Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the work culture of Northeast has got revolutionary transformed in the last 8 years.

As a result, the Minister said, now the projects in Northeast are getting completed within a fixed timeline and the utilisation of Central funds is almost 100 percent. Every State is connected to the union capital by railway and each of the eight States is coming up with its airport whereas Guwahati has turned into an important international airport.

Inaugurating the two-day Regional Conference on the theme "Bringing Citizens and Government Closer through Administrative Reforms" here along with Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, Dr Jitendra Singh said, prior to 2014, the North Eastern Region suffered economically due to myopic policies of the successive central governments, but soon after the Modi government took over in 2014, the Prime Minister had stated that every effort would be made to bring the region at par with the more developed areas of the country. He said, in the last eight years, not only developmental gaps were bridged successfully, but the north-eastern region has also gained psychological confidence. The Minister added that the significant development in terms of road, rail and air connectivity is helping facilitate the movement of goods and persons not only across the region but also across the country.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that it is only after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister that such conferences are held in the farthest North Eastern States like Arunachal Pradesh as well as other hilly and backward areas to empower them in every walk of life. He said, the Itanagar Conference being organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances comes after the National Conference on e-Governance held in Meghalaya in August, 2019, when ‘Shillong Declaration’ on e-Governance was adopted to share best practices, latest technology developments and leveraging them for achieving effective governance and public service delivery.

Dr Jitendra Singh informed that the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances in collaboration with Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh and Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad has developed a District Good Governance Index, a first for North Eastern States, on the lines of the National Good Governance Index for improving the efficiency of Governance across Districts. He said, DARPG also plans to collaborate with the Government of Arunachal Pradesh to develop a District Good Governance Portal for monitoring the Rankings of each District of Arunachal Pradesh on a monthly basis and help in benchmarking performance within the State of Arunachal Pradesh. It is pertinent to mention that it is desirable to build an online good governance index for the North East Region that tracks annual improvements on the lines of District Good Governance Index of Arunachal Pradesh, which is then monitored through a digital portal.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, Prime Minister Modi is working to make Arunachal a major gateway to East Asia. Modern infrastructure is set up, seeing Arunachal's role regarding national security. Nature has endowed Arunachal with a lot of its treasures and the Centre is also trying to take the tourism potential of Arunachal to the whole world.

Coming back to Administrative Reforms, Dr Jitendra Singh said, India believes that 21^st century Public Grievance redressal would be based on single window agencies which will help citizens use information for seeking better services. He added that many methods have been contemplated including One Nation One Portal, Multilingual CPGRAMS for enhanced citizen outreach, data analytics to measure the quality of grievance redressal, feedback call centres and provision for citizen transcripts on the CPGRAMS portal etc.

Dr Jitendra Singh concluded that he believes India in 2047 would be governed by our diligent civil servants and would serve the nation with utmost efficiency. It is crucial to inspire and involve the young civil servants with the Vision@2047.

Shri NBS Rajput, Joint Secretary, ARPG presented the welcome address. After welcome address, Shri Dharmendra, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh; Shri Lok Ranjan, Secretary, DoNER and Shri V. Srinivas, Secretary, ARPG also addressed the inaugural session. A film on PM Awarded initiatives 2021 in North East Region, made by DAR&PG was screened. The vote of thanks was given by Shri Ajai Chagti, Secretary (AR), Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh during the inaugural session.

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