Department of Information and Public Relations

Press Release No. 371/19

HISTORIC SHILLONG DECLARATION AGREED AT THE 22ND NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON E-GOVERNANCE

The two day 22nd edition of the National Conference on e-Governance held in Shillong concluded today with a historic 'Shillong Declaration' outlining the future trajectory the country would take in terms of e-Governance. The 10 point Declaration is an outcome of a commitment made at the inaugural session the previous day and was framed after two days of intensive deliberations among senior officials, experts and representatives of 28 states and all union territories.

It may be mentioned here that the 10 points ‘Shillong Declaration’ resolved that the Government of India and State Governments would collaborate to improve the citizen’s experience with Government services by promoting timely implementation of India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) and implementing a single sign-on for interoperability and integration among e-Government applications throughout the country, to consolidate the plethora of successful State level e-Governance projects and domain-based projects with a focus to replicate them as a common application software with configurable features, to ensure improvement in ease of living and ease of doing business by making a big shift in the role of government from Service Provider to Service Enabler, thus moving from development of applications to making available public digital platforms where multiple competitive applications can be developed, to take steps to further improve connectivity in North Eastern States by addressing the issues and challenges of telecommunications connectivity at grassroot level and formulate and implement a comprehensive telecom development plan, to take steps to enhance the activities of Electronics Sector Skill Council in North Eastern States and explore the possibility for opening an electronics skill centre in Shillong, to promote use of e-Office and move towards less paper State Secretariats in the North-Eastern States and in the District level offices, to improve the quality of delivery of e-Services in the North East to fulfil the vision of improved citizen experience, to develop India as a global cloud hub and facilitate development of Government applications and databases on Cloud by default, to adopt emerging technologies for finding e-Governance solutions and to promote the Digital India Projects with focus on Smart Cities and Smart Villages through Startups and Smart Entrepreneurship.

In this respect, a valedictory function was held which was addressed by Shri P. S. Thangkhiew, Meghalaya Chief Secretary, Shri K.V. Eapen, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAPRG), Shri V. Srinivas, Additional Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAPRG), Government of India and Smti R. V. Suchiang, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Meghalaya in the presence of senior government officials drawn from Central, State Governments and Union Territories besides delegates and other representatives of private enterprises.

It may be added that the two-day National Conference on e-Governance organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAPRG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India in collaboration with the Government of Meghalaya is an attempt to streamline the e-governance services for effective policy implementation while helping to bridge the technological divide. The Conference witnessed a huge turnout of 535 delegates representing 28 states and all Union Territories. It is worth mentioning here that the conference is the first of its kind to be held in North East India and was an astounding success for e-Governance in the region and the country. The conference provided a space for debating values and norms, standard setting, multi stake holder initiatives on various issues of e-governance like NeSDA, E-Office, One Nation One Platform, India Enterprise Architecture, Digital Infrastructure and End to End Citizen Services to improve the life of the citizens.