Nagaland on its way towards becoming Land of eGovernance

K D Vizo, Principal Secretary, Power and Information Technology & Communication, Government of Nagaland

The Department of IT&C is fully aware that it is the right time to take Nagaland to the next higher level and make the State of Nagaland, ‘the land of e-Governance’, through extensive use of e-Governance and ICT based technologies, writes K D Vizo, Principal Secretary, Power and Information Technology & Communication, Government of Nagaland.

The Department of Information Technology & Communication (IT&C) is now playing a key role to transform the State of Nagaland into a modern state by way of improving transparency, efficiency and ensuring cost-effective public service delivery to the citizens. The state is witnessing a paradigm shift in governance and all other spheres of life and Information Technology and electronic media is enabling a knowledge-led economy. The world is now looking up to India to drive global economic growth and India is looking towards the east to open eastern corridors towards South East Asia to promote economic growth. The Department of IT&C is fully aware that it is the right time to take Nagaland to the next higher level and make the State of Nagaland, ‘the land of e-Governance’, through extensive use of e-Governance and ICT based technologies.

The state of Nagaland is now occupying a unique position in the IT core infrastructure development in the North Eastern Region. Nagaland is the first in India to take over State Portal and State Services Delivery Gateway (SP&SSDG) core infrastructure project. It is the only state in India where the State IT Department is running the State Data Centre without engaging the private Data Centre Operator (DCO). It is the first state in the North Eastern Region to start the pilot project for National Information Infrastructure (NII) and to implement Aadhaar based Biometric Attendance System in Nagaland Civil Secretariat.

Nagaland’s vision on eGovernance

Nagaland has been awarded the best-performing State in North Eastern Region in the field of IT & eGovernance by Computer Society of India (CSI) for the year 2015-16. It has also been given the Enterprise Applications award in North East Tech Sabha by Indian Express Group in 2018.

The broad vision of the Department of Information Technology & Communication (IT&C) is to make Nagaland an Information Technology hub through setting up of world-class Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) for North Eastern Region and South East Asia. It aims to provide high internet bandwidth to every village Panchayat and transform the state into a digital society through transparency and accountability.

Nagaland is planning to enable all Government departments to have e-Office to deliver services promptly to citizens through an online system and bring about a comprehensive IT literacy initiative throughout the State. The goal is to generate direct and indirect employment for at least one lakh local youth in IT and e-Governance related activities in about two decades. As a state, it plans to promote knowledge economy and increase the GDP of the state through the use of Information Communications Technologies and IT services and promote electronic financial transactions using virtual bank branches operating from customer activated terminals, smartphones, and other electronic accessories. One of the visions is also to ensure cybersecurity, information security, prevention of data corruption and fraudulent practices. It also aims at promoting telemedicine, telemarketing, and market supply chain through networking for retailers, distributors, warehouses, transporter, manufacturers, material suppliers etc.

Also Read: Tamil Nadu sets benchmark of eGovernance in India

Ensuring digitisation of all records and promote use of demographic database for determining age and sex composition, income levels, distribution of resources, regional disparities, incidence of diseases, life expectancy etc. and train various Departments, Schools, Colleges, entrepreneurs and general citizens in IT related matters for improving their skills to meet the challenges of knowledge economy and promote economic growth are also amongst the many visions of the state.

Aiding youth on skill development and employment generation

Nagaland wants to make the state a major software exporter in South East Asian Region and make Nagaland one of the richest states in the country while promoting high bandwidth data applications and electronic services to rural areas through Common Service Centres (CSC). It also plans on integrating all Government departments on a single platform through enterprise architecture and enables modern electronic systems like e-Cabinet, e-Legal, e-Education, e-mobile classroom, e-Hospital, e-Dashboard, Single window e-Business, e-Naga Village, etc. The state also aims to strengthen core infrastructures like State Data Centre, State Wide Area Network, e-District, National Information Infrastructure (NII), Common Service Centres (CSC), etc. and networking infrastructure using terrestrial, wireless, aerial OFC and satellite technologies.

Enabling centralised electronic integrated security systems using electronic equipments such as electric field perimeter protection system, micro-wave co-axial cable system, vehicle identification system, biometric system, electronic scanner system, electronic explosive detection system, electronic jammers system, CCTV surveillance system with centralised common control, IP based surveillance system, advanced video analytic system etc. and to bring up a world-class e-Governance Academy in the state to cater to the needs of North Eastern States and South East Asian Countries and encourage research related works in IT sector for the youth by bringing up a robust research and development facility are on the list of their vision for the state of Nagaland.

The main aim of the Department of IT&C is to make the state a major software exporter in South East Asian Region and make Nagaland one of the richest states in the country by actively engaging unemployed youth in meaningful IT and e-Governance related activities. To achieve the above vision considerable planning is required and the following projects will be in the pipeline in the next few years to achieve this vision.

Plans and Policies in Pipeline

Upcoming projects by the Department of Information Technology & Communication, Nagaland are as follows:

Enterprise Architecture

This project aims to integrate all Government Departments on a single platform through enterprise architecture and enable modern electronic systems like e-Cabinet, e-Legal, e-Education, e-mobile classroom, e-Hospital, e-Dashboard, Single window e-Business, e-Naga Village, etc.

e-Naga Village

The department aims to provide IT connectivity to selected villages and providing infrastructures for the marketing of village products, Telemedicine, Solar power, IT education, etc. through this project.

e-Governance Academy

The objective of this initiative is to set up a world-class institute to cater to the educational and training needs of the North-Eastern region.

Aerial Optical Fibre Network Connectivity

This project aims to provide stable optical fibre connectivity through power transmission lines across Nagaland.

Wireless connectivity and Wi-Fi hotspot

This project aims to provide wireless connectivity to all nooks and corners of the state.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)/ Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)

With this project, Nagaland aims to encourage the knowledge economy and engage at least one lakh local youth in IT and e-Governance activities by the year 2030.

Software Technological Park

This project is to encourage research and development activities, encourage the export of software-related products and provide plug and play facilities for local entrepreneurs.

Centralised electronic integrated security systems

This project will help to enable centralised electronic integrated security systems using electronic equipments such as electric field perimeter protection system, micro-wave co-axial cable system, vehicle identification system, biometric system, electronic scanner system, electronic explosive detection system, electronic jammers system; CCTV surveillance system with centralized common control, IP based surveillance system, advanced video analytic system etc.

The Road Ahead

At present, the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) at Kohima is ready for commissioning. Software Technology Park of India (STPI) at Kohima has also been declared as the Centre of Excellence for Graphics by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. It is felt that this facility will help local entrepreneurs to set up their software companies and promote Software Exports from the State. The State of Nagaland has also signed MoU with e-Governance Academy of Estonia for setting up of eGovernance Academy of Nagaland (eGAN) and digital classroom will be set up very shortly.

Various e-Services such as certificates, Social Welfare Schemes, Ration Card, NBSE result verification and duplicate mark sheets, NPSC One Time Registration (OTR), etc. are now live and available online on the eDistrict portal and a common scholarship portal has also been developed by the Department of IT&C and currently four online scholarship services (Post Matric, State Merit, State Research, NEC) for Higher Education are live and Pre-Matric Scholarship for Class 9 & 10 under School Education Department are now live.

Information on Scholarship for Departments like Health & Family Welfare, Social Welfare and Horticulture, etc. are also made available on the common scholarship portal. It is understood that there is not a single formula on how we should progress and lead our lives. And while we respect the vision of different states, at least in the state of Nagaland it is felt that in the coming days, Information technology will be one area where the state can realise its God-given potential and progress very rapidly.

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