25/07/2016
Gangtok, July 25: The One year residential Diploma programme in e-Governance for government officials from the North Eastern States was formally inaugurated by Shri P.D Rai, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Sikkim at Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT) at Majhitar, East Sikkim today.
The e-Governance academic programme is initiated by the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India to support capacity building of North Eastern states for implementation of Digital India. The National e-Governance Division (NeGD), under the aegis of DeitY is executing this project and National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) has been designated as the implementing agency for capacity building of North East states. The programme will be offered by SMIT.
The programme provides an exciting career opportunity for the participants to be a part of the national initiative and is expected to benefit the young and vibrant officials of the North Eastern State Governments who are involved or expected to play a key role in e-Governance projects. 21 government officers, 11 from Sikkim and 10 from Assam are participating in the one-year residential programme at SMIT.
Commissioner cm secretary, Department of Personnel Administrative Reforms, Training & Public Grievances, Shri Tenzing Gelek, Vice-President, (HR), NISG, Prof Dr Punam Sahgal, Registrar, Sikkim Manipal University, Prof Dr Ashis Sharma, Director SMIT, Col Dr. Avik Garg (Retd), Shri Siddharth Pareek, Project Manager, NISG, representatives from Sikkim and Assam Governments were also present on the occasion.
Delivering the welcome address, Prof Punam Sahgal said this programme is the first of its kind in the North eastern region. “The initiative Preparing North East for Digital India, the flagship programme of Government of India aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, to improve overall capacities in the North East, to develop higher skills and professionalism and to prepare officers to play effective supportive roles in the conceptualization, design and develop strategies for implementation of e-governance projects in the region. Through this programme, we hope to expand the pool of professionals with a holistic understanding of designing and implementing e-governance projects, provide adequate exposure to the current trends in hardware, software, communication, network and technologies today, enable the government officers to acquire and appreciate necessary knowledge and skills to plan for change and lead projects,” Prof Sahgal said. “The programme has been designed to give the participants a robust and comprehensive curriculum that covers major areas of technology and management in the context to e-governance,” she added.
Delivering the inaugural address, Shri PD Rai congratulated SMIT and NISG for bringing this programme to Sikkim, the first of its kind in the North eastern region. “The idea and concept and the significance of e-governance needs be spread amongst the citizens, especially in terms of delivering the services to citizens. The states that need e-governance the most are those most remotely accessible states, and states in the northeast are those who need it the most. Sikkim could play a major role in the development of e-governance as it’s climatic conditions, high quality power generation should be an ideal place to set up server farms but the major stumbling block could be the problems in bringing in high bandwidth, fault tolerant internet connectivity. We have already had discussions with the Ministry of Communication and IT, government of India on this idea and we are hopeful that these ideas bear fruits soon.
This kind of thinking will propel the need for use of the technology in e-governance. The front-end could be the apps that the government uses to connect its services with its various implementing agencies and the citizens. The popular use of social media and services apps should be seamlessly brought in the e-governance module so that the citizens benefits,” Mr. Rai said. He also suggested the participants from Sikkim to take advantage of the recently-launched Sikkim Open Government Data Platform and make it part of the e-governance programmes and practices.
Director SMIT, Col Dr. Avik Garg (Retd) delivered the vote of thanks.
On 1st April, 2016, the Vice Chancellor of SMU and the Chief Executive Officer, National Institute for Smart Government had signed a Memorandum of Understanding for delivery of this programme through SMU.
