SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta presided over a thorough evaluation of the IT Department today with the goal of further easing the lives of regular citizens through the use of e-initiatives for more transparency and door-step delivery of various government services. Alongside the evaluation, he also unveiled a number of IT initiatives, including the Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP), Open Government Data (OGD) platform, Digital Internship 2.0, and five (05) new online services dedicated to the public.Along with other senior officers from the IT Department, the CEO of JKeGA, the State Informatics Officer of NIC, and the Commissioner/Secretary of the IT Department all attended the review meeting and launch event. The Chief Secretary acknowledged Team J&K’s efforts at the outset of the evaluation for reaching the milestone of earning the top rank among States and UTs in terms of the number of e-services made available to citizens. At the same time, he made it clear that the success should inspire everyone to find other areas and services that should be offered in an electronic format in order to further improve the ease of the general population. He emphasised that e-services have improved departmental efficiency and are a very effective tool for achieving the “BhrashtacharMukt J&K” administration goal.The general public is also appreciating e-initiatives for their transparent, hassle-free character. He asked the department to keep working to increase the number of e-services available, advocating the addition of new services and setting a goal of achieving 1500 e-services. Dr. Mehta oversaw the production of thorough reports highlighting the backlog of e-files inside various government departments for prompt file destruction during the evaluation of e-office. He emphasised the significance of pinpointing users that display subpar file disposal rates. He also emphasised the use of cutting-edge tools in e-office processes, like voice-to-text converters, and evaluated the advancement of the Digital DPR and Virtual Tour projects.He ordered the inclusion of the PSGA timeline in the SMS delivered to individuals upon submitting an e-service application before the end of this month in order to increase empowerment & transparency and to sensitise the general public about their right to timely public service delivery. Meanwhile, the Chief Secretary described the creation of new horizons in J&K as evidence of increased transparency while announcing the JK instances of the Open Government Data (OGD) Platform, the Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP), and the Digital Internship Programme 2.0. Prerna Puri, the Commissioner Secretary for Information Technology, spoke at the event and told the audience that this year the Department is accepting a batch of 17 interns for training under the “Digital Internship Programme 2.0.” She said that the program’s goal is to increase participants’ ability to comprehend how government services and procedures operate more clearly.
