NIC to lead the way for Digital India: Prasad

NEW DELHI: National Informatics Centre (NIC) kicked off the National Meet on Grassroot Informatics – VIVID: Weaving a Digital India, at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

The three-day event was inaugurated by  Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice, GoI in the presence of P. P. Chaudhary, MoS for Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Dr. Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC and Rama Nagpal, Deputy Director General, NIC.

Speaking at the occasion, Chief Guest Prasad said, “NIC is the technological bridge of India and is best placed to lead the way for a Digital India that the honorable Prime Minister envisaged. I would urge the District Information Officers (DIOs) to be innovative and proactive. NIC must adopt a transformative approach to make a difference at the grassroots level. I appeal NIC to connect with the Common Service Centres (CSCs), who have successfully provided training on digital payment systems to over 1.96 crore of rural citizens and 6.15 lakhs of merchants.”

He announced the Government’s plan to set up a Government Security Operation Centre and a Data Centre for Cloud in Bhopal.

Prasad also announced that the Government is going to enhance the infrastructure of district NIC offices to international standards. As a pilot project, 150 District NIC offices would be upgraded during the period 2017-18, while rest will follow soon. He further instructed the ministry to develop a training module for the NIC officials to keep pace with the ever evolving technologies. He also announced the introduction of annual awards for the DIOs of the NIC for taking up exemplary innovative approach in their respective districts. The top three best innovators will get a reward of Rs. 2,00,000, Rs. 1,00,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively.

Lauding the efforts of NIC, Guest of Hounor Chaudhary said, “The threshold of the year 2017 will always be remembered for heralding in several transformative changes to benefit the economy as well to the citizens, amongst them the Digital India initiative has been the most significant one. I must congratulate NIC and DIOs for playing a pivotal role in preparing the country for a successful Digital transformation of our ecosystem.

NIC today also introduced two new portals - District Collector’s Dashboard and NIC Service Desk, which were launched byPrasad and Chaudhary respectively.

The National Meet on Grassroot Informatics is aimed at showcasing the various initiatives of NIC in creating and enhancing the Digital Infrastructure in the country. Some of these are - setting up of ICT infrastructure, developing state of the art products to enable the government and empower the citizens, its initiatives at state and district level along the lines of Digital India initiatives along with the various awareness campaigns on Digital Payment Systems encompassing DBT, PFMS, Cashless Payment, Aadhaar etc.

The individual sessions during these three days would throw lights on NIC’s journey so far, the best practices it follows, the Digital India programme, Digital India initiatives from NIC State Units, success stories from the districts, Financial Inclusion, its technology awareness programmes and ICT Infrastructure being provided by NIC.