76th SKOCH Summit – State of Governance

It’s been a tough haul for the districts to struggle with the second wave of COVID19 and thereafter to prepare for the third wave. Being the face of the governance, is interfaces directly with the citizen. The focus has now shifted to enhanced and improved delivery of services and adoption of digital technologies to provide an integrated view of the government to the citizen. It helps to respond quickly because of a single use interface and empowers the citizen. It also means improved governance with focused targeting and delivery of services or entitlements with no or minimum leakages. The Panel discusses the following:

• What needs to be done to improve this integration?
• What are the impediments?
• Given the current challenges, how to leverage data and see its functionality across all applications, services and departments?

We have been studying cities for nearly two decades and find that cities have evolved from their erstwhile role of maintenance of the city alone. Local bodies are the interaction layer for the citizens For a citizen, it would mean transacting online in an error-free manner and for government, availability of refined data for better targeting and delivery. Cities are innovating and have become more business like to improve their revenue by way of increased compliances, reduced leakages and user charges. This is making our cities agile, alert and institutions that are adding to the ease of living.

The Panel discusses the following:

• What needs to be done to improve citizen-government interaction and ease of living?
• What are the impediments?
• Given the current challenges, how to leverage data and see its functionality across all applications, services and departments?

The digital enablement of the police forces in India and law and order machinery has been put in top gear. Whether it is the integrated command and control, wiring up of all police stations down to the taluka level, CCTV networks or data analytics and AI. Our Police system is on the move. The imperatives have changed given the current state of digitalisation that has also increased the cyber vulnerabilities. Social media has become a major influence on shaping up democracy and society. There are issues to women and child safety as well. Most state police departments have a vision on how 2021-25 they are going to become a fully digitally enabled police force in a digital state.

This panel examines:

• The shape of things to come and how our Law and Policing would keep up to speed.
• What are going to be the linkages with the judicial system, etc?
• What is your vision 2021-25?