Dr. K.Shivaji, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances delivered the valedictory address on day 2 of the ITEC-NCGG Two-day Workshop on COVID-19 – Good Governance Practices in a Pandemic through a webinar on June 19, 2020. In his valedictory address Dr.K.Shivaji said that India adopted a nationwide coherent, coordinated and collective strategy in coordination with all the State governments to fight the Corona Virus. He said, the cluster containment strategy with focus on early detection of cases through the RAF (Red, Amber and Green) model has focused on social distancing. The Government’s 20 Trillion Rupees of economic self-reliant package is expected to revive inclusive economic growth. He further said that States have adopted diverse but locally suitable nuanced strategies, as evident in the Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Odisha and Maharashtra models. Digital preparedness and digital infrastructure have been found to be very useful in fighting against the pandemic in ensuring delivery of public services, dissemination of digital information and telemedicine. He further added that there has been an unprecedented surge in public grievances in the COVID 19 period which could be handled in a prompt and decisive manner within a record response rate of 3 days.

Day 2 of the Workshop witnessed participation from 18 countries and 150 international civil servants from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Austria, Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Somalia, Thailand, Tunisia, Tonga, Sudan and Uzbekistan.

The other sessions of the 2 day workshop included technical sessions on Health Sector Preparedness chaired by Ms. Sujatha Rao former Health Secretary of India, Vande Bharat Mission chaired by Shri Rajiv Bansal CMD Air India, District level best practices chaired Shri Ajit Seth former Cabinet Secretary and State level best practices chaired by V.Srinivas Additional Secretary DARPG.

The Two-day Workshop was jointly conducted 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 in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic to ITEC countries. Shri V.Srinivas Additional Secretary DARPG and Director General NCGG said that the participation in the  2- day ITEC-NCGG workshop  had exceeded expectations and positive reviews were received from all participating international civil servants.

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