How the Govt. of NCT Delhi is Surging Ahead with Digital

Digital technologies are revolutionizing governments across the world and it’s no different in India. To understand and discuss important issues of governance, a conference was organized recently in association with HP Inc., CMR and Coeus Age for senior officials of the govt. of NCT, Delhi.

The conference aimed to discuss important issues of governance and how to address them with digital and the need to create a secure digital environment for future successes. Senior officials from govt. of Delhi were also presented with the Gems of Digital Awards, which recognized the exemplary work done by them in their various digital initiatives.

Here are the conference highlights.

Digital Success Requires Collaboration

Leadership Keynote: Shri J.P. Agarwal IAS, Special Secretary, Revenue Department

The conference kicked off with the keynote address by Shri J.P. Agarwal, Special Secretary-Revenue. He said that today, digital has become a part and parcel of our daily lives. There’s hardly anything which we do that doesn’t have an influence of technology. It’s therefore imperative for govt. to also embrace digital technologies to connect with the citizens and serve them better.

He congratulated the Delhi Govt. for some of their path breaking work in digital. He then advised the audience that better collaboration is required between users and IT for digital to work because of its continuously evolving nature. At the same time, he also warned of the various security threats prevalent in the digital world and stressed on the need to continuously explore new paradigms of security. Lastly, he concluded by stressing on the need for the govt. to work with the right partners in order to stay abreast of the latest technologies.

Digital Tech Can Help Govern the Connected Society

“Digital has become a way of life with everything, be it people or machines getting inter-connected”, said Anil Chopra, VP-Research and Consulting, CMR in his welcome address. He added that state govts in India have realized that confluence of these digital technologies can create new service opportunities and achieve smarter goals and deliver smarter governance eco-system.

Security of Digital Environment Key for Success of Govt. Initiatives

Kalpesh Jani, Security Advisor India, HP Inc.

In order to ensure success of various digital govt. programs, it’s essential to create a secure environment to execute them successfully, said Kalpesh Jani, Security Advisor India, HP Inc. He illustrated with examples how security breaches can happen when endpoint devices like printers and PCs are not secured or left unattended in office. As more devices get inter-connected, more personal information will be available for hackers to steal. Similarly, various state governments are in the process of inter-connecting applications from different departments. This would mean more more personal information for hackers to try and hack into. In Maharashtra for instance, Kalpesh explained how CCTVs capture vehicles breaking traffic rules and send challans to their owners simply by tagging their mobile numbers to vehicle and license numbers. This is possible by inter-connecting various applications across govt. departments. While this is a key benefit of putting digital into action, Kalpesh cautioned that it also increases the security risk. “Today, the hackers are not just interested in financial gain. They’re interested in personal information that they can sell on the dark web”, he added. To prevent data theft, he stressed on the importance of identifying and protecting the weakest links on the network, like printers. “Today, printers are at the highest risk of breaches”, he said, and stressed on the fact that HP’s printers not only print, scan, and copy, but also protect. It’s something that the company has been doing since 1995.

e-Marketplace for Govt.

Shantanu Chatterjee, Business Manager, Govt. eMarketplace, HP Inc. India

HP Inc. India's head of GeM business, Shantanu Chatterjee gave a session of how GeM (Govt. e-Marketplace), is an end-to-end online market place for central and state govt. ministries and departments can digitally transform Govt. procurement by using the same. “It will completely revolutionize govt. procurement as we know it”, he said and talked about new features of v3 of the portal, which is expected to be fully operational from April this year. The portal will have an exhaustive set of technical parameters, which were not accurately defined for certain products earlier. The portal has also reworked on reverse auction feature that wasn’t so successful in the earlier version. The portal will also add advanced analytics so that you’ll be able to see trend lines, best-selling products, which departments is buying what, etc. to enable more informed choices.

Delhi’s Municipal Corporations Ranked First in Digital Initiatives Across India

“On various MMPs, Delhi ranks number 1 across all 36 states when it comes to municipal corporation’s digital initiatives, with healthcare at number 3 and eDistrict at number 5”, said Dr. Kapil Dev Singh, Founder and CEO, Coeus Age, in his research keynote address. This was based on a study conducted by Coeus Age’s govt. initiative, Maximum Governance. The study also formed the basis to arrive at Gems of Digital Telangana awards that were presented at the conference. “There were many other interesting projects done by the Delhi govt. that are beyond the MMPs, like the Plan, Dig, and Monitor system. This allows multiple entities to collaborate together so that approvals can be given faster and speed up work”, he added.

Taking the Next Secure Leap Forward

Panel Discussion on how to take the next secure leap forward. The Panelists (from L to R): Shri Santulan Chaubey, Head-eGovernance, Dept. of IT, Govt. of Delhi, Dr. Rakesh Gupta, State Informatics Officer of NIC, Anil Chopra, CMR (Moderator), Dr. Kapil Dev Singh of Coeus Age and Kalpesh Jani of HP.

The conference had a panel discussion where the panelists comprised of Shri Santulan Chaubey, Head-eGovernance, Dept. of IT, Govt. of Delhi, Dr. Rakesh Gupta, State Informatics Officer of NIC, Dr. Kapil Dev Singh of Coeus Age and Kalpesh Jani of HP. It was moderated by Anil Chopra, CMR.

The panelists discussed what’s the next big thing in governance over the next 1-3 years.

On this, Santulan Chaubey stressed on the importance of ensuring superior user/citizen experience when availing various govt. services, which is possible through GPR (Governance Process Re-Engineering. “If they’re filling up an online form for instance, it should require lesser effort wherein all past data already available with the govt. should be automatically filled up when the citizen enters, say his/her Aadhaar Number”, he said. He said that this would be possible only if various govt. services are inter-linked and stored in a common database. The other key thing that’s required is proactive governance, according to Chaubey. Why should people have to come to the govt. for what they’re entitled for? They should automatically get it. For instance, why can’t election cards be issued to students in school itself the moment they turn 18? Citizens shouldn’t have to come to govt. and stand in queues to furnish the same documents again that the govt. has provided them earlier?

“Such processes will increase faith in the system”, he added.

Dr. Rakesh Gupta, State Informatics Officer, NIC further added that in order to make all this possible, it’s important to first inter-connect all services. “We’re going to use the eDistrict portal, where 74 services are currently running. We’ll add another 50 from different departments”, he said. He further added that the govt. intends to take more applications on mobile to make them easier for the citizens to access.

Kalpesh further added that in order for integration of various departments to happen, all documents have to first be digitized securely and without any duplication. “There are so many records available today in govt. Dept that can’t be tracked or traced because they have not been digitized”, he said. Nothing can move forward unless this happens first.

Dr. Kapil further added that in order to make all these initiatives successful, there’s a need to imbibe the principles of security, ease of use, and service orientation right from the design state itself.

Gems of Digital Delhi Awards

The state of Delhi was presented with the award for excellence in e-governance, besides 14 other departments for their various projects.