A variety of people from the field of IT and Communications spoke on various aspects of e-Governance over the last two days of the 32nd Technology Sabha.

On the third and final day, delegates from Assam and Rajasthan talked about their achievements in the field of IT. There was also a presentation from an official of the Indian Railways, who spoke about the maintenance of railways.

Swapneel Paul, Joint Secretary, Government of Assam (Finance Department) and Director, Directorate of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, spoke about the complete digitisation of the DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) schemes through the Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) platform in Assam.

“There will be a scheme registry for different areas of work and any citizen can be eligible for it based on the unique ID generated through their bank account number and mobile number. Government funds can also be distributed and monitored through this platform,” he said.

“We are planning to integrate this with Umang, the platform by the Government of India for DBT,” he said.

Currently, undergraduate and postgraduate students are visiting and verifying the addresses and identities of beneficiaries, which is the largest social audit in Assam, he added.

Sanjay Jagdish Karnick, a delegate from Rajasthan was allotted a slot on the spot by Shrikanth RP, Editor, Express Computer, The Indian Express Group. Karnick elaborated on the challenges faced by Rajasthan owing to its topography and lack of adequate connectivity.

“But the IT Department has always been supported by every single state government that has come to power, and every project was completed to the best they could be,” he said.

It also promotes women’s empowerment with schemes like ‘Back to Work’ and the ‘Chiranjeevi’, a cashless health benefit scheme, where the woman head of a family receives notifications (about the schemes) from the government on her phone.

General Manager of Railway Communications Lokesh Singh talked about the progress of technology in terms of maintenance. “We do schedule maintenance of coach as well as freight and we have purchased foreign technology for their online monitoring. However, someday I would see in-house technologies developed for the same,” said Singh.