Visit of State Coordinator to UT Ladakh & Review meetings with the officers of NIC, J&K and Ladakh
Dr. Susheel Kumar, DDG & State Coordinator for Ladakh and J&K, visited UT Ladakh on July 10-12, 2024, to review the IT projects and activities of NIC Ladakh UT and to discuss the ICT roadmap of UT Ladakh with the UT administration along with SIO NIC-J&K and his team. Shri Mohd Saleem Khan, SIO-JK, Shri Punchok Paldan, OIC-Ladakh and other senior officers of NIC J&K and Ladakh UT warmly welcomed the State Coordinator by presenting traditional scarves (Khatags) on his arrival at Leh.
The team of NIC JK SU Officers/HoDs along with SIO were already present in Ladakh, regarding streamlining of Connectivity, establishing of NOC/SOC and deployment & delivery of services through the newly established SDC at Leh. At the outset, the State Coordinator held a review meeting with all NIC officers including SIO Ladakh/J&K about the optimized usage and status of integration of SDC Ladakh with that of SDC J&K visà- vis making backup (DR) of each other. NIC team was on consensus that connectivity bandwidth between Jammu-Leh, initially is of 1-Gbps which is sufficient and will be enhanced on increasing of traffic load. Also, the team agreed to make the SDCs DR of each other having a common NOC/SOC at Jammu by the time a separate Network Control Centre is established at Leh for that proposal will be submitted after discussion with UT Ladakh administration.
With the above mentioned ICT infrastructure usage in view and having few more agenda points pertaining to (CSA) Comprehensive Security Auditing of the Websites, Network, SDC, Technical Manpower etc, a meeting with Shri Amit Sharma, IAS, Administrative Secretary, IT , Ladakh held on 10th July 2024. Subsequently, to have opinion and final
consensus on the above discussed matters, a meeting was also conducted with Dr. Pawan Kotwal, IAS, Advisor to Hon’ble Lt. Governor, Ladakh on 11th July 2024. Proceedings and records of the discussions of the above meeting have already been released by the SIO, separately for the compliance of NIC and UT Ladakh administration.
During the meeting, it was also deliberated that the SDC of Ladakh UT will be inaugurated with a number of high uptakes G2C services. It was also deliberated that a dedicated team of developers and security auditors to be hired by the UT of Ladakh for efficient and effective implementation and rolling out of G2C services in the UT of Ladakh.
The State Coordinator, J&K and Ladakh emphasized on having a dedicated team of technical resources with varying skillsets for the upcoming Ladakh SDC for effectively handling and managing the day-to-day SDC operations on a 24X7 basis to ensure business continuity.
It was also urged to conduct a cybersecurity workshop for the officials of UT Administration to raise awareness about potential cyber threats and impart strategies for mitigation or prevention of cyber-attacks. Also, necessary publicity for the awareness of the common man to use the online services, to be launched through the SDC Ladakh.
The State Coordinator reviewed the projects and e-governance activities of NIC District Centres of Kargil & Leh through VC. He interacted with all officers at NIC Ladakh UT Centre and DIOs of both the districts and provided directions on various issues related to projects and applications developed and implemented. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of developing “application modules” which are reusable and customizable for various other projects requiring the same functionality, to save time and effort.
DIOs were directed to assess the network requirements of all directorates in their districts and accordingly plan and implement the necessary network infrastructure to eliminate any deficiencies in IT infrastructure.
Dr. Susheel Kumar also visited NIC District Centre Leh, Ladakh along with the senior officers of NIC J&K and UT Ladakh headed by Sh. Mohd Saleem Khan, SIO, NIC J&K and Ladakh. He reviewed the projects and activities of NIC District Centre, Leh along with the services being provided to the district administration. He suggested taking up further software development projects and other cyber security measures.