Meghalaya State Agricultural Marketing Portal wins in eNorth East Award 2016

-C.S.Shabong

Team Members receiving the Trophy from Dr.C. Lyngdoh, Chief Guest

Meghalaya State Agricultural Marketing Portal (www.megamb.gov.in), an online web based Agriculture Market Information System (AMIS), which was designed, developed and hosted by NIC Meghalaya in collaboration with the Directorate of Horticulture, Meghalaya and Meghalaya State Agricultural Marketing Board was awarded the RUNNERS UP place in the eNorth East Award 2016, under the category e-Governance and Citizen Services Delivery, which witnessed 11 nominees presenting their projects before a 3 member panel of eminent experts as Jury Members. The Experts were from IT Department, Government of Meghalaya, IIM Shillong and IT department Govt of Sikkim. 

The Meghalaya State Agriculture Marketing Portal was first launched in the year 2005 and then again revamped in 2014 with Microsoft .NET framework and MS Sql Server 2008 as the back end RDBMS database. The portal is hosted in NIC National Data Centre, New Delhi which is a 3 tier datacentre. The site has received more than 31000 web hits and is being used regularly by the farmers and the traders from the State as well as other parts of the country. 

All the finalist team had to give a five minutes presentation in front of the jury members who then awarded points under several parameters like Innovation Challenge, Implementation Plan, Timelines, People Benefitted, Scope of Replication and Revenue Model.  The 5 minutes presentation was followed up by another 2 minutes of questioning by the jury members. After the score were compiled, the Winner and Runner’s up were selected from each category.

Our team was represented by C.S.Shabong, Assistant Director of Agriculture, Directorate of Agriculture, Meghalaya and Aiborlang Wanswett, Principal System Analyst, NIC Meghalaya who gave a power point presentation in front of the jury members and also replied to all the queries and questioning by each jury member.

Given below is the list of Challengers under the category: E-GOVERNANCE & CITIZEN SERVICES DELIVERY which comprised of 11 nominations having the largest number of nominees under the category.

-Online Monthly Expenditure Reporting System, National Informatics Center, Mizoram
-Mahanagar, District Administration ,Kamrup (Metro), Assam
- Common Portal to Send Bulk SMS(s) to citizens by Multiple Departments,NIC Mizoram State Centre
- Nagaland Police SMS Based Vehicle Monitoring System,  - WINNER
- Meghalaya State Agriculture Marketing Portal, Directorate of Horticulture, Government of Meghalaya - RUNNERS UP
- MIS for State Finance Commission, Assam, National Informatics Centre
- Project E-Tendering/e-Procurement system for Govt. of Assam/Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya- Nexprocure/NPX, Nextenders,
- DRISTI, Ofce of the Commissioner, Panchayat & Rural Development, Assam
- Online Payment of Road tax, Passenger and Goods tax in Mizoram Transport Department, NIC Mizoram State Centre
-Assam Secretariat e-Pass Application, NIC, Assam
- APDCL e-Services, Assam Power Distribution Corporation Ltd., Assam

The 6^th Edition of the eNorth East Award 2016 is organised by NEDF, Guwahati and Impulse NGO Network, Shillong in collaboration with MITS, Meghalaya and was held on 26^th February 2016 at the NEC Auditorium, Nongrim Hills, Shillong.  The event witnessed a participation of 71 Finalists under various categories where one Winner and one Runners-up  was declared from each category, which was adjudged by eminent jury members comprising experts from the IT field, media, educational institutions and industry.

The Inaugural function was graced by a host of dignitaries comprising of Shri.R.Muivah, IAS, Secretary NEC, Shri.R.M.Mishra, IAS, Principal Secretary Planning Department, Meghalaya, Shri.D.P.Wahlang, IAS, Commissioner & Secretary IT, Meghalaya, Shri, Amitabh Singhal, Board Member, Public Interest Registry etc.

The eNorth East Award platform is an effort to mainstream the North East region by bringing the progressive digital initiatives into national and international focus, recognize good IT practices from the region and felicitate these practitioners and projects for their innovations.

(The writer is Assistant Director of Agriculture(Agro)in the Department of Agriculture Meghalaya and can be reached at csshabong@gmail.com)