Punjab to set up security ops centre to bolster cyber safety

This decision was taken during the 19th meeting of the board of governors of Punjab State e-Governance Society (PSeGS), chaired by Aman Arora, minister of governance reforms and public grievances, Punjab, on Thursday.

The Punjab government has decided to set up a Security Operations Centre (SOC) to ensure the protection of critical IT infrastructure, including various applications and websites of the state government.

The SOC, to be set up at a cost of ₹42.07 crore, will make Punjab one of the first states in North India to have such high-level cyber security, the minister said. (Shutterstock)

This decision was taken during the 19th meeting of the board of governors of Punjab State e-Governance Society (PSeGS), chaired by Aman Arora, minister of governance reforms and public grievances, Punjab, on Thursday.

The SOC, to be set up at a cost of ₹42.07 crore, will make Punjab one of the first states in North India to have such high-level cyber security, the minister said.

After the meeting, the governance reforms minister conducted a video conference with all deputy commissioners (DCs) to discuss and review the key governance reforms and strategies to improve citizen service delivery.

He said Punjab has 538 sewa kendras and 438 government-to-citizens (G2C) services are being delivered seamlessly. The state has successfully brought down pendency in citizen service delivery from 27% to less than 0.17%.

Only online document verification from Feb

Taking stock of the ambitious project of online verification of applications by sarpanches, nambardars and municipal councilors (MCs), Arora directed the DCs to ensure that all sarpanchs/nambardars and MC are onboarded on the eSewa Portal within this month to eliminate the need for citizens to make multiple visits for document verification. It was ordered that from February 1, 2025, offline verification from sarpanchs/nambardars and MCs shall be stopped and only online verifications shall be acceptable.