Ambit of National Award for E-Governance expanded

New Delhi, Dec 11 (UNI) The ambit of the National Awards for E-Governance has been expanded with the introduction of two new award categories, including 'focus sector of Agriculture and 'special award', from this year.

These awards are presented every year by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG) jointly with the Department of Information Technology seeking to recognise and promote excellence in implementation of e-governance initiatives.

In addition to the six categories in which awards were presented last year, this year (2007-08), it has been decided to award exemplary work in a 'focus sector' which will be selected every year. Agriculture has been selected as the focus sector for 2007-08.

The other category introduced this year is for a 'Special Award' for significant work done in areas not specifically covered by other categories, taking the total award categories from six to eight. For the year 2007-08, a total of 24 awards will be presented, Golden, Silver and Bronze icon would be given for these categories: Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering; Exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT-based Best Practice; Outstanding Performance in Citizen-Centric Service Delivery; Innovative Technology Usage in E-governance; Exemplary Usage of ICT by PSUs; Best Government Website; Special Award for significant work done in areas not specifically covered by other categories, that is Knowledge Management, Project Management, Information Security and others and Specific Sectoral award Agriculture (Focus Sector for the current year).

The awards would be presented during the 11th National Conference on E-Governance scheduled to be held at Panchkula, Haryana, in February next year.

The DAR&PG have invited nominations in all these categories for the National Awards from Central Ministries/Departments, States/UTs, Districts, Local Bodies, PSUs, Civil Society Organisations and Industry and the last date for nominations has been extended till December 25.

UNI