Union Minister of State for Personnel, PG and Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh today said that “Awareness not Anxiety” is key to fight the global pandemic of COVID-19 and international collaboration is the need of the hour. He was speaking after inaugurating an international workshop here through a webinar, jointly organized by Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC), Ministry of External Affairs and National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.

Dr. Singh reiterated that the roadmap ahead for Nations in winning the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic lies in restarting the economy and strengthening cooperative federalism. He said that the thrust is for stronger institutions, stronger e-Governance models, digitally empowered citizens and improved healthcare.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that it was Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, who gave a wakeup call to the world to fight this challenge and set high standards of mutual international cooperation. Shri Modi was not only instrumental in creating a COVID-19 Emergency Fund, with a commitment of 10 million US Dollars, but also addressed the pandemic issue at SAARC, NAM and other platforms, Dr. Singh added.

The two-day Conference is being attended by 81 International Civil Servants from 16 Countries including the Chief of Staff, Sri Lanka Army Major General HJS Gunawardena, 19 Senior Secretaries to Government from Bangladesh, 11 District Administrators from Myanmar, Senior officials from Bhutan, Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Somalia, Thailand, Tunisia, Tonga, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

In his inaugural address, Dr. Jitendra Singh also said that team work, compassion and statesmanship have defined India’s governance in response to COVID-19 Pandemic. The road ahead focuses on “Do Gaj Doori” – social distancing. India has popularised the Aarogya Setu App which is currently used by more than 120 million Indians. He further added that getting to live with the coronavirus has meant less contact governance, officials having to work in masks and gloves and work from home models being adopted. Virtual offices, web-room meetings, virtual private networks were adopted as India’s Central Secretariat became a digital Central Secretariat. Seventy-Five Ministries adopted e-Office, functional web-rooms were created by NIC and India’s digital infrastructure initiatives bore fruit. The impact of integrated service portals was seen.

Dr. Jitendra Singh added that India’s efforts for digital empowerment of citizens were successful in this period of coronavirus pandemic. The unique digital identity of Aadhar enabled availability of services on real time basis with e-Classes, e-Hospitals, e-Nam, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Bharat Interface for Money, all of which were seeded on Aadhar identification.

The inaugural session was attended by Dr. Kshatrapati Shivaji, Secretary, DARPG and DPPW, Government of India, Shri V. Srinivas, Additional Secretary, DARPG and Director General, National Centre for Good Governance, Ms Devyani Khobragade, JS, Ministry of External Affairs and other senior officials from Government of India.

The Workshop was jointly conceptualized by the Ministry of External Affairs, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and National Centre for Good Governance with the objective of disseminating India’s good governance practices to ITEC countries.

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