India’s Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad held a bilateral meeting with Maria Manuel Leitao Marques, Minister of Presidency and of Administrative Modernization, Portugal, ahead of the ICEGOV 2017, the 10th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance.
As part of the discussion, it was agreed to set up an institutional mechanism to collaborate in areas of electronic manufacturing, ITeS, start-ups, cyber security and e-governance. India also agreed to support Portugal with capacity building to scale up mechanisms for e-delivery of governance and citizen schemes.
Post the meeting, Prasad, “India and Portugal share ancient ties and today we have an excellent bilateral (political and economic) relationship. We recently hosted a delegation led by the Prime Minister of Portugal – Antonio Costa on Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. Our collaboration for ICEGOV 2017 is an endorsement of strong cooperation between the two countries. We are delighted to host Maria Manuel Leitao Marques and the Portuguese delegation for ICEGOV 2017.”
“We had a very good discussion and have agreed to collaborate in the areas of electronic manufacturing, ITeS, Cyber security, e-Governance and Capacity Building. We will support the Portugal team in scaling up their initiatives – Simplex and Portuguese Citizen Shops, which are like our MyGov and Common Service Center initiatives,” he added.
“We also have discussed several collaborative initiatives in the domain of Capacity Building and Cyber Security to ensure safe and secure cyber space. We have also informed the Hon’ble Portuguese Minister that India is going to host the Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) in November 2017, which will see participation of over 100 countries with 2000 delegates,” said Prasad.
The bilateral meeting was organized within the framework of the India–Portugal Collaboration for ICEGOV 2017 that is taking place in India for the first time with the participation of key representatives from the industry, policymakers, government officials, elected representatives, researchers, innovators and educators from developing and developed countries. ICEGOV promotes interactions between stakeholders where all would be sharing a common view that public investment in Digital Government advances public policy and development.
The ‘Simplex’ programme of Portugal works towards simplifying interaction between public administration and citizens and business partners. Portuguese Citizen Shops provide a one-stop service for many administrative tasks: connecting and disconnecting services, car registration and driving licences, residency, taxation, health services among other services.
By EB Bureau
