web Ratna – Ministry/ Dept category. In this category, Ministry of Human Resource received platinum, Ministry of Health and Family welfare won gold and Ministry of External Affairs received the silver award.
While Rajasthan won a platinum award, Tamil Nadu and Haryana won gold and silver respectively in Web Ratna-State /Union territory category.
In Web Ratna District category, North Goa received platinum, Kupwara (Jammu and Kashmir) won gold and Uddham singh nagar(Uttarakhand) bagged the silver award .
PP Choudhary, Minister of State Electronics and Information Technology, Aruna Sunderajan, Secretary, Meity ,Neeta Verma Director General, National Informatics Center (NIC) were also present on the occasion.