Government of India Celebrates Good Governance and Expands 'Digital India' Initiative

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), organized an exhibition in New Delhi to celebrate the Good Governance Day. As part of the event, the government has announced a number of initiatives expanding its "Digital India" initiative.

The event was inaugurated by the Minister of Communications & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, and was attended by officials of central government and its agencies, industry partners, interested netizens, and media personnel.

In his keynote address at the event, the Minister said, that on the pillars of participation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness and efficiency, Good Governance can be effectively achieved through the vision of Digital India. The Minister emphasized that simple and inclusive technology has transformative power and is the source of good Governance.

“In the last six months, Government of India has taken a number of landmark initiatives. The Digital India programme, unveiled by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, is committed to take the cause of Good Governance forward in letter and spirit”, the Minister added.

The Minister in his concluding remarks directed all the officials of the Ministry of Communications and IT that they must ensure that the vision of Digital India becomes a reality! (Digital India Karna Hai).

RS Sharma, Secretary, DeitY said, “The department has taken a number of initiatives like MyGov(Citizen participation platform) , Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System, Jeevan Pramaan, e-Greetings, e-Sampark, National Digital Literacy Mission, e-Governance Competency Framework etc. to promote Good Governance in the country,” as well as to give impetus to the Digital India programme.

“Government officials at all levels should contribute to this cause by ensuring effective planning and implementation of various e-Governance programmes. To make it happen, all government officials need to develop a positive mindset for e-Governance and other Information and communication technology (ICT) programmes. They also need to update their ICT skills on a regular basis”, he emphasized.

The Minister launched a number of Good Governance projects initiated by Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Department of Telecommunication, Department of Posts and their organizations.

Some of the key projects launched at the event were Time Stamping of Digital Signature, Integrated Indian Languages Virtual Keyboard for Android, PARAM Shavak (Super computer in box solution), .bharat domain in Gujarati and Bangla, e-launch of Support International Patent Protection in Electronics & IT scheme (SIP-EIT), Disbursements under Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme(M-SIPS), Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) disbursement, Gyansetu – an internet based real time ICT system to provide e-Services to the rural population of India, MTNL Apps for Android smart phones and e-Governance Competency Framework (e-GCF).

Additionally e-Books were launched by the three departments namely Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Department of Telecommunications and Department of Posts. Department of Posts also launched a pocket book.

Deity also organized an exhibition for which invitation to general public was done through an online registration process which was set up on National e-Governance Plan website. The event saw a huge participation from about 50 Government and private organisations like National Informatics Centre (NIC), Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) , Ministry of Panchayati Raj, IBM, CISCO, Oracle, Infosys etc. The exhibition offered a glimpse of various projects in the areas of software and hardware development, Networking, Services, Mobile, Geographic information system (GIS), Security and health, which were contributing to the cause of ICT enabled Good Governance.