Union minister says India is entering the next phase of governance reforms driven by AI, cybersecurity and citizen-centric digital services.
Shillong, July 13: India is set to enter a new phase of governance reforms driven by artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital public services, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said on Monday while praising Meghalaya’s New Shillong Administrative City as a model for future-ready governance.
The Union minister was inaugurating the two-day National Conference on Next Generation Administrative and e-Governance Reforms in Shillong, jointly organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) and the Meghalaya government. The conference has brought together senior officials, district collectors and policymakers from across the country to chart the next phase of administrative reforms.
Addressing the inaugural session, Dr. Jitendra Singh said the Centre had already removed nearly 2,000 obsolete rules over the past decade and was now preparing for “next-generation” reforms that would integrate artificial intelligence, digital public infrastructure, cybersecurity and citizen-centric service delivery to realise the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047.
Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma, DARPG Secretary Nivedita Shukla Verma, Meghalaya Chief Secretary Dr. Shakil P. Ahammed, Additional Secretary Puneet Yadav and senior officers from the Centre and states attended the inaugural session.
Highlighting Meghalaya’s role in governance innovation, the Union minister said the state had emerged as a model for community-led development and administrative reforms. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent mention of Meghalaya’s Living Root Bridges in his Mann Ki Baat programme, he said the state was increasingly being recognised for blending tradition with innovation.
He described the Meghalaya government’s ambitious New Shillong Administrative City as an example of how modern infrastructure can be integrated with digital governance and long-term administrative planning.
Expressing confidence that the conference would culminate in a “Shillong Declaration 2.0”, similar to the earlier Shillong Declaration, Dr. Jitendra Singh said it would provide a fresh roadmap for governance reforms in the country.
The minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had accorded unprecedented priority to the Northeast, noting that he had visited the region nearly 80 times and encouraged governance conferences outside New Delhi to foster greater Centre-state collaboration and the sharing of best administrative practices.
Emphasising the role of technology in governance, Dr. Jitendra Singh said India’s digital transformation through Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar-enabled services, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) had fundamentally changed the relationship between citizens and the government. He noted that UPI now processes more than 18 billion transactions every month.
He also highlighted the expansion of the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), saying annual grievances handled by the platform had risen from about two lakh in 2014 to nearly 25 lakh today. The platform, he said, now uses artificial intelligence-powered multilingual chatbots while retaining human oversight for grievance resolution.
The minister said future reforms must focus not only on adopting new technologies but also on changing administrative mindsets. Governance, he said, should evolve continuously through evidence-based policymaking, process re-engineering and resilient institutions capable of responding to emerging challenges.
Calling on states and Union Territories to adopt successful governance practices from one another, Dr. Jitendra Singh said the Shillong conference should serve as a platform to accelerate India’s transition towards faster, smarter and more citizen-centric administration.
Also read: Meghalaya CM bats for target-based governance at Shillong e-Gov meet
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