Why in the news?

  • The Visakhapatnam Declaration was adopted at the conclusion of the 28th National Conference on e-Governance (NCeG 2025) held in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

Visakhapatnam Declaration on E-Governance

  • What is it?:
    • The declaration charted an ambitious and inclusive roadmap for India’s digital transformation, focusing on advanced technologies, civil service reforms, cybersecurity, and grassroots empowerment, made at the 28th National Conference on e-Governance(NCeG 2025).
    • The Declaration is a strategic framework/roadmap for advancing e-governance in India, aligning with the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
  • Key Proposals:
    • Extending digital governance to underserved regions: Emphasizes bridging digital divides in regions like North-East and Ladakh, improving access and coverage of mandatory e-services under the NeSDA (National e-Governance Services Delivery Assessment) framework.
    • Strengthening civil services with digital capabilities: Promote “whole-of-government” approaches, upskilling civil servants in digital / data competencies, encouraging agile and data-driven frameworks.
    • AI & emerging tech for citizen services: Scale AI-driven platforms (e.g. Digital India BHASHINI, Digi Yatra) to provide multilingual, real-time, sector-specific services, with emphasis on ethical & transparent use of AI.
    • National Agri Stack acceleration: Push for rapid deployment of the agriculture stack to help farmers with access to credit, advisories, market linkages, climate-smart practices.
    • Cybersecurity, digital trust & resilience: Prioritize securing critical infrastructure, adopting architectures like zero-trust, post-quantum security, AI-enabled monitoring to ensure integrity, trust and sovereignty in digital systems.
    • “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”: Reaffirmed as a guiding principle- emphasis on governance through systems, digital public infrastructure, rather than expanding government control or footprint.
    • Technology enablers & digital ecosystems: Recognizing the role of technologies like IoT, GIS, blockchain, data analytics, ML/AI as enablers of transparent, citizen-centric governance.
  • Significance:
    • It gives strategic direction to India’s digital governance priorities over the coming years; a policy anchor for both central and state governments.
    • It reinforces the alignment of e-governance with the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.
    • It signals a shift from standalone digital projects to integrated, citizen-centric, data-driven governance ecosystems.
    • It foregrounds inclusivity (serving remote / underserved regions) and digital equity as essential in the next phase of e-governance.
    • Emphasis on cybersecurity, trust, resilience is especially important in the era of AI, data-intensive systems, and external threats.
    • By endorsing platforms like BHASHINI, the Declaration points to multilingual / local language inclusion in digital services.
    • The Declaration may serve as a reference for future policy documents, budget decisions, state-level e-governance plans, and monitoring frameworks (e.g. NeSDA).
  • Challenges:
    • Implementation across states with diverse capabilities and digital maturity may be uneven.
    • Ensuring data privacy, ethical AI use, algorithmic transparency will be critical yet hard to guarantee.
    • Infrastructure constraints (connectivity, power, devices) in remote areas remain a barrier.
    • Interoperability and coordination among disparate departments & levels of government will be complex.
    • Sustained funding, institutional capacity, and change management will determine outcomes more than lofty goals.