SKOCH Summit
Agenda
1130 - 1230
EMERGING GOVERNANCE IMPERATIVES
The session introduced a panel on emerging governance imperatives, featuring leaders from rural roads, Digital India, land records, tribal affairs, elections IT, and Odisha higher education. Speakers linked India@2047 goals with the need for short-, mid-, and long-term planning and “whole-of-government” execution. Land governance priorities included integrated, interoperable digital land records and ULPIN to reduce disputes and unlock land value. PMGSY showcased AI/ML, GIS, climate-friendly road technologies, and open data to improve selection, quality, and efficiency. The Tribal Affairs ministry described a shift from manual systems to portals, dashboards, DBT, transparency, and performance monitoring, alongside new missions and school expansion. Digital governance focus moved from dashboards to proactive, entitlement-based service delivery, “ask only once,” and simplified user experience. Language tech and voice interfaces (Bhashini, WhatsApp/feature-phone access) were highlighted as key to inclusion. The panel closed with emphasis on connecting silos, leveraging data for insights, and accelerating connectivity and saturation in remote/LWE and tribal areas.
Moderator: Dr Gursharan Dhanjal, Vice Chairman, SKOCH Group
Dr Ashish Kumar Goel, Director General, NRIDA and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development
Mr Abhishek Singh, MD & CEO, Digital India Corporation
Dr Neeta Verma, Director General (IT), Election Commission of India
Mr Navaljit Kapoor, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs
Mr Sonmoni Borah, Joint Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development
Mr Bishnupada Sethi, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Odisha
Dr Gursharan Dhanjal
Vice Chairman, SKOCH Group
Dr Gursharan Dhanjal, MA, M.Phil, PhD from Delhi University, an expert in development economics. He is Vice Chairman, SKOCH Group. He is also Editor of INCLUSION—a quarterly publication that focuses on inclusive growth related areas. He has led various research projects, impact assessments and field studies in MSMEs, women empowerment, entitlements, rights, sanitation, social inclusion, health, financial inclusion, e-governance and ICT for development that included traversing across the country, collecting citizen voices for over two decades now. A prolific writer, Dr Dhanjal has contributed over 200 columns in leading national dailies including The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Financial Express and The Pioneer. He has published research papers in several journals of repute in addition to authoring following widely acclaimed books: Tarapur: The Politics of Nuclear Age; and, Infrastructure and Governance. He was member of the Working Group on ICT in Higher Education constituted by Planning Commission for the 12th Five Year Plan.
Dr Ashish Kumar Goel
Director General, NRIDA and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development
Mr Abhishek Singh
MD & CEO, Digital India Corporation
Dr Neeta Verma
Director General (IT), Election Commission of India
Mr Navaljit Kapoor
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs
Mr Sonmoni Borah
Joint Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development
Mr Bishnupada Sethi
Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Odisha
1230 - 1330
EMERGING CIO IMPERATIVES
SKOCH highlighted its strength in convening senior experts and noted growing private-sector participation to solve large national challenges. The discussion linked India@2047 goals to scalable, sustainable, secure growth with active government–industry collaboration. A task force was formed to study how public digital infrastructure (India Stack, DigiLocker, Aadhaar) can be leveraged by corporates for higher economic impact. Committees were created across cloud, network, database, endpoint, and overall security, sparked by the AIIMS cyberattack context. The session focused on “total economic impact” (TEI) as a better lens than procurement price/TCO, incorporating IT support, risk, productivity, and lifecycle value. Findings cited faster provisioning, fewer support tickets, lower energy use, higher residual value, and potential four-year cost advantage for more secure endpoints. Network security was framed as a shifted perimeter: users and “crown jewels” are everywhere (SaaS, edge, public/private cloud), requiring many-to-many protection. Panelists discussed continuous high-volume attacks, endpoint vulnerabilities, interoperability/standardization challenges, and the move toward zero trust and EDR/XDR. Closing remarks stressed mass cyber-awareness (schools, seniors, rural users), standardization at policy level, and then transitioning to the awards segment.
Moderator: Mr Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group
Mr Sanjeevan Shirke, SVP - (IT), Head - IS, UTI Asset Management Company
Ms Rucha Nanavati, CIO, Mahindra Group
Mr Kersi Tavadia, CIO, BSE Ltd
Mr Rajiv Batra, CIO, Bennett, Coleman & Co
Mr Sameer Kochhar
Chairman, SKOCH Group
Reforms historian and author of best-seller ModiNomics, Sameer Kochhar is Chairman, SKOCH Group. He is a passionate advocate of social, digital and financial inclusion and is a foremost expert on governance and inclusive growth. His work has been acclaimed globally and endorsed by Mr Narendra Modi, Mr M Venkaiah Naidu, Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Arun Jaitley, Mr P Chidambaram, Mr Yashwant Sinha, Dr C Rangarajan and Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia and so on. In his thinking and writings and activities, his profound admiration for India's economic reforms and in extension, those outstanding personalities who strive to make these reforms more meaningful and broad-based comes out clear and unambiguous.
Mr Sanjeevan Shirke
SVP - (IT), Head - IS, UTI Asset Management Company
Ms Rucha Nanavati
CIO, Mahindra Group
Mr Kersi Tavadia
CIO, BSE Ltd