Two months after the national conference on e-governance held at Jaipur saw some of the best performing e-gov projects being awarded, the government has now given away a slew of awards to its best websites. The first-ever Web Ratna awards were given away by communications and IT minister A. Raja at Vigyan Bhawan here on Monday.

Indian railways passenger reservation & enquiry system won the platinum award for web based citizen services. Himachal Police and Bangalore One portal were winners of the gold and silver icon in the same category.

Altogether 24 organizations received Web Ratna Platinum, Gold and Silver Icon from the Union communications & IT minister. The awards have been instituted to acknowledge and promote exemplary e-governance initiatives by organizations using the medium of World Wide Web (www).

The awardees were selected out of 248 nominations received from all central government departments, states and union territories. These awardees were selected after a comprehensive online and offline evaluation by an independent jury which comprised representatives of DIT, National Informatics Centre (NIC), IIM (Ahmedabad), IIT (Delhi), NASSCOM, Cyber Media (India) Ltd and Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG). 

The Web Ratna Awards have been instituted this year under the ambit of the National Portal of India (http://www.India.gov.in) in order to promote more and more innovative e-governance initiatives and to acknowledge due recognition to the exemplary efforts in this direction.

The list of awardees under various categories is as listed:

Citizen Centric Services

        * Platinum Icon:- Indian Railways Passenger Reservation Enquiry System

        * Gold Icon:- HIMPOL (Himachal Pradesh Police on Web)

        * Silver Icon:- Bangalore One (Integrated Citizen Services Portal)

Public Participation Initiative

        * Platinum Icon:- CIC Online (Filling of Appeal & Complaints online with CIC) 

       * Gold Icon:- SANJOG Helpline (Integrated Grievance Redressal System

       * Silver Icon:- Ideas for CM (Open Opportunity for the Civil Society)

Outstanding Web Content

        * Platinum Icon:- E-Press Publisher (Press Information Bureau)

        * Gold Icon:- India Post

        * Silver Icon:- Gujarat Tourism

Innovative Use of Technology

        * Platinum Icon:- Indian Tsunami Early Warning System

        * Gold Icon:- The m-Governance Mantra

        * Silver Icon:- Justice through ICT (Video Conferencing between Court & Jail)

Comprehensive Web Presence - State

        * Platinum Icon:- Tamil Nadu

        * Gold Icon:- Himachal Pradesh

        * Silver Icon:- Chandigarh

National Portal Coordinator

        * Platinum Icon:- A.K.Srivastava

        * Gold Icon:- Sanjay Kumar

        * Silver Icon:- Shaliesh Kumar Singh

NIC Coordinator of the National Portal

        * Platinum Icon:- Sanjay Hardikar (NIC Madhya Pradesh State Unit)

        * Gold Icon:- Ajay Chahal (NIC Himachal Pradesh State Unit)

        * Silver Icon:- Vivek Verma (NIC Chandigarh State Unit)