STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday asserted the commitment of the Jammu and Kashmir government to bring benefits of digital transformation to the people and the society.
“Accelerated digital transformation and adoption of emerging technologies have helped the administration become more open, transparent and develop new delivery models to ensure people can access e-Services conveniently”, Sinha said, two days ahead of the holding of 25th National e-Governance Conference at Katra, adding that the Union Territory has recorded more than 2 Crore E-Transactions in October 2022, which is significantly higher than 10.5 Lakh e-Transactions during the same period in 2021.
The conference, being held on 26-27th November 2022 at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, will be organised by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir in collaboration with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.
The two-day conference will be attended by 1000 delegates from 28 states and 8 Union Territories and officials from Central Ministries and departments. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal will also attend the conference on 27th November. IT Department J&K UT and Haryana’s Department of Information Technology will also sign a MoU for knowledge sharing, idea exchange, capacity building in IT sector. “e-Governance means inclusiveness, people first, strengthening trust with citizens, establishing real-time grievance redressal mechanism, bridging the digital divide, enhancing ease of doing business & ease of living and enabling the citizens to transparently provide feedback on their experience of public services. I am confident the two-day National e-Governance conference shall go a long way in deliberating new e-participation tools and better collaboration with people for efficient service delivery,” the Lt Governor observed.
The National e-Governance Conference is a momentous occasion for Jammu and Kashmir and furthers the vision of Digital India of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“In a short span of two years, we have taken a giant leap to create user-centric service delivery system and paperless administrative functions through e-Office. Technology has redesigned the rules and procedures bringing accountability and transparency in the system and enabling us to provide services more effectively and efficiently,” the Lt Governor said.
In the last two years, several e-governance initiatives have been launched to reach out to citizens and bring greater efficiency and transparency in the functioning of the J&K government. The Government has recently launched the ‘Digital Jammu and Kashmir’ programme to provide all government services in digital mode through an integrated services delivery portal. The vision is to make governance more effective, efficient and citizen-centric by harnessing the power of IT for inclusive development. The NeSDA (National e-Governance Delivery Assessment Report) of DARPG, GoI for the year 2021 has ranked Jammu and Kashmir first amongst UTs in e-governance. Jammu and Kashmir has been ranked first amongst UTs both in State portal and in the online services with highest compliance on NeSDA parameters.
The implementation of e-office in all government offices has brought about greater efficiency in the overall working of the government in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. J&K ranks first amongst UTs in the uptake of e-office with around 330 offices on e-office and a file disposal rate of 96%. As on date, more than 300 offices have been made fully operational on e-office. The practice of ‘Darbar Move’ included movement of hundreds of trucks to transport the official documents and infrastructure over a distance of over 300 kms between Jammu and Srinagar and vice versa. The 149-year-old practice entailed an annual cost of around Rs 400 crores. Rapid Assessment System of UT of Jammu and Kashmir ranks first amongst UTs in the RAS integration of services with 227 services integrated with RAS. The first digital online library of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been launched. J&K Employees Performance Monitoring Portal, first of its kind introduced anywhere in India by a State or UT Government, captures the monthly work performance of the employees and officers of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir and the appraisal thereof by their respective Reporting / Controlling Officers. The UT of Jammu and Kashmir has been on-boarded on the Gati-Shakti platform of DoT, integration with which marks online processing of Right of Way applications. Recently Government of UT of Jammu and Kashmir has facilitated ease of accessibility of services at a single place and accordingly a portal “eUnnat” -Unified integrated Accessible, Transparent, which is dynamic in nature.
The Conference will be inaugurated by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Science and Technology, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office. The Valedictory Session, to be presided over by the Lt Governor on 27th November, will witness launch of J&K Vision Document and launch of J&K Cyber Security policy.