Ex-CEO of the National Health Authority delivers distinguished lecture at IIM-V – Times of India

VISAKHAPATNAM: IIM Visakhapatnam organised a talk by Dr RS Sharma, who is considered the doyen of e-governance ecosystem of India, under the umbrella of its ‘distinguished lecture series’ as part of its Post Graduate Program in Digital Governance (PGPDGM).
Dr Sharma, a 1978 batch IAS officer, recently retired as the CEO of the National Health Authority which is responsible for managing the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and the National Digital Health Mission.
IIM Vizag Director Prof M Chandrasekhar said that the Institute invited Dr Sharma for the talk, considering his extensive experience with the most high-profile e-governance solutions and the digital public goods that the ‘Digital India’ initiative has undertaken.
During his talk, titled as “Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission”, Dr Sharma took the participants through the set of serendipitously developed digital solutions under the Digital India initiative.
His talk focused on the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), which is one among the various horizontal digital public goods being developed by the Union government. The focus of ABDM is to leverage ICTs to provide better health services to citizens, while ensuring quality, affordability, and accessibility.
Dr Sharma stressed on the importance of good architecture for software and systems being developed for public good to ensure interoperability across systems. He emphasised on the need of leaving innovation and agility to the private sector, while governments focus on architectures, frameworks, and scaling of solutions given their experience on those dimensions when developing digital solutions for citizens. Explaining the benefits of protocol-based or network-based solutions, he explained why it is important to move away from platform-based models which are often leading to monopolies.
As part of the DGM Program, Indian Institute of Management-Visakhapatnam is conducting a ‘distinguished lecture series’ to complement the in-class learning with practical experience of working with digital technologies. Distinguished personalities with extensive experience in the field of digital governance and management are invited at regular intervals.