Review meeting by the State Coordinator-NIC Ladakh UT at Leh on 25-11-2023

Dr. Susheel Kumar, DDG, HOG and State Coordinator-NIC Ladakh UT reviewed projects & activities of the districts of Kargil & Leh at UT centre. First of all, a curtsy meeting -cum- interaction held with Dr. Pawan Kotwal, Advisor to Hon’ble LG Ladakh on 24-11-2023.

The Advisor expressed profound appreciation for implementation of the e-Office application and express his desire to take it to the level of the Blocks-Tehsils wherever connectivity is satisfactory across 31 Blocks and 15 Tehsils in this hilly region. Besides the ongoing applications, he also shown interest for the implementation of the Public Works Monitoring System in coordination with HDFC, GEO tagging of the land parcels and required GIS Mapping and digitization of Revenue records. UT Ladakh is in a process of setting up in house SDC, by the time it starts functioing, on request of NIC officers Dr Kotwal agreed for hiring required infrastructure on Railtel Cloud for hosting of applications and also agreed for hiring of required technical manpower for development and supporting the network and other related tasks. To this effect he asked SIO to submit a proposal at the earliest. Besides that he affirmed the commitment to furnish NIC Ladakh with essential infrastructure support, encompassing computer/ laptop systems, UPS and power backup inverters, to facilitate the seamless implementation of projects.

Subsequently, a meeting was also held with Sh. Amit Sharma, IAS, Secretary-IT, UT Ladakh. He pointed out that UT Ladakh is establishing a SDC, for that he required expertise of NIC in setting up of iNOC-SOC for augmenting cyber security by tracking each and every node on the Network. He further shown necessity for enhancing of NKN bandwidth. SIO was requested to draft a proposal fo that in consultation with SIO UT JK and his team. Dr Susheel Kumar, suggested him for earmarking and establishing a DR sites for the upcoming SDC vis-à-vis 3rd party security auditing of the entire critical infrastrcure, devices and applications to meet with the security requirements of all digital assets with Zero trust in the boarder area.

The IT-Secretary also agreed to provide necessary video conferencing (VC) system for NIC Ladakh for the purpose of conducting meetings & monitoring VC sessions. The State Coordinator, visited to NIC-Ladakh UT Centre and interacted with all the NIC officers including DIO Kargil to gain insights of the prevailing challenges and the progress achieved. The goal was to identify areas of improvement and develop strategies to expedite project timelines and outcomes. He emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts with government bodies, technology partners, and the community to overcome obstacles and to ensure the success of digital initiatives. Key topics of discussion included optimizing infrastructure and streamlining Secure development processes to increase the productivity of eGovernance projects. The State Coordinator assured for all possible support to NIC Ladakh in overcoming challenges and streamlining of implementation of Digital India initiatives in Ladakh UT region.

The team that participated in the state coordinator meeting at Leh, Ladakh as follows:

Sh (Dr) Susheel Kumar {DDG & HOG}
Sh Mohd Rouf Wani {SIO}
Sh Punchok Paldan
Sh Tashi Tondup
Sh Iftikhar Hussain
Smt Stanzein Sedol
Smt Kunzang Dolma
Smt Nilza Angmo
Sh Junaid Ahmad
Sh Showkat Ali