Video Conferencing: NIC’s Video Conferencing services are secure and have the largest coverage in the government sector across the country

The spread of Covid-19 in the world has changed the way people interact with each other. Events which otherwise involved a gathering of people at one location are now being conducted by virtual Meetings with people connecting from various locations through the advanced Video Conferencing Technologies. This trend is observed in the participation of the PM of India in the SAARC Countries leadership video conference on combating Covid19 in early March 2020.

With the spread of Covid in India and establishing of Lockdown, all movement became restricted. Government’s responsibility increased tremendously for day to day planning and monitoring of the situation be it health, finance or social welfare. Officials from different ministries had to deliberate amongst themselves and with officials from states without meeting physically frequently. The government had to reach out to states/district administration to ensure and coordinate the availability of testing facilities, medical workers, kits, masks, food supplies, essential commodities etc.

NICs Videoconference services facilitated all these virtual meetings and interactions and ensured that the government machinery could run smoothly at all times.

NIC’s MCU based Video Conference service is in use for over 25 years and been used intensively in the Government but during this Covid 19 pandemic, the scaleup of these services has been huge. Work from Home is incomplete without Video interaction nowadays and NIC’s desktop Videoconferencing facility helped bridge this demand for Government during this COVID-19 Pandemic.

Usage of NIC VC services increased manifold at all levels of the government. VC equipped COVID-19 War Rooms were established in most states to monitor & review COVID-19. All Central ministries and State Governments were also facilitated with web rooms for a secure and non-intrusive experience. The Video conferencing team all across the country have put their sincere and best efforts to meet the expectation of Government.

Even before the lockdown was announced, Prime Minister utilised the Video Conferencing services provided by NIC to interact with the Chief Ministers of the States across the country (20.03.2020). The Hon’ble Prime Minister also interacted on VC with the leaders of the Pharma industry (21.03.2020) to understand their preparedness and with the Industry leaders (23.03.2020) to assess the impact of the lockdown on the economy.

NIC’s VC is being used extensively during COVID-19 pandemic by Hon’ble President of India, Hon’ble Prime Minister, Chief Ministers of various states, Cabinet Secretary and Chief Secretaries, Chief Information Commissioner, Central and State Government Ministers and department officials across the country at all levels.

The President and Vice President have also held various VCs with Governors, LGs and Administrators of States and UTs on the Covid-19 status on more than one occasion.

The Hon’ble PM’s video conferencing with electronic media stakeholders (23.03.2020), heads of Indian High-Commissioners abroad, Social Welfare organisations (30.03.2020), eminent sportspersons (03.04.2020), Central Ministers (06.04.2020), floor leaders of political parties (08.04.2020), SarPanchs of Gram Panchayats (24.04.2020), Non-Aligned Movement Contact Group (04.05.2020), Mr. Bill Gates (14.05.2020) all have been enabled using NIC’s Video Conference services.

Video Conferencing is one of the core essential services that the National Informatics Centre has provided during the Covid-19 pandemic and combat the challenging times.