Digital India Award 2020: Bihar, Tamil Nadu announced the winner for innovation in a pandemic, excellence in digital governance awards
(Source: ET Government)
The Digital India Award 2020 announced under six categories saw Bihar take home the newly launched ‘innovation in pandemic’ category award for 2020.
Under the new category President Ram Nath Kovind presented the Digital India Award, 2020 to Bihar government through videoconferencing for promptly transferring money to the bank accounts of more than 21 lakh beneficiaries, mostly migrant workers, who were stranded outside the state during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
The award in this category felicitates a government entity which has developed an outstanding, innovative digital solution to enable the citizens to undertake various activities with ease during the time of pandemic, in areas including communication, health, education, travel or for ensuring continuity of government services.
The Digital India Awards 2020 declared Bihar chief minister's secretariat, disaster management department (DMD), and National Informatics Centre (NIC) as winners under the ‘innovation in pandemic’ category. Union Minister Ravishankar Prasad was also present through the virtual mode during the occasion.
The Silver award was also conferred to the 'Aapda Sampoorti' web portal of the state government for 'exemplary innovation to facilitate citizens in the challenging times of pandemics' at the ceremony. This portal has been developed under the technical supervision of NIC.
Chanchal Kumar, principal secretary to the CM, Pratyaya Amrit, principal secretary, DMD, and M Ramchandrudu, additional secretary, DMD, received the award on behalf of the state government. NIC officers Shailesh Kumar Shrivastava and Niraj Kumar Tiwary also present during the occasion.
Further, the southern state of Tamil Nadu took the Gold award under the category 'Excellence in Digital Governance - State' at the Digital India Awards 2020.
Additional chief secretary, IT department, Hans Raj Verma received the award on behalf of the state government during the virtual ceremony. Both the awards were presented by President Ram Nath Kovind and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was also present during the occasion.
This year, the government has received 400 nominations which were evaluated by IIT-Delhi, followed by Jury members, and 20 were finally selected for awards.
National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has been conducting the biennial Digital India Awards to promote innovation in e-governance and digital transformation of government service delivery mechanism.
