Union Minister Jitendra Singh on October 21 said more than 30 lakh Central and State government officials will be trained and exposed to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and blockchain by 2023 for effective governance and service delivery at the grassroots.
He said there are 25 Central training institutions, 33 State-level administrative training institutions and other civil service training institutions, besides Capacity Building Commission and the Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy (WITP) which will jointly achieve this noble mission.
Mr. Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, said artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can detect frauds in GST and income tax returns, blockchain for securing records and certificates and data-driven decision making through use of analytics.
He said civil servants will soon use these techniques in day-to-day work and administration.
Mr. Singh said the Indian growth story under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been driven largely by technology adoption in governance.
He said the use of Aadhaar for vaccine rollout and vaccine delivery through drones in difficult areas or the JAM trinity to link Jan Dhan accounts, mobile numbers and Aadhaar cards of Indians to plug the leakage of government subsidies through Direct benefit Transfer (DBT) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) are some of the examples of technology adoption.
The Minister said this while delivering the valedictory address at a two-day workshop on “Emerging Technology for Good Governance” for heads of Central Training Institutions (CTIs) and State level Administrative Training Institutions (ATIs) at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here.
He said one must remain open to new developments in the science and technology sector and be always on a lookout for new science that can improve the work and outcomes.
Mr. Singh said Prime Minister Modi has introduced innovation in governance and made it technology-driven.
He said it is rather evident that in times of uncertainty and changing governance issues, technology is and will be the go-to resource and emphasised that for a nation as big and diverse as India, the adoption of technology is rather mandatory to ensure far reach of governance.
Mr. Singh pointed out that the country and its citizens are evolving fast when it comes to technology education.
“Kids in schools are taught coding and robotics and with every wave of workforce the level of technology is only going higher,” he said.
