Govt sets into motion exercise to extend e-office up to Tehsil level

Control Rooms set-up in all deptts to monitor online services
Step to make officials accountable, check efficiency

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Feb 4: After Civil Secretariat, offices of Heads of the Departments and Deputy Commissioners, Government has now set into motion an exercise to extend e-office up to Tehsil level and this step will go a long way in making the officials accountable at the lowest level in the administration and check their efficiency in disposal of official files.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that on the basis of success of e-office in the Civil Secretariat at Jammu as well as Srinagar and in majority of the offices of the Heads of the Departments and Deputy Commissioners, the Government has decided to extend e-office up to the Tehsil level and exercise has been set into motion in this regard by framing a committee of officers.
A committee comprising State Informatics Officer, NIC J&K or his representative, representative from NIC Delhi, Technical Officer of the Information Technology Department, Project Manager, Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA), Data Centre Operator and Analyst-Information Technology in JaKeGA has been asked to frame the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for extension of e-office up to Tehsil level.
The committee will enable e-office in complete jurisdiction of Deputy Commissioners, Heads of the Departments and Public Sector Undertakings up to the Tehsil level and it will suggest measures to be taken for digitization of legacy record/files up to Tehsil level.
Similarly, the committee will make suggestions for procurement of additional licenses from NIC New Delhi as per the number of users communicated to Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency, extension of NIC NET/SWAN network up the Tehsil level through secured mode—Multiprotocol Label Switching etc.
The Detailed Project Report will also contain the steps required to be taken to strengthen complete infrastructure in J&K State Data Centre for hosting the office for envisaged number of users and requirement of manpower for managing the back-end operations of e-office (System Admins, Database Admins etc) as per the NIC Policy.
Moreover, the committee will suggest mode of hiring of manpower for training purpose and for rolling out e-office up to Tehsil level, sources said, adding “extension of e-office up to Tehsil level will further go a long way in making official accountable and check their efficiency. Further, with the rolling out of e-office at Tehsil level the Government will come to know about the exact requirement of manpower in each office and surplus manpower can be diverted to those offices which are facing dearth of same”.
It is pertinent to mention here that physical files are not being encouraged in Civil Secretariat, offices of Heads of the Departments and Deputy Commissioners. For smooth functioning of e-office in these offices, the Information Technology Department has provided VPN connections, created domain IDs and trained local admins and master trainers.
Meanwhile, in order to ensure smooth transition from offline to online services control rooms have been established in all the Administrative Departments, offices of the Heads of the Departments and Deputy Commissioners for monitoring as also for providing support to the general public.
“These control rooms are submitting daily report to the control room of the General Administration Department, which is further providing a consolidated report to the office of the Chief Secretary”, sources said, adding “the Chief Secretary has already directed all the departments to run campaigns for creating awareness amongst general public with focus on educational institutions and Panchayat level”.
At present, all the services are being provided in online mode and practice of making available services in offline mode has already been dispensed with. Further, for ensuring time bound delivery of online services, directions have been issued for notifying such online services which have yet not been notified under Public Services Guarantee Act.