Shillong, August, 09: A 10-point ‘Shillong Declaration’ outlining future trajectory that the country would take in terms of e-governance, was adopted on the concluding day of the 22nd national conference on e-governance in Shillong on Friday.

The Shillong Declaration was declared during the valedictory function at the State Convention Centre.

The two-day conference hosted by Meghalaya, was the first ever conference held in the Northeast.

The valedictory function was addressed by Meghalaya Chief Secretary, P. S. Thangkhiew, Secretary in-charge Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, K.V. Eapen, Additional Secretary, V. Srinivas, Meghalaya Additional Chief Secretary, R. V. Suchiang, in the presence of senior government officials from the Central, State Governments and Union Territories besides delegates and representatives from private enterprises.

Union Minister of state (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the conference on Thursday suggested that the conference should adopt the Shillong Declaration so that important ideas emerged during the sessions may be referred to and developed upon for the future.

The two-day National Conference on e-Governance was organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions and Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology in collaboration with the Meghalaya Government.

The conference was an attempt to streamline 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. The conference provided a space for debating values and norms, standard setting, multi stake holder initiatives on various issues of e-governance like E-Office, One Nation One Platform, India Enterprise Architecture, Digital Infrastructure and End to End Citizen Services to improve the life of citizens.

The 10-point declaration was an outcome of a commitment made at the inaugural session of the conference and was framed after two days of intensive deliberations among senior officials, experts and representatives of 28 States and all Union territories.

In the Declaration it was resolved that the Central government 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.

It was also resolved to consolidate the plethora of successful State level e-Governance projects and domain-based projects with a focus to replicate them as common application software with configurable features.

The declaration also stressed the need 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.

The conference also included in the Shillong Declaration the need to take steps to further improve connectivity in the North Eastern States by addressing issues and challenges of telecommunications connectivity at the grassroot level and formulate and implement a comprehensive telecom development plan, besides take steps to enhance activities of Electronics Sector Skill Council in the North Eastern States and explore the possibility for opening an electronics skill centre in Shillong, promote the use of e-Office and move towards less paper State Secretariats in the North-Eastern States and in the District level offices.

Moreover, it was also resolved 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, 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.