Kedarnath Yatra IT project wins national e-Governance award

It was a moment of pride for Uttarakhand at the 20th National Conference on e-Governance held at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on January 9 and 10, 2017, when the flagship Shri Kedarnath Yatra IT project bagged the coveted National Award on E-Governance.

It is for the first time that a project from Uttarakhand has won this prestigious national award since its inception.

Project head Dr Raghav Langer received the award for "Installation and commissioning of wireless local area network in the Kedar Valley from the district headquarters to the Shri Kedarnath Temple, including video conferencing services, electronic surveillance through IP cameras, Wi-fi, internet facility, hotline communication and provision of hotspots at different points on yatra route".

The ceremony was attended by Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and several other dignitaries.

This year's conference commencec on the theme of 'Digital Transformation towards transforming India'.

It was organised jointly by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Union Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG).

Many key topics in the field of e-governance were deliberated upon with the best minds in the private sector speaking on digital connectivity to the last mile, IOT and Data Analytics, Cyber Security Policy for the future and the most important topic post demonitisation i.e. technology led monetary transactions leading to financial inclusion.

The Kedarnath wireless local area network project was awarded in Silver Category for the innovative use of technology in e-governance developed for the strengthening of communication along yatra route for effective disaster management, mitigation and response (G2G) along with the delivery of various ICT enabled services to pilgrims and locals (G2C) and network bandwidth support to private operators for their service delivery (G2B).

Dr Raghav Langer said, "Amongst various post-disaster reconstruction works and efforts put in by the State Government for restarting the Kedarnath Yatra, this flagship IT initiative has also been one significant contributor in instilling confidence in people regarding the safety of the pilgrimage that has seen increasing number of pilgrims coming to the shrine every year in a very short span of time; thus helping in reviving the Chardham Yatra & economy of the region.