Taking an intitiave towards enhancing e-governance in the state, the Uttarakhand Government has decided to gradually make the Cabinet meetings paperless.

A training programme was held at the Secretariat on Monday to provide all relevant information related to e-cabinet to the Ministers.

Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said the Cabinet meeting slated to be held in November will be held as an e-cabinet meeting.

In addition to this, all the decisions taken in the Cabinet meetings held so far will also be uploaded on the e-cabinet portal.

The Chief Minister said that the State Government is moving ahead towards a ‘green Cabinet’.  He said, “This is a positive step being taken in the direction of e-governance. This will save paper and by ensuring minimal use of paper, it will also prove helpful towards the conservation of the environement. In addition to that, it will also help expedite the execution of decisions taken in the cabinet meeting and enhance transparency in the process. This system will also ensure that the information regarding the schemes of the Government are made available to the general public without delay. This initiative of the Uttarakhand Government will also motivate other Indian States to move ahead towards paperless Governance,” the Chief Minister said.

Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi said after the start of e-cabinet, the home department has to be fully computerised for works related to the Cabinet.

For this, all the departments will become directly linked to the department for works related to the cabinet meeting.

This development will also enable paperless monitoring and review of the execution of all decisions taken by the state Cabinet.

The e-cabinet structure has been prepared by National Informatics Centre (NIC). Arun Sharma from NIC informed in the meeting that the home department has already tested the system.

In the secretariat, additional secretaries, joint secretaries, deputy secretaries and under secretaries along with 110 section officers have also been trained for this purpose.

Cabinet Ministers Hariak Singh Rawat, Madan Kaushik, Yashpal Arya, Arvind Pandey, State Ministers Rekha Arya and Dhan Singh Rawat along with officials concerned were also among those present in the training programme.