Rachna Srivastava

Scientist G (Deputy Director-General), National Informatics Centre 

Rachna Srivastava, Scientist G (Deputy Director-General), National Informatics Centre, spearheads the Digital Transformation initiatives by conceptualizing, managing, and implementing several large National eGovernance projects, including eOffice suite, CPGRAMS, and Municipal Corporation Suite.

She had worked closely with Central and State Government Ministries and Departments during their Digital Transformation journey and has been a catalyst in leading and improving the critical projects of NIC and in delivering e-Governance services.

Leadership Excellence

As a member of the prestigious Technology Advisory Group in NIC, she had advised project teams on good practices and guidelines for project development to several digital initiatives and large e-Governance projects. She helped the Government in its digital transformation journey by delivering high-quality digital services to citizens.

She has always been at the forefront of path-breaking ideas. She is frequently invited at national conferences to share her experiences and provide thought leadership around technology in e-Governance.

With a career spanning over three decades with NIC and getting a chance to head some of its crucial divisions; she has got rich experience in conceptualizing, designing, development, testing, capacity building, operations, implementation/rollout, and management of several Digital Platforms and Initiatives for Government

She has spearheaded the e-Office Suite, a Digital Workplace Solution to simplified, responsive, effective, and transparent paperless working in Government offices. The system is rolled out across the country starting from the highest offices like PMO, President Secretariat, and Cabinet Secretariat to Central Ministry/departments, State Governments like Secretariats, Districts blocks, PSUs, and Universities. It has brought in total transparency and accountancy in the processing of Government Files, which is the main instrument of taking decisions by the Government.

She has led the initiative of CPGRAMS,  a single nationwide online Public Grievance Redressal System empowering citizens to raise their grievances against the Government. System and facilitates tracking the grievance for resolution.

Municipal Corporation Suite is an online citizen-centric suite of applications facilitating citizens for availing services of municipal corporations like Hall/parks booking, property tax, registration of birth and death, various kinds of trade licenses and approvals, etc. faceless and paperless mode.

COVID-19 Sample Collection Management System is used to capture details of COVID-19 related tests by sample collectors, which immensely helped in the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying patients and isolating them in time.

Leadership in Rachna’s words, “I aspire to be a transformational leader and contribute for positive changes in the organization, society, and environment. To realize this mission, I strive to strongly implement knowledge-sharing, collaboration, openness, and respect along with the increased ability to handle criticism with panache. I am keen on working with people and have had an eclectic professional trajectory that eventually landed me in TAG. My mantra for career growth is based on three core principles: Clarity of Purpose, Challenge the Potential, and Confidence in People.

According to Rachna, competition is a catalyst for growth and always welcomes fair competition and tries to learn all the good things from the competitors. She is a firm believer in technology as it improves people’s lives and livelihoods, and is committed to using it for the greater good.

Awards and Recognitions

She had won several awards conferred for “eOffice” such as Digital India Award 2020 by the Hon’ble President of India, Award of Recognition in 18th CSI SIG eGovernance Awards 2020, Digital India Gold Icon Award 2020 by the Hon’ble President of India, CSI Award of Recognition in 18th CSI SIG eGovernance Awards 2020, Gems of Digital India Award 2020 for excellence in eGovernance, and Award of Recognition 2021 to Municipal Corporation Applications Suite by CSI SIG.

She has also received awards conferred for “COVID-19 Sample Collection Management System. She was nominated for Prime Ministers Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2020 [Category: Innovation (General) – Central Government].

Social Impact and Transformation

She has been a part of systems like eOffice, CPGRAMS, RTPCR/RATI Mobile-apps, MCD Applications Suite that offer a substantial social impact and transformation in the functioning of the Governments. These systems have changed the way in which citizens interact and engage with the Government, which truly reforms the Governance process and results in Digital Government.

Future Goals

With an increased digital adoption across the country and ever-evolving technology, her vision is to keep herself, her team and the organization concurrent with the sweeping pace of the IT industry and carve new goals. She is also excited to incorporate emerging technologies like AI and ML, Data Analytics in her projects to derive meaningful insights from the data. This will significantly help deliver services to citizens along with planning and faster decision-making.

To promote the vision of Digital India, she aspires to scale up the rollout of the projects in her domain to reach the uninitiated organizations (Central/State Governments, PSUs, and Universities) across the country. To meet this huge scale, she plans to create an industry partnership. Rachna envisions creating a great future for the country by implementing several large e-Governance projects for the Central and State Governments in India have been triumphant and look forward to expanding globally.