Digital India Awards 2020

• 31 Dec 2020

Why in News

Recently, the President of India has conferred Digital India Awards 2020.

Key Points

• About the Awards:
  
  • Digital India Awards have been institutionalized under the ambit of National Portal of India to honor exemplary initiatives/practices in Digital-Governance.
    
    • National Portal of India: It is a Flagship Project to facilitate single window access to Government Information and Services in cyberspace.
    • Digital-Governance: It is a framework for establishing accountability, roles, and decision-making authority for an organization's digital presence.
  • These are conducted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).
  • The Awards have been held for 5 seasons earlier, in 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016 & 2018. The Awards were initially known as Web Ratna Awards until 2014 and were re-named Digital India Awards from the 2016 season.
• Awards 2020:
  
  • 22 digital governance initiatives/products by Government entities under seven categories received Digital India Awards 2020 for designing and implementing innovative citizen-centric digital solutions and improving the ease of living for all citizens.
    
    • 'Innovation in Pandemic award’ was introduced this year.
  • The award also acknowledges States and Union Territories that display exemplary initiative in establishing a comprehensive digital presence in sectors like health, labour, finance, social justice and environment, leading to the accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
• Notable Winners:
  
  • E-committee of Supreme court of India:
    
    • E-Courts project visioned and implemented by the e-Committee along with Department of Justice and NIC is a Mission Mode Project of Government of India.
    • Citizens can access case status, causelist court orders anywhere, any time through e-courts services website, mobile app, sms email services from the 3,293 court complexes.
  • Arogya Setu:
    
    • It is a mobile application developed by the Government of India to connect essential health services with the people of India in a fight against Covid-19.
    • The App is aimed at augmenting the initiatives of the Government of India, particularly the Department of Health, in proactively reaching out to and informing the users of the app regarding risks, best practices and relevant advisories pertaining to the containment of Covid-19.
  • eOffice:
    
    • It is a Mission Mode Project under the National E-Governance Plan, developed and implemented by NIC.
    • It is a digital workplace solution. The vision of eOffice is to achieve a simplified, responsive, effective and transparent working of all government offices.
  • eSanjeevani:
    
    • It is a digital platform of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
    • It has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations.
  • Bihar Sahayata Mobile App:
    
    • It was an innovative initiative to transfer money directly to the bank accounts of 21 lakh stranded migrant workers outside the state.
  • Madhya Pradesh Labour Department’s Pravasi Shramik and Rojgar Setu Portals:
    
    • These gateways have been recognised for facilitating identification, registration, skilling plus employment of migrants and other workers during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
  • States:
    
    • Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal won the Award under ‘Excellence in Digital Governance - State / UT’ category.

Source: PIB