Madhya Pradesh wins South Asia’s prestigious E-governance Manthan Awards

Bhopal, December 23: (Pervez Bari) The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has won South Asia’s prestigious E-governance Manthan Award - 2009 for effective public service deliveries through innovative IT applications.

According to an official Press release the Manthan Award for E-Governance has been instituted by the Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi. Union Minister of state for IT Sachin Pilot presented the awards at New Delhi the other day.

It is significant to note that 380 nominations were received from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India came. In all 293 nominations came from different states of India. Jury declared 45 nominations as winners in different categories. Madhya Pradesh state bagged in all four awards which was the highest number won by any state of India.

Madhya Pradesh won four awards. The School Education, Higher Education, Forest Departments and MP Electricity Board received the E-governance Manthan Awards 2009. The initiatives of automatic metre reading (AMR) of the MPEB, E-Samvad of higher education department, MP State Education portal of School Education Department and Fire Alert System on mobile governance of Forest Department were adjudged innovative applications by the Manthan Award Jury.

Secretary IT and to Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Anurag Jain, Additional Principal Chief Conservator Forest Anil Obhrai, Mradul Khare of MPEB, Sanjay Jha Of Higher Education Department, Sunil Jain of School Education Department received the awards.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan congratulated the winners. He said that IT-enabled public services will be improved in Madhya Pradesh. A number of initiatives have already been taken. Digital empowerment of the masses will now be taken up for which action plans will be designed. Computer literacy for the masses is an area on which Madhya Pradesh will focus in active partnership with the private sector and dedicated voluntary bodies. Secretary IT Anurag Jain also congratulated the winners.

The Chief Minister released a special pull-out “Madhya Pradesh– E-Advancement brought out by www.mppost.org [1] – a Hindi internet newspaper, which was online media partner of the Manthan Award Presentation Ceremony. The Madhya Pradesh-E-Advancement presents a comprehensive scenario of IT initiatives under major IT projects and outcome of IT applications in Madhya Pradesh. Chouhan appreciated the theme - public service deliveries and e-governance saying that IT sector can do wonders by taking innovative applications for the rural and urban people and minimize the chances of ill-practices in public services. ([email protected] [2])