Principal Correspondent
Kohima, May 27
The much hyped e-Naga Summit embarking on a process to instill the spirit of innovation and use of technology for impacting positive change in the society with target audience comprising of students, entrepreneurs, NGOs, government departments and industry professionals was held at NBCC Convention Hall here today.
The summit is an initiative of the Department of Information Technology and Communication, Government of Nagaland in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and it was held under the theme “Ideas and Solutions to transform North East India through Information Communication Technology”. The summit aims to provide the way forward and ultimately lead to progress and prosperity of the nation as a whole while also play a key role of the vision of Digital India under the e-Governance.
In his address, Nagaland Chief Minister T. R. Zeliang said information technology and electronic media is playing a major role in building a knowledge led economy and India is looking at North Eastern State to boost economic growth.
“We have hardly experienced the local industrial revolution and it is now time for us to use IT for delivering government services and promote e-governance to balance the peculiar situation in which we are place,” the CM conveyed through his inaugural address which was read out by the State Chief Secretary Pankaj Kumar in his absentia.
He said that in the last few years the State of Nagaland has been popular for activities like Hornbill festival and we are proud that the State is often being branded as the land of festivals. “Our ancestors who were mostly farmers celebrate festivals after every agricultural activity but today educated people are looking for government jobs and the agricultural sector has been made secondary,” he decried, adding that “yet there is still lot of festivity without meaningful hard labour, which is not healthy for our society.”
He said the state needs young people to be innovators, creators, builders, entrepreneurs and this can happen only if the right opportunities are placed before them, he said. “With the right policies and investments in human capital, we can empower young people to drive socio-economic development and boost our economy,” he added.
The CM expressed happiness that the Department of IT&C is making all out effort to the extent of organising the e-Naga summit which will surely help the state to adapt to the changing situation.
He expressed hope that someday, Nagaland which is known as the land of festival will also be known as the land of e-Governance.
Minister for Information Technology and Communication, Paiwang Konyak addressing as the guest of honour on the occasion said that summit will showcase the importance of e-Governance and Information Communication Technology in bringing about a visible socio-economic change in the society.
He also asserted that his Department would work for the youth and disadvantaged people while also creating employment and business opportunities for the educated youths and entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, he also said that his department has taken up the mandate to build common infrastructure for e-Governance. He also said that Nagaland is the first state in North East to introduce online payment through the State portal and Common Service Centres (CSC) set up in villages are doing extremely well.
In this the Minister lamented that the IT&C Department, which is highly important and performing is having only 15 regular staff whereas there are many departments which have more than 1,500 regular staff. He therefore said that the many redundant posts existing in various departments should be diverted to the Department of IT&C so that officers from the Department of IT&C can be deployed in all government offices in much the same way like the Department of Treasury and Accounts.
The topics covered during the whole day session are “the role of quality technical institutes in building solid foundation for the growth of IT in North Eastern Region”, “The challengers and opportunities for entrepreneurs in NER – special focus on empowering women through IT and e-Governance”, “Creating infrastructure and nurturing an efficient IT ecosystem for promoting of investment in NER” and “Can North East become the next BPO or Call Centre hub of the world”.
IT&C business tycoons from different parts of the country including Microsoft, CISCO, Software Technology Parks of India as well as Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management, Banks and others have come forward to create awareness on information technology to over 2000 participants.
