Celebrating 4 landmarks in integrating technology with Governance, Gujarat has yet again outperformed other States!

The Government under the inspirational leadership of Shri Modi has broken new grounds in assimilating technology in its working and has received a galore of national and international honours over the years.

Shri Narendra Modi’s zeal for technological innovations in governance has accomplished another feat with the recognition of one-fourth of the Central E-Governance Awards.The uniqueness of this set of awards is the laurel earned for the State Government’s Online Voting System (OVS) which has been successfully implemented in the State’s local body elections.

Apart from the OVS, the State’s XLN-Xtended Licensing & Laboratory Node of Sales of its Food and Drugs Department, MAGIC – Mineral Administration and Governance Using ICT, and iMINE of the State Mineral Development Corporation Limited were conferred with accolades in Jaipur.

It has been discussed widely that Gujarat once again proved its mettle as the BJP-led government bagged four of the 16 national awards for their e-governance initiatives while States like Rajasthan received few honours. The awards were distributed at Jaipur by Rajasthan CM Shri Ashok Gehlot and Union minister Mr. V Narayanasamy.

Online Voting System (OVS)

The special appreciation for the OVS is an outcome of immense efforts dating back in 2010. The System commenced withaims of computerization of all key processes related to local body elections and to provide a provision for online voting to enhance citizens’ engagement in the electoral process.

The rules relating to Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and Panchayat Elections underwent amendments in order to accommodate OVS. Voters can register themselves as e-voters and can easily vote for local body elections from any location.

Some of the most prominent aspects of OVS are as following:

• The easily accessible and standardized online voting channel with usability guidelines.
• A flexible and customizable channel for different types of electoral models and ballots.
• The system is bi-lingual consisting of both English and Gujarati languages.
• Voters Privacy guaranteed with digitally sealed envelopes.
• A strong digital authentication using digital certificates for verification.

The OVS has been thoughtfully divided into two main modules, the pre-voting module and voting module.  The pre-voting phase consists of the procedures voter registration and online election schedule. Further, the voting module has taken care of SMS Passcode Verification, Voting confirmation, counting of votes and result declaration.

Extended Licensing & Laboratory Node (XLN)

The Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) department is the key authority responsible for monitoring the quality of drugs manufactured in Gujarat. The Extended Licensing and Laboratory Node (XLN) was designed by the FDCA to monitor the quality of drugs manufactured in Gujarat and coming from other States. XLN won the Gold Award in the category of “Exemplary Re-use of ICT based Solutions”.  It was framed keeping in purview the following points:

• To check the distribution of substandard medicines through mass SMSs.
• Controlling multiple registrations of pharmacists thereby ensuring that common man obtains medicines under the surveillance of a pharmacist.
• Creating a database of all 27,000+ pharmacies and making it available on a public.
• Accelerating the whole process of drug testing.

The success of the XLN in Gujarat has prompted other States like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala to replicate it.

Mineral Administration & Governance through ICT (MAGIC)

The third award bagged by the Gujarat Government is for Mineral Administration & Governance through ICT (MAGIC) implemented by the Commissionerate of Geology and Mining under the category of “Innovative use of Technology in e-governance”. Some of the e-services provided through MAGIC are mineral assessment, systematize the mineral identification on public domain, curbing illegal mining through geographical mapping.

This electronic venture has resulted in in transparency, reduction in time and efforts and control on illegal mining.

IT Intervention for Managing Integrated Networked Enterprise (iMINE)

The technological advancement piloted by Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) ,iMINE to enhance its operational efficiency has been acclaimed with a bronze award  for “Innovative Use of ICT by PSUs for Customer Benefits”.  The corporation, which has lignite customers within and outside Gujarat enhanced its customer relationship management with this initiative.

The four awards have encompassed almost every category of honours conferred during the 16th national conference on ‘e-governance’. The punctilious consideration paid by Shri Narendra Modi in making the best of technology for the welfare of Gujarat’s citizenry has reaped magnificent outcomes. While the rest of the nation is yet to fully realize the power technology for the benefit of citizens, Shri Modi has made technology a part and parcel of “Pro-people, Pro- Active,Good Governance”.

The galore of awards won by the State Government and Shri Narendra Modi for their exceptional contribution in elevating the lives of citizens can be found here and here.

It would be noteworthy to recall Shri Modi’s words at this juncture where every Government’s efforts in recognizing technology have outshone the rest of the country, “Our efforts for inclusive growth are holistic and not piecemeal; well planned and not knee jerk reactions; not for small changes but for quantum leap; making people the partners in growth not just beneficiaries; addressing the local needs by using global ideas and technology. And this is why our efforts in e-governance have been applauded the world over.”

References:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Gujarat-gets-one-fourth-of-the-central-e-governance-awards/articleshow/18358219.cms

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?edorsup=Sup&wintype=popup&queryed=1310016&querypage=2&boxid=5536&id=20720&eddate=2013-2-12&ed_date=2013-2-12&ed_code=1310016