Mussoorie, May 09: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that technology-driven governance has been the hallmark of the nine years of the Modi government.
Delivering a key-note address to the new batch of IAS probationers as well as participants of the Mid-Career Programme for IAS officers at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, the minister said, that soon after this government came to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the Mantra ‘Maximum Governance, Minimum Government’ and to make it possible he continuously pushed the increasing use of technology.
Dr Jitendra said that on the one hand, Modi Government tried to give ease of living through ease of governance while introducing self-attestation or abolition of interviews, while on the other hand, the government was also trying to create ease of milieu or ease of work environment for the civil servants. He referred to the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, which the Modi government amended after 30 years in 2018 to introduce a number of new provisions including criminalising the act of giving bribe also in addition to taking bribe, and at the same time putting in place an effective deterrence for such actions by individuals as well as corporate entities. Through this undue harassment of the officers could be avoided, he said.
Similarly to make the officers more confident about their role, Dr Jitendra said, “Mission Karmayogi and iGOT platform was introduced whereby any officer taking up new assignment would be able to build inherent capacity within themselves for the new assignment. Additionally, the Assistant Secretaries stint of 3 months has been introduced for the first time before you go to the respective cadre. Thus you have an opportunity to know the priorities of the Central Government and to cultivate mentors.”
Highlighting further initiatives of technology driven governance, the BJP leader said, “Aspirational district was another experiment of similar nature where the government decided the indices on a scientific basis. We have a dashboard which is updated real time and there is constant competition happening and it’s absolutely objective. Another hallmark is the grievance redressal.”
One of the benchmarks of transparency and accountability is the grievance redressal mechanism, said Dr Jitendra Singh. “When we introduced CPGRAMS, in 2014 we just had about 2 lakh grievances being filed across the country every year, today we have about 20 lakhs, 10 times more. This is the result of increased trust of people in grievance redressal,” he said.
While concluding, Dr Jitendra Singh said that now in the next 25 years to come, the challenge will be on how to strike an optimum balance between technology and human interface and also to strike a balance between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence to get the best results by combining both.
