By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh has earned the distinction of making it to the Limca Book of Records for making the maximum use of video conferencing facility. It has saved the state government about Rs. 22 crore.
Madhya Pradesh government is making maximum use of Information Technology to tone up the administration and for redressal of public grievances. The Samadhan Online scheme for direct dialogue with district officials has been a great success in terms of solving people’s problems.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has fixed the first Tuesday of every month for video conferencing with district collectors and other officers. Sometimes the complainant is also with the Chief Minister and gives his/her opinion in the context of the reply given by the concerning officer in his or her case.
The National Informatics Centre of Government of India provides the video conferencing system. The system was started first at the Mantralaya and 9 divisional headquarters in April 2004. In the next phase it was connected to all the districts. In last three years video conferencing was held for about 22, 230 hours and 1031 meetings of departments were held through it.
The video conferencing system has facilitated online review of various schemes and programmes at Mantralaya level. About 35 online meetings of different departments are held every month through video conferencing in which officers of state headquarter and district level participate. It has also improved the monitoring system besides expediting disposal of complaints. With this, now it is no longer necessary for senior officers to visit districts in person, which has saved the government about Rs. 22 crore which would have, otherwise been spent on their visits. ([email protected])