More articles by

Shalini Singh
Shalini Singh

GOING SMART

Delhi's digital dreams

Manish-Sisodia (File) Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia

Move over 'smart city', the Delhi government has plans to make the capital the 'smartest city' in the future.

Calling upon the 'dreamers' to take their ideas forward, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “Smarter and digital India is a good idea. However, we need good people to implement it. We need the dreamers to achieve this vision. Once the dreamers do their work, leaders and investors will follow. Technology, buildings and computers do not make city smarter, we need smart people and smart societies to make a digital society.”

He was speaking at a workshop on 'smarter and digital Delhi' organised on the campus of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology that looked at challenges and opportunities to transform the city. The one-day workshop explored issues of traffic management, public transport, pollution, parking, health, safety, housing, corruption, education etc.

Talking about the government's upcoming plans to digitise services, the vice chairperson of Delhi Dialogue Commission, Ashish Khetan, drew from his previous experience as a journalist and said most governments have worked on withholding information from their citizens.

“They relish secrecy. It was a challenge to sign MoUs with the University of Chicago and IBM last year because there were fears about sharing data with a foreign university. Information empowers the common man. The government should aim to be a singular entity. We aim to to bring the entire NCT government online, open data centres of government and then, become the first ever paperless administration.”

After taking the services of issuing certificates for birth, death, caste etc online, the Delhi government plans to identify 300 more such services and bring them to people's fingertips. It also plan to introduce flexi-hours for government employees.

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Topics : #Delhi

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