In a move to strengthen the over all governance of the state drug regulatory mechanism, the Gujarat Food & Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) is planning to embark on its ambitious m-governance initiative. It is understood that under this initiative the state drug regulators is initially planning to avail its renowned online application for granting product licenses, drug manufacturing license application (DMLA) software and revolutionary self-licencing software Xtended Licensing and Laboratory Note (XLN) to all its citizens through mobile.
Dr Hemant G Koshia, commissioner of Gujarat FDCA informed that since the state regulators already have a strong hold in the e-governance department, especially being pioneers in developing its XLN and DMLA they are gradually looking at expanding their focus on m-governance or mobile governance as well. Currently, almost 10 states across the country have successfully replicated the XLN software conceptualized and developed by the state drug regulators, while many are still in the process of adopting the same.
He further informed that under this project, the Gujarat FDCA plans to connect 18,000 villages, 225 talukas and 33 districts through m governance so that even the person residing in the remotest part of the state can check and access the application through their mobile. They are already in discussion with the NIC for developing the same and may soon finalise the modalities for it.
“Our government is keen to make all the government related work easy, effective and corruption free by relying on paper less technology that will bring in transparency in the system. Most importantly, it will empower the common man to access and use the data to check on veracity of the quality of the products and other vital information just a click away. We already have a strong e-governance system in place and thus know its efficacy in helping us timely deliver the services. The m-governance initiative will further enhance our work as it will open up access opportunity to scores of other individuals who till now did not have access to computers, as mobile is used by one and all,” stressed Dr Koshia.
Gujarat FDCA announced its plan on this initiative, following the launch of the Digital Gujarat week that was inaugurated today by the chief minister of the state. Interestingly, this whole go digital campaign is a part of the Digital India campaign flagged off by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 1. It is important to note that dream of making the government departments and other sectors completely digital had been conceptualized by Modi, when he was the chief minister of the state, under whom many strategic e-governance initiatives had been undertaken in the past including that of the Gujarat FDCA’s e-governance initiative.
As of now the state of Gujarat has received close to 178 national and international awards for its excellence in e-governance programme in various sectors including that of Gujarat FDCA. In fact in the last year itself, it was recipient of 58 awards from which seven awards were won by Gujarat FDCA alone, at both the national and international front.