SAP Labs India partners with NeGD to set up Centre for Digital Government

SAP Labs India has partnered with National e-Governance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), to launch SAP Centre for Digital Government (SCDG) for improving the digital government capabilities in the country.  

SAP Labs India, in an official statement, said, it will work closely with NeGD to set up the knowledge centre in Bengaluru. It will focus on capacity building, program management, and implementation of Digital India’s projects and initiatives undertaken by the ministries and/or their departments, both at the central and state levels.

As part of the MoU, SCDG will cater to three broad pillars of activities, namely, innovations in technology application for government service delivery, capacity building and knowledge sharing, and thought leadership. It will involve policy consultations to support the realisation of the following for the benefit of the Indian Public Service and sector across all levels of the government. 

“The potential and application of technology for an inclusive growth has been a game changer for India. To leapfrog further, cross-stakeholder industry-government collaboration is becoming more important than ever. The collective initiative of NeGD and SAP will support innovation and capacity building to enable the next wave of Digital India’s inclusive and transformational initiatives,” Abhishek Singh, President and CEO, NeGD, said. 

Sindhu Gangadharan, SVP & MD, SAP Labs India said that the SCDG, established in partnership with NeGD, aims to promote the adoption of technology-based solutions in India’s Public Service Sector through specially curated digital upskilling programs for government officials.  

"At SCDG, our technology experts will directly engage with public service professionals to provide strategic mentorship and will conduct training programs, workshops, roundtables, and innovation showcases," said Gangadharan.

SCDG will also conduct regular training programs for government officials to build their technical and digital skills when implementing technology. For this, it will work with MeitY, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and Ministry of Education to ensure longer-term achievement of the desired impact and thereby address the needs of all central and state government digitisation requirements, the statement further read.

The government IT spending in India is forecast to total $9.5 billion in 2022, up 12% from 2021, according to research firm Gartner. Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst at Gartner said that modernisation has been a longstanding objective of government organisations for more than the past decade, but the challenges posed by the pandemic has mobilised a wave of transformation activities.