Hyderabad a proposed venue for IN-SPACe centre: Union Minister Jitendra Singh

Hyderabad: Accepting the request by IT and Industries Minister KT Rama to consider Hyderabad for setting up an Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Friday announced that Hyderabad will be one of the proposed venues for the new centre. “We are in […]

Hyderabad: Accepting the request by IT and Industries Minister KT Rama to consider Hyderabad for setting up an Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Friday announced that Hyderabad will be one of the proposed venues for the new centre.
“We are in the process of opening centres at other locations. Certainly Hyderabad would also be in queue waiting for that because the kind of infrastructure you have, the kind of startup culture which already exists here, we would like to use it for the enrichment of the promotion of space technology in the country,” Singh said at the 24th National Conference on e-Governance held here.

Two such centres have already been announced for Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. Hyderabad was suited for this as it was an important hub for space research, Rama Rao said earlier.
Singh assured Rama Rao that he would take up the suggestion and work on it as soon as possible. “India is already trying to match global benchmarks, and in a situation like this, Telangana is going to have a very major role to play. I only request the State government to be onboard with us and we shall be onboard with you, so that we can ultimately achieve the objective. You in Telangana deserve this and you must see this and we are there to stand by you and assist you,” assured Singh, who referred to Telangana as a progressive State and Hyderabad as a good example of tradition blending with modernity and also ahead in innovations and technology.

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Singh also spoke highly about Telangana’s Janahita, which provides an end-to-end grievance management system wherein a grievance can be logged into a single repository via web, WhatsApp, email, online, call center, and mobile application. It provides citizens a direct access to the Government of Telangana. It is a shared system for grievance handling for all Government departments and agencies thereby reducing redundancy, operational overheads and costs. “Telangana and Hyderabad are known to be experimenting in digital options. All the exercises it carried have gone digital,” he said.

“TS had done good work with respect to the CP-Grams. I must compliment Telangana that it has done appreciably well. We have now stepped up to link it with the Central CP Grams of the Department of Administrative Reforms. This is in keeping with the idea of One Nation, One Portal. Anybody can log in their grievances from anywhere. The concept is being extended to the district levels as well,” he said.

Singh, who shared the same views as Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao that technology should benefit the lowest strata and look to solve a problem, said that the ultimate goal of good governance should be to bring ease of living to a common citizen. “If it does not, any amount of platitudes would not serve. We have to make the ease of living citizen centric and citizen oriented, which will increase transparency, accountability and increase emphasis on timelines,” he said.

The union Minister suggested coupling of States wherein two States with common goals can work together, supplement each others’ efforts and share the best practices.
“Though Covid-19 came as an adversity, it also brought some virtues in terms of increasing efficiency levels of employees, he said, adding that several departments have taken to flexi-timings and working via digital channels but ensured that the productivity did not drop,” he said.

He further said as far as the efficiency of the Central Secretariat is concerned, the government aims to reduce the journey of the files from the earlier seven to eight levels to just three, by using online more optimally. “Over 27 lakh e-files are currently operational in the Central Secretariat in the Government of India and physical files have been reduced to just 10 Lakh. Though we may not have gone absolute paperless but we have gone nearly paperless. And this motivation is gone across the ministries,” the union Minister added.

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