Rajasthan IT Day Celebrations

Smt. Vasundhara Raje has said that her dream was to make Rajasthan a Start-up, Incubation and Entrepreneurship hub of Northern India. Platforms like incubation centre helped germination of new ideas and innovations, she said.

“We are stepping into a new world, where aspirational youngesters are wanting to enter into any part of the world. That’s why we wish to open incubation centres all across the state, so that youngesters’ aspirations are realised,” the CM said.

Smt. Raje was addressing the Rajasthan IT Day Celebrations event at Birla Auditorium on Monday. She said that there was a time when IT and Rajasthan were contractions in terms, but today the state was breaking new grounds in IT sector and IT-enabled services. She called upon the young people of the state to upgrade their skills in the use of modern tools for self-betterment and that of the society. She said that talented young generation of the state needed support.

“This is why we are emphasizing on Skill Development. IT-based Start-ups and disruptive business models, are looking for them,” she added.

During this, the CM dedicated a multi-mode state-wide area network, Raj-Net, to the people of the State. Through this network all Gram Panchayats of Rajasthan would connect to Jaipur. She said that this was a significant milestone in the direction of e-governance in the state. She said that e-enablement of the government offices would continue to be a priority of her government.

“Our philosophy of governance is one of partnerships. We believe that working together the government can achieve much more than working in silos,” she said while inviting the new generation of entreprenuers to partner with the government for development of Rajasthan.

Smt. Raje said that very soon Cyber Crime Units would be established in every Police Range of the state. Talking about the initiatives taken up by the state government for promoting IT, she named IT policy of 2015 which supported investment in IT, enabled services and Electronics Systems Development and Manufacture (ESDM).

The CM said that if ‘Smart Grids’ and ‘Smart Cities’ were to be a reality, we needed ‘Smart Citizens’. She urged the young entrepreneurs present in the hall to give a commitment to take up the torch of IT till the last mile in the yet unreached rural areas. She said that in Rajasthan, tools of Information Technology started changing lives every day. The Point of Sales machine in a Ration shop, pension through bio-metric verification, e-Mitra counter etc were making lives simpler and better. She added that in the government, Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) made exchange of financial information between departments easy and fast. She further mentioned about Rajasthan Sampark portal and successful use of IT services in grievance redressal in different departments.

After inauguration of Raj-Net, the CM interacted with the proprieters of e-Mitra centres in different districts through video conferencing. She talked to e-Mitra operators in Baran, Bharatpur, Churu, Rajasmand, Sirohi, Udaipur etc, asked about the services being offered at their centres and said words of appreciation to them. She also distributed state IT Awards to officials of different departments for making government services available to the people with ease. She also visited a Start-up Expo arranged on this occasion.

Minister of State for Labour Shri Surendra Pal Singh, Chief Secretary Shri CS Rajan, CEO of Prime Sigma company Shri Sharad Sharma, Principal Secretary Finance Shri PS Mehra, Principal Secretary Industries Shri Veenu Gupta, Secretary IT Shri Akhil Arora, other officers of government departments, dignitaries and young entrepernuers were present in big numbers.

Jaipur, March 21, 2016