HERALD: What is happening with the new IT and Start-Up Policy? What is the status?
ANKITA ANAND: IT policy 2018 is in force and we have a couple of applications for various schemes. Scrutiny of the applications is in progress. The scheme applications are approved by an Empowered Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister. An empowered committee meeting will be convened soon to review the pending applications. Department of IT is trying to boost IT companies based in Goa who gives employment opportunities to local IT graduates. Currently, 12 companies have been successfully registered under Goa IT policy 2018.
Three incentive applications are processed and waiting for approval from empowered committee for disbursement of incentives. About 19 applications are under scrutiny. Department of Information Technology conducts sessions with IT company representatives to understand their bottlenecks while applying for various incentive schemes and provide solution to their queries so that Goa IT policy 2018 reaches to wider audience and more and more eligible IT companies are benefitted with the incentives. A dedicated helpline is available to sort the queries raised by the applicants.
A total of 57 new start-ups have been certified under the Goa Start-up Policy – 2017, since April 2019 and thus adding to a total of 110 certified start-ups. From April 2019, approx Rs 1.27 crore financial incentives have been approved for certified Goa Start-ups and Rs 90 lakh approx has been disbursed since April 2019.
I would like to highlight the notable government process re-engineering done with respect to Start-up Policy wherein the process of certification and disbursal of seed capital 2nd and 3rd tranche payments have been enabled at Secretary IT level. Moreover, the Goan start-ups certified with integration the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) would now be able to directly apply for incentives under Goa Start-up Policy.
The Government is also working on a new Start-up Policy 2021 incorporating new DPIIT definition, learnings from the current policy, best practices from other states, feedback from Start-up India. The draft of the policy is ready. However, we are currently reviewing it against the Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme launched by the Govt of India.
HERALD: What is the status on building up e-district, digital lockers to bring in Ease of Doing Business?
AA: The Department of IT has brought about a digital revolution even in the midst of the pandemic. The citizens can apply for various departmental services at Goa online.gov.in. It is a one stop solution. The e-District platform – goaonline currently hosts 136 end-to-end services of 21 departments. As of Date, there are 5.5 lakh registered users and 15.07 lakh applications /payments of the various e-services of the departments have been completed. I am really happy to share that there has been an increase in the user registration by approx 20% and 65% increase in the number of applications received on Goa Online in the last six months.
Another feather in the cap is that regular e District Pendency monitoring by the Department at HoDs level has resulted in substantial reduction in the e-District pendency – beyond 60 days. As a part of EoDB mandate, various services have been enabled under goaonline portal. Single sign on methodology has been adopted to integrate existing applications enhancing e-Delivery of services.
The government has mandated use of DigiLocker in different departments to provide access to authentic digital documents through digital wallet by Cabinet decision. All the existing applications shall be integrated with Digilocker.
Now, to enhance the experience of the end user we will be soon introducing the ‘No Visit to No Document’ feature in Goa Online. Instead of citizens uploading the documents, Goaonline will fetch the certificate data from various State government databases.
HERALD: There is a bit of confusion when we mention Common Service Centre or Citizen Service Center as both have the same acronym CSC. Kindly clarify?
AA: As you know, there are a large number of people who prefer to get services offline, hence we have State-run delivery outlets which are called Citizen Service Center. The Citizen Service Center is funded by DOIT and is run by Goa Electronics Ltd (GEL). We have built seven state of art facility in the Citizen Service Center in Margao, Quepem, Canacona, Sanguem, Ponda, Honda and Mapusa. Very shortly we will be also starting a Citizen Service Centre in Pernem.
Common Service Centre SPV, Ministry of IT & Electronics (MietY), GoI through Common Service Centre Scheme also had a similar set-up wherein the outlets are run through village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) for provision of various services. The VLEs delivers all G2C and G2B and other B2B services. The VLEs operate on a revenue sharing model with CSC SPV.
We have roped in these common service centers to increase the delivery outlets of the State and increase the accessibility of e-services to the public at large. Currently, around 39 Goa Online services are delivered through Common Service Centers. There are about 140+ CSCs VLEs operating in Goa. We are also trying to ensure that all the vacant panchayats are covered in the near future. Further, PMGDISHA scheme of GoI is being implemented through these CSCs. As of now there are 89 registered centres in Goa; Total 1324 citizens have been registered in Goa.
HERALD: What measures have you taken in terms of cloud, Meghraj, National Information Center?
AA: The Department of IT has taken decision to migrate all the websites as well as applications to the NIC Cloud. In this regards, some of the websites have been migrated to NIC cloud, Porvorim and efforts are being made to migrate applications such as e-District to NIC, Megaraj. Further NIC, cloud being government cloud will offer higher security of the data.
HERALD: Does Goa have platform of MyGov in line with the Center? If so, what is the progress on that front?
AA: In line with the central MyGov portal, a state instance of goa.mygov.in was created. MyGov is an innovative platform to build a partnership between Citizens and Government with the help of technology for growth and development of the State. The portal was launched in September last year.
In a short span of time the goa.mygov.in is emerging as a popular initiative and currently it is having 5460 users. Six discussion themes have been floated till date on the portal.
HERALD: Connectivity is a major issue. What has been the role of your department in this regard?
AA: The AMC of the extended GBBN connectivity and computer networking aims at connecting all the Govt. departments/corporations/Autonomous Body across the state of Goa on Goa Broadband network (GBBN).
In June 2020, the Department appointed Comnet Solutions Pvt Ltd as the implementing agency to carry out the work of AMC of the extended GBBN connectivity for a period of five years.
The department is in process of rectification of GBBN connectivity to provide stable Internet/Internet connectivity to all the government office/ schools/autonomous bodies. Around 160+ locations have been rectified since October 2020 out of 1699 locations.
The department has also provided WIFI connectivity at six village panchayats on a pilot basis. ie Netraulim VGP-Sanguem Tulka, Khotigao VGP-Canacona Taluka, Sancordem VGP -Sanguem Taulka, Saverdem VGP- Valpoi Taulka, Tamboxem VGP-Pernem Taulka, Morpila VGP-Quepem Taulka.
Further, the Government of Goa has come up with Goa Telecom Policy 2020 in order to increase the mobile coverage in villages and in remote areas. PWD is the nodal Department for implementation of the policy.
HERALD: Any new initiative undertaken?
AA: There are various initiatives being undertaken by the Department which are in the pipeline. Firstly, the government has submitted detailed project report (DPR) to the Department of Telecommunication, Government of India for getting funding for implementing Bharatnet project in the State of Goa. The project aims at replacing the electronic equipment and laying of new optical fiber cable. Formulation of a scheme, policy for IT training is in process. The IT training scheme, policy envisages building a culture of periodic IT training and to foster excellence in IT related work culture at all levels of governance. It aims to develop an IT driven work culture through the use of ICT in the functioning of the government, internally and externally leading to e-administration as a possible outcome.
