The nodal agency for digital governance of Tamil Nadu, TN e-Governance Agency which is also known as TNeGA, is in news for signing a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli . This MoU has been signed in order to promote the data-driven system of governance.
This partnership is expected to be very helpful and beneficial for the agency. IIM-T has provided its experts in data analytics to help TNeGA in deriving insights that are significant from the vast amount of data that they have to deal with. This will aid in obtaining meaningful data that will further help the agency in assessing the impacts of the government schemes that keep launching.
TNeGA declared that IIM Trichy will also assist in training the government staff to design and implement systems that are technologically powerful and procedures that will improve the delivery of services to citizens. Emerging and popular technologies like Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, big data, etc. will be taught to the senior and mid-level executives. These government executives will be required to upgrade their skills with respect to technological advances.
Collaborating with IIM-T experts will also promote research and knowledge in the field of data analytics for the government sector and services. Hopefully, this partnership will be helpful in bridging the digital divide that is quite prominent between the urban and rural areas.
This MoU was signed in front of Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, and M Manikandan, the minister of Information Technology. It follows the recently increased focus of the government of Tamil Nadu on setting a central command centre that will cater to governance that is data-driven.
The director of IIM-T, Professor Bhimraya Metri, said that this centre will be a combined initiative of TNeGA and IIM Trichy and will be called CARDS - the Centre for Applied Research in Data Sciences. It will enhance decision making and will make it smarter for the welfare of several stakeholders of Tamil Nadu and its government. It will also boost data-driven decision making throughout the departments of the Tamil Nadu government. The CARDS team comprises five members of the faculty at present. It will help the government on a project to project basis and cater to areas like reforms delivery assessments, smart cities etc.
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Santosh K Misra, the CEO of TNeGA, said that the reason for choosing IIM-T as a partner was the institute’s powerful analytics department. All the states obtain huge volumes of data that is structured and unstructured both. The tech experts try to use algorithms to help them make informed and better decisions.
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TNeGA had also partnered with the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in October 2018 at IIT Madras for assistance in maintaining better governance in the fields healthcare, education, agriculture and others.