J&K sets ball rolling for a Centre of Excellence in AI, GIS & E-governance

JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, while reviewing the IT services and infrastructure in J&K, exhorted upon the concerned department to initiate measures for establishment of Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Artificial Intelligence, Geographic Information System (GIS) and E-Governance here.

The meeting besides ACS, Education Department, Commissioner Secretary, IT; Commissioner Secretary, I&C and CEO, JaKeGA was attended by DG, Budget, several HoDs, representatives from NIC and concerned officers and officials from the IT Department.

Dulloo impressed upon the department to create necessary framework for establishment of this CoE under JaKeGA. He called for holding consultations with the MeitY and BISAG-N for assistance and expertise regarding its swift establishment in the UT.

The Chief Secretary also assessed progress on establishment of IT Parks at Jammu and Srinagar. He enjoined upon the department to identify suitable infrastructure for the same so that these are established without any further delay.

The Chief Secretary further directed for taking the e-Office services down to Tehsil and Block levels for swift movement of files besides ensuring timely monitoring and processing of these. He asked for completion of the exercise by 15th of June this year.

Regarding the quality of online services, the Chief Secretary emphasized on ensuring end-to-end digitization of services besides adhering to the specific timelines set for delivery of each service. He maintained that it is crucial to increase services under newly launched Sehat App, Mission YUVA, Kisan Khidmat Ghar (KKG), Kisan Sathi, HADP, Vidhya Samiksha Kendra and Samadhan 2.0, bringing governance at the doorsteps of the masses.

He stressed on substantially increasing the number of documents/certificates available over DigiLocker. He made out that these numbers should match with our population and services available online now. He called for uploading all educational certificates, birth/death certificates, domicile, property and documents of prime concern for the citizens.

The key areas that came up for discussion encompassed current status of development of digital infrastructure, implementation of online services and portals, initiatives under NeGD, ongoing projects with BISAG, nominations for National e-Governance Awards (NAeG), incentives for outstanding contributions, training programs, enhancement of connectivity, strengthening human resources for making the IT services more meaningful for the citizens.

Regarding the future roadmap, Commissioner Secretary, IT, Saurabh Bhagat, informed the meeting that establishment of a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, Creation of IT parks, expansion of the e-Office and initiatives like introduction of e-Cabinet system, implementation of NeVA and establishment of e-Vidhanare which are in pipeline will help in furthering the vision for Digital Jammu & Kashmir.

He added that the implementation of eUNNAT, e-Office 2.0, RTI portal, J&K LMS, and online water billing are in the final stages of implementation. In addition, expansion of digital infrastructure establishment of a State Data Centre, SWAN 1.0 and 1000 more Digital Village Centres are going to be a reality soon.

As far as the Cybersecurity is concerned, CEO, JaKeGA, Rupesh Kumar, informed the meeting that the agency is conducting security audits for all the websites. He detailed out the status of setting up of Security Operations Centre (SOC). He also apprised of the capacity building/training programs held for government employees besides those planned ahead for making these initiatives more effective and result-oriented for effective functioning of the government.