A workshop for Web Information Managers of Ministries and Departments of GoI was held on 6th April, 2023 at Scope Complex Auditorium, New Delhi. The following are the proceedings of the workshop
The workshop started with the Welcome address by Ms. Tulika Pandey, Scientist G, MeitY. She discussed the importance of website maintenance and the role of Web Information Managers (WIMs) in ensuring accessibility and quality of information. She emphasized website performance and security and discussed policies for security and updates. Ms. Pandey also mentioned India’s e-Governance ranking in telecommunication and highlighted the importance of mobile accessibility.
Ms. Jaya Dubey (WIM & HoD DARPG) and Sh. Piyush Goyal (HOD, DARPG) presented DARPG’s practices for managing government websites. They emphasized the key components of government websites, which are content quality, security and certification. DARPG’s practices included a weekly review process, bi-lingual content syncing efforts, and traffic analysis through Google Analytics.
Ms. A Srija (WIM, D/o School Education and Literacy) and Sh. Saba Akhtar (HoD, D/o School Education and literacy) presented the D/o School Education Website highlighting the importance of providing timely and accurate information to the public and being responsive to feedback from citizens. The importance of content, quality, security, and certification was emphasized, as well as the need for regular reviews, feedback monitoring, and website promotion.
Sh. Lokesh Joshi, Sr. Director (IT), NIC presented the new GIGW 3.0, which covers website requirements from various perspectives, including user demands, global best practices in government websites, cybersecurity, and accessibility. GIGW now recommends actionable guidelines for government organizations, developers, and evaluators. Features include consistent UI/UX, Social media integration and enhanced accessibility compliance. Following this Sh. A. K. Upadhyay, Scientist-G, STQC talked about the security, certification, and roadmap of the GIGW 3.0 and presented the cybersecurity guidelines covering Web Application Security and Infrastructure Security which adhere to industry best practices. He also pointed out that risk mitigation is an important aspect of GIGW 3.0.
Sh. Shashi Kant Pandey, Director (IT), NIC from the dais and Sh. Ananda Sankar, Sumatak Technologies LLP joined online for the demonstration of the accessibility reporting tool – Sugamya Web (https://sugamyaweb.gov.in/). Sh. Shashi Kant Pandey provided valuable insights of the Sugamya Web Tool where he spoke about the key features including reporting dashboards, inventory of media, running and scheduling tests, user roles etc. A short informative video of the tool was played followed by the live demo by Sh. Ananda Sankar in which he outlined the broad features of the tool and explained the report output.
The workshop resumed after the tea break. In this session Ms. Alka Misra, DDG, NIC presented the progress update on the certification of 85 websites of Central Ministries /Departments. She also informed the participants that fortnightly reporting tool is available for reporting the status of the websites and requested all the stakeholder to update the status in a timely manner as it is being monitored by Cabinet Secretariat.
Sh. Durga Prasad Misra, Sr. Director (IT), NIC presented the demo of the fortnightly reporting tool highlighting the important aspects. He demonstrated and briefed the stakeholders present during the workshop on how to update the status of websites through the tool.
Sh. M. Vellaipandi, Director General, STQC briefed on obtaining and maintaining certified quality websites by sharing the details of certification process. He spoke about the requirements and check points for certification and also informed that the websites should undergo regular audits and reviews to maintain the certification. It was informed that that all the new websites will be certified as per the GIGW 3.0 from 1st Oct 2023 and that all the WIMs to ensure compliance as per GIGW 3.0 by the next review audit.
Shri Rajesh Gera, Director General, NIC, discussed the importance of websites as the face of Departments/Ministries on a global scale. He emphasized the ease of creating compliant websites using frameworks. He mentioned the upcoming Global Benchmarking tool which will rank websites based on content quality, accessibility, usability and security. He also highlighted the pillars of GIGW 3.0, namely accessibility, cyber security, and multilingualism. Shri Rajesh Gera emphasized the need for stakeholders to focus on security parameters and ensure website accessibility to deliver information transparently to users.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, MeitY delivered the keynote address highlighting the importance of India’s presidency of G-20 and websites being the face of Government of India. He also provided valuable insights and emphasized the importance of websites which should provide easy access to information and services. He requested the Ministries/ Departments that are lagging to take proactive action and expedite STQC certification and complete the same by the end of April 2023. He congratulated NIC and STQC for their initiatives.
Ms. Alka Misra, DDG, NIC while delivering the vote of thanks informed about the MeitY initiatives to support certification of websites of Ministry/Departments. She thanked Secretary MeitY for waving off the fee for STQC certification and also thanked DG NIC, DG STQC all the speakers
