Digital Govt

1. An overview of Digital Government initiative in ------

1.1 Background

The Government of ------ is actively looking for IT driven measures to improve the efficiency of the government and streamline administration. With the Hon'ble Chief Minister’ s thrust on governance excellence and reaching out to the masses, it becomes important to explore innovative ways of achieving transparency and efficiency in administration.

Several states in India have embarked on this path and achieved significant success in this endeavor. Among these are Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat who have embarked on a less-paper based administration and also managed to meet the requirements of the Right to Information Act that hinges on such transparency.

It is now imperative that the Government of ------ identify and implement a comprehensive initiative to streamline administration.

1.2 Vision

The State has made considerable progress in matters of policy, infrastructure, application development and constant efforts are being made to achieve more in the areas of industry, networking, content creation and information management.

The Vision of the Digital Government System is to enhance the efficiency and transparency in administration through the implementation of a comprehensive online workflow application in the State Secretariat.

1.3 Mission

The Mission of the project is to envisage an electronic workflow based document management system and tracking of all files, documents and correspondence originating in all the departments of the State Secretariat. The Digital Government System would be coupled with a comprehensive knowledge management system that could function as an electronic repository of all important information such as past decisions, government orders and Government Acts.

1.4 Objectives

The objective of achieving Digital Government project goes to fundamentally change as to how the Government operates and this implies a new set of responsibilities for the executive, legislature and the citizenry. The effort should aim to bring about a social catharsis which needs to be orchestrated in a comprehensive, concerted and planned fashion.

------ aims to achieve the following objectives with the implementation of Digital Government:

i. Efficient & Transparent Administration

ii. Efficient Monitoring & Control

iii. Efficient Internal Information Exchange

iv. Building a Knowledge Base, enabling a Robust Decision Support System

v. A Structured work Environment in the Secretariat

vi. Collaborative Work Environment

vii. Effective Policymaking

1.5 Envisaged benefits

------ expects the following benefits in implementing the Digital Government project:

1.5.1 Space Saving

A considerable amount of space used at present for storage of documents can be released by implementing the Digital Government project. Nearly, 10% of the total area of the office can be saved due to online movement and storage of files.

1.5.2 Quick Retrieval

The documents are scanned, digitized and stored on a computer hard disk, Server, tape drives etc. The Digital Government system deploys user-friendly retrieval software to retrieve the archived documents almost instantaneously.

1.5.3 Easy Digitisation and Distribution

The scanning of documents into digital format enables electronic transmission of images through e-mail, ftp etc using Internet and Intranet. These images can also be stored for future reference.

1.5.4 Document Integrity

The existing manual system permitting removal of certain documents from a file for specific purposes with subsequently replacement may result in loss of documents. The Digital Government system eliminates this threat of losing documents since users can at the most take a print-out from the archive but cannot remove the document from the database.

1.5.6 Data Security

The noting and movement of files / documents is through the use of Digital Signatures which makes the system highly secured. Thus, the possibility of any confidential information being pilfered is eliminated.

1.5.7 Easy Handling of Information

The physical movement of files is subject to weather, wear & tear and rough handling which would result in files getting torn and documents getting lost. The Digital Government system enables online movement of files eliminating the physical handling of files.

1.5.8 Duplication and Reproduction

Duplicate copies of all files and documents can easily be generated and reproduced at any time through print-outs as they are securely stored in a database.

1.6 Stakeholders

The following groups of stakeholders would get involved in the implementation of Digital Government.

a. Political Executives

b. Government