Srinagar: Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Thursday reviewed a roadmap for simplifying government processes across departments to improve the ease of living for citizens and strengthen technology-driven governance in Jammu and Kashmir.
At a high-level meeting attended by former IAS officer P.W.C. Davidar, adviser to the Tamil Nadu government’s SimpleGov initiative, officials discussed measures to simplify service delivery by reducing procedural complexities, cutting compliance requirements and re-engineering administrative processes.
Davidar presented the Tamil Nadu model of governance reforms and advocated simplification of Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G) services through end-to-end digitisation and reduced compliance burdens.
He recommended doing away with avoidable requirements such as physical submission of documents, multiple no-objection certificates, licences and repetitive approvals, while promoting digital verification tools including e-KYC, e-Sign, DigiLocker and digital signatures.
The meeting also discussed establishing a multi-tier monitoring mechanism for implementing the proposed SimpleGov initiative in the Union Territory, including a screening committee and an empowered committee headed by the Chief Secretary.
Officials said the reforms would be supported through suitable legal provisions, standardised online approvals incorporating QR codes for verification, and a comprehensive omnibus government order outlining implementation timelines and departmental responsibilities.
Addressing the meeting, Dulloo said Jammu and Kashmir had the administrative capacity and institutional framework to implement large-scale governance reforms, noting that nearly 1,500 government services had already been digitised.
He said a multidisciplinary implementation team comprising administrative, information technology and legal experts would be constituted to drive the reforms. Dulloo also suggested an exposure visit by J&K officers to Chennai to study the implementation of the Tamil Nadu SimpleGov model.
Administrative secretaries and senior officers from several departments, including Information Technology, Health and Medical Education, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Planning, Development and Monitoring, and Housing and Urban Development, presented progress on simplifying departmental services and identified additional services for priority reforms.
