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Meghalaya Govt’s ‘MeghEA’ initiative wins UN Award, makes India Proud

Geneva, June 1 : In the United Nation’s World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2022, Government of Meghalaya’s initiative of Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture received the best project award (Winner Award) in the category of “the role of governments in the promotion of ICTs for development”. Houlin Zhao, Secretary General of ITU, presented the winner award to Conrad K Sangma, Chief Minister of Meghalaya, in the WSIS Forum Prizes 2022, held at Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday.

A total of 360 projects nominated from different countries passed the test of the UN jury. Post this there was voting to select the best 90 projects which were invited in Geneva, Switzerland for the final award. Meghalaya had to contest with projects from Australia, China, Argentina and Tanzania. Today at the forum, Meghalaya was declared as the best project in the category. Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture is the only project from India to win the Winner Award this year.

Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture (MeghEA) Project is being implemented by Planning Department, Government of Meghalaya. The project has several components such as Government to Citizen or Business services, Government to Employee services and Government to Government services. E-Proposal system, part of the Government-to-Government component, enables faster processing and tracking of schemes. The system transforms the entire administrative approvals and sanctions of citizen’s schemes. Through the use of modern technology, the system integrates multiple departments, directorates and other Government agencies.

In merely two months, close to 1600 proposals have been submitted through this e-Proposal system and an amount of Rs. 790 crores have been sanctioned. The transformation has led to processing in days which used to take months in the previous process.

Government of Meghalaya is also progressing towards enabling Government to Citizen and employee services where citizens would be able to view their benefits and apply from anytime, anywhere and through multiple channels. MeghEA is a transformation from department centric service delivery to citizen centric service delivery.

Speaking at the award ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma congratulated the people of Meghalaya for winning a prestigious award in the WSIS summit and making the nation proud of Meghalaya. He also thanked the Prime Minister for believing in Meghalaya to implement India’s 1st Enterprise Architecture initiative.

Sangma further added that Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture is about delivering citizen centric services and transforming internal processing of schemes with maximum efficiency. He said that the Government’s effort is to provide services digitally to even the citizens of the remotest villages.

In addition to the Enterprise Architecture Project, the State Government is also implementing digitally enabled solutions for supporting pregnant women, for supplying medicines using drones and for digitizing agriculture. Through ICT, the Government wants to bridge the geographic disadvantage of difficult terrain and dispersed habitations.

Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture was initiated under the guidance of NeGD (National e-Governance Division). Collaborative effort of several Government Departments and support of external agencies have led to the success of the project. Government of Meghalaya has recently submitted a proposal to the World Bank for upscaling the project.

Initiatives : Agriculture

Launch of “Restart Meghalaya Mission’ on 15th August 2020

The Mission comprise of a series of interventions to support farmers and entrepreneurs by enabling them to build growth-promoting basic infrastructure and services. Under this Mission, 1917iTEAMS – the IT Platform aimed at enabling farmers access to agricultural information, crop advisories and markets will be expanded logistically through induction of another 100 vehicles.

Creation of the Directorate of Food Processing on May 2018

With the objective of seizing opportunities in the sector and the untapped food processing potential of the state for uplifting the livelihoods of farmers and value chain actors, the Government of Meghalaya created the Directorate of Food Processing (DFP) as a one-stop agency to handle all matters relating to food processing in the state and to deal with all central government Ministries and Agencies (viz. Ministries of Agriculture, and Food Processing, SFAC, NCDC, NABARD, etc.) in all matters pertaining to the development of agricultural food processing sector.

First Ever Farmer’s Parliament held on 4th - 5th December 2018

The parliament was organised by the state department of agriculture in collaboration with Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) and the Hill Farmers' Union (HFU). As a step toward the promotion of new technologies, HFU with the support of Meghalaya government, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence App for farmers — called Nongrep (nongrep in Khasi language means farmer) with its software partner Impetus Solutions from Hyderabad — as a social innovation project. This app will address matters of farm aggregations, soil health and disease identification, crop yield, farm produce pickups, market linkage and retail sellers app.

Launch of the Farmer’s Portal on 7th May 2018

The Meghalaya Famers’ Portal (www.megfarmers.gov.in) of the Department of Agriculture is a platform for farmers to seek any information related to agriculture. Detailed information on farmers’ insurance, agricultural storage, crops, extension activities, seeds, pesticides, farm machineries, etc. is provided. Details of fertilizers, market prices, package and practices, programmes, welfare schemes are also given.

Awards & Recognitions
  • Meghalaya has been selected for the Commendation award in 'Total foodgrains Category-III' for 2017-18. The award consists of a citation and an amount of Rs. 1 crore.
  • Meghalaya Agriculture Department and the MIE Meghalaya Team won the '7th eNabling North East (eNorth East) Award 2019-20' in the 'Agriculture & Rural Development' category for 1917 iTEAMS project which is a project in collaboration with Digital India.
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded Meghalaya on May 2018 the Krishi Commendation Award for the year 2015-16, in recognition of the commendable foodgrains production achieved by the State.
  • Meghalaya has been adjudged the Most Improved Small State in the category of Agriculture and received the India Today – "The State of the States” Award on 23rd November 2018.