shailesh.srivastava@nic.in anshu.rohatagi@nic.in
Uttar Pradesh became the first state in the
country to roll out e-District project in 6
pilot districts of the state. e-District is
a State Mission Mode Project under the
National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of
Ministry of Communications & IT. The project
seeks to automate the complete workflow and
internal processes of district
administration with the possibility of
seamless integration of various departments
to e-enable the delivery of high volume
services to the citizens through Common
Service Centres & kiosks.
The "e-District" application software has
been developed by National Informatics
Centre Uttar Pradesh. It is web based
solution which ensures 100% electronic
workflow of the service - right from receipt
of applications to the final delivery of
service. The status of application can be
tracked by the citizen and the government
officials through the portal and the
escalation matrix ensures the adherence to
the service levels defined for each service.
Separate modules have been designed and
developed to capture the base data from
Parivar Register, Pension & Certificate
Registers, Revenue Court Cases etc. which is
used for verification.
Advantages
-
Hassle free process for the citizen
he/she can avail service from the
nearest CSC / block even for the
services which are available from
the district head quarters, saving
time and cost.
-
Status of the application available
on the web - reduces need of the
citizen to visit government office
to know the status of his/her
application.
-
Transparency in dealing - the
applicant goes to the nearest
e-District centre and does not have
to deal with the officials who
actually process it.
-
Government officials can monitor
status of applications submitted &
performance of subordinates.
-
Reduce delays and ensure promptness
in delivery of services
A total of 32 services
pertaining to Certificates, Pension, Public
Distribution System, Revenue Court,
Employment, Grievances etc., from 10 line
departments were selected for complete
automation in Uttar Pradesh.
The project was
launched in Sitapur on 15th Dec 2008 by
Ex-Chairman, Board of Revenue Sh. Vinod
Malhotra, IAS, who inspired & motivated the
project team to complete the project much
before the scheduled time of 18 months.
Sh. Vinod Malhotra, IAS, with Dr. B. K.
Gairola, DG, NIC during inauguration at
Ghaziabad
State-of-art e-District Centers have been
made in the selected pilot districts (Sitapur,
Raebarelli, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar,
Sultanpur & Gorakhpur) to provide a world
class infrastructure facility to the
citizens and better working environment to
the officials providing these services.
Technologies such as digital signatures have
been used for the approval of the
application & issuance of certificates. GPR
has been carried at all levels to move from
archaic rules to the modern technology based
decision making, high focus has been laid on
training and change management right at the
district, tehsil & block level of
administration to enable the projects
objective of providing services to the
citizens in friendly, transparent and easier
manner.
A service oriented architecture based
approach has been adopted for developing the
framework for e-District to introduce
flexibility in the service delivery
mechanism. This architecture decouples the
core administration, decision making and
each aspect of the service delivery
mechanism into distinct components. The
portal
http://edistrict.up.nic.in
provides instructions on how to avail a
particular service, supporting documentation
required etc. which helps the citizen to
avail the service with out need of any
intermediaries. The status checking
component reduces the scope of discretion on
the part of government officials and makes
status of the application visible to the
applicant at any point of time. The
e-District centres attempt to provide a
flexible e-Governance setup, where citizens
can avail a wide array of services at a
single location without concern about the
department which provides a particular
service. This is a paradigm shift from
department centric to citizen centric
approach.
http://edistrict.up.nic.in
The reporting component provides both
tabular and graphical statistics to the
administrators on number of applications
received and processed in a given duration,
applications processed within time and which
ones took longer than expected time,
district wise summary etc. The application
requires fixing of responsibility of each
step to a particular login, and the
officials are able to trace where an
application is lying at a point of time and
how long it has taken to finish a particular
process. The automated escalation matrix
also helps the administrators in monitoring
productivity and efficiency of employees and
the whole department.
Graphical representations for received
applications in different districts of UP
Key Process Improvements
-
Requisite Government Orders issued
by participating departments for
electronic delivery of services.
-
Issuance of digitally signed
certificates/ services.
-
Allowing verification/ decisions to
be made based on the e-District
database or databases of other
departments.
-
Online submission of application
from CSC/ Block/ Tehsil or District
which ever is convenient
-
Verification of issued certificates
/ services using e-District Portal.
-
Pre-printed stationery used for
issuance of certificates.
-
Photographs of certificate holders
printed on the certificates wherever
necessary.
The success of the project can be gauged
from the influx of applications, which has
already crossed one lakh mark in the six
districts, more than ninety thousand
certificates have already been issued and
efforts are underway to increase the
services and extend the reach of e-District
to remote locations. The application has
truly simplified a lot of the processes and
also reduced a lot of paperwork. A great
deal of action can be taken by click of the
mouse. Delay at every step can also be
monitored by the superiorensuring prompt
delivery of services. However, the success
of the project is a result of sincere and
dedicated efforts of the project team
comprising of the State IT Department,
Centre of e-Governance, U.P., NIC U.P. State
Unit & District centres, District
Administration of the six districts and the
three consultants PWC, Wipro & 3i-Infotech
who worked under the able guidance of
Chairman, Board of Revenue.
For further
information, contact
S.B. Singh
Senior Technical Director
NIC, U.P. State Unit,
Lucknow 226001
sio-up@nic.in |