The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) organized a brainstorming session on the theme- Emerging and Future e-Governance Initiatives, e-Commerce Initiatives, and Emerging Technologies on January 4th, 2024 at CSoI, KG Marg, New Delhi.

The session marked a significant effort to promote knowledge exchange among key players in the realm of e- service delivery, e-Governance, and innovative technology implementation. 15 domain experts and distinguished representatives from leading organizations, including Deloitte, PwC, Primus Partners, KPMG, QCI, and EY attended the session along with the DARPG officals.

Shri V. Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG, started the discussion by setting the context. He informed how the e- Service Delivery horizon has broadened across the country in last few years with 1574 Mandatory e-Services delivery being reported by the States & UTs in NeSDA Way Forward Nov, 2023 report as against only 872 services reported in NeSDA 2019 report. Further, a total of 16088 e-services being reported in Nov 2023 in NeSDA Way Forward as against 11,614 in April 2023. He highlighted how the States & UTs had shifted service delivery focus to Unified Service Portals as a single stop for getting the e-Services and a number of States had already achieved 100% saturation level on this parameter.

Thereafter, sector specialists from the e-gov strategy domain shed light on the achievements, emerging scenario and future direction of e-Governance and e-Commerce, including the emerging technologies, and shared some global best practices case studies.

The industry sector leaders touched upon several important topics. Shri Santosh Mishra, Partner, PWC discussed that the e-Services should be inclusive through use of GenAI and by building the responsible AI framework. Shri NSN Murthy, Partner, Deloitte discussed how GenAI could enable personalized experience,

optimisation of delivery, empower decision making through innovative solutions. Shri Nilaya Varma, CEO, Primus Partners mentioned that the key to effective service delivery is to focus on Service and not on technology alone. He stressed that the Citizen identity management and family as a unit for service delivery- besides the data management, service guarantee and maintaining the user privacy- could result in much better results. The KPMG team of Shri Chandan K Singh and Subhdeep Biswas stressed that GenAI will lead the future of service delivery in Public Sector. They discussed the expected AI path in future, including the emerging trends and the challenges that the Governments will have to handle with respect to AI. Shri R. N. Shukla, Sr. Director, QCI, discussed about the e-Commerce sector and focused on building an integrated service delivery platform based on the life-cycle approach. Shri Anurag Dua, from EY highlighted on Information Standardisation Protocols and need to focus upon economic progress and outcomes by building an Expenditure Framework.

Sh. V. Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG, concluded the session by charting the way forward to focus on:

• Promotion of Universalized face Authentication processes for simplification of service delivery

• Incorporation of Bhashini, service plus, etc in e-governance initiatives

• Immense potential of increasing the Mandatory e-Services to over 160

• Focus on e-Office analytics and cyber-security measures

• Usage of AI in grievance redressal

• Reaching to families, as a unit, through use of technology

• Push towards e-commerce initiatives

• Strong media outreach to disseminate best practices

• Collaboration with State/UT Government

• Need for Hackathons to further learn and disseminate the Gen AI good practices.

The session served as a platform for sharing best practices, success stories, and lessons learned in the pursuit of administrative reforms and shaping the landscape of digital transformation.

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