Panaji, Feb 12: A two-day National Conference on e-Governance will begin in Goa today.

The conference is being organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in association with the Department of Information Technology and the Government of Goa.

Senior Officers from the Government, industry, academicians, technical experts and NGOs will participate in the event.

Goa Governor Dr. Shivinder Singh Sidhu will inaugurate the conference. Other dignitaries present on the occasion include, Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, Rajni Razan, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms, Public Grievances and Pensions and Jainder Singh, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Goa.

During the Conference, national awards for e-Governance will be presented. These awards are given in seven different categories concerning various aspects of e-Governance.

The national awards on e-Governance distinguish some of the best Government to Government (G2G), Government of Citizen (G2C), Government of Business (G2B) initiatives by various government departments and public sector units.

The conference alongwith the exhibition is a forum to showcase best practices, innovative technologies and ICT solutions.

The objective of these awards is to recognize and promote excellence in implementation of e-Governance initiatives.

These awards recognize achievements in the area of e-Governance; disseminate knowledge on effective methods of designing and implementing sustaina ble e-Governance initiatives; encourage horizontal transfer of successful e-Governance solutions; promote and exchange experiences in solving problems, mitigating risks, resolving issues and planning for success.

''Public Distribution System Online'' Government of Chhattisgarh, Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Raipur and National Informatics Centre, Raipur; ''E-CITY'', Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, e-Governance Department, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Jaankari, Government of Bihar, DAR& PG, Patna; ''Sujala Watershed Project'', Government of Karnataka, Watershed Development, Department, Bangalore and ''Tele-opthalmology Project'', Government of Tripura, Department of Health, Vision Centre, Agartala are the winners of gold medals in five different categories.

None of the nominations was considered suitable for gold in the remaining two categories. (ANI)