Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

E-governance era to roll in from May 1

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad April 18 . Andhra Pradesh will step into the era of e-governance from May 1 when the staff in the Secretariat, from section officer to the Minister, will start handling and disposing of files electronically, doing away with papers and using computers linked by a campus network named Secretariat Knowledge Information Systems (SKIMS).

To start with, the online file-clearing will cover subjects/departments, and another 110 during the next phase. By August 15, e-governance will be fully in operation and by November 1 the State Formation Day, the coverage of all subjects/departments will be total. It is for the first time that such a computer facility is being introduced in the Secretariat by any State in the country. The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, approved and finalised the dates for launching e-governance in this manner after testing the software programme himself.

The name of the e-governance at this layer has been changed to smartGov (smart Government in which S, M, A, R and T stand for simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent) as, SKIMS "sounds ordinary and not appealing''. A total of 150 software professionals from the Tata Consultancy Services had to struggle for an year to develop the software prorgamme for smartGov which required them to go through the various procedures being followed by section officers/secretaries/ heads of departments for creation and disposal of files.

A sum of Rs 19.5 crores has been spent on the product with Rs 15 crores out of this coming from TCS and the balance given by the State Government. As it turned out, it became the largest programme in the world on Lotus platform, according to the IT Principal Secretary, J. Satyanarayana. Mr Chandrababu Naidu told mediapersons later that the product was such that two or three States had already made enquiries for adopting it for their own e-governance bids. However, if the joint venture product was marketed to other States, the earnings would have to be shared by the TCS and the Government at 80 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

A significant feature is that the section officer or the Minister can know the rule position by checking with the Knowledge Bank in which all related Acts of a subject, say land acquisition, the latest GOs and rules are incorporated and updated. Also, the product could easily be followed by the conventional creators of files as the same old terminology has been used such as "note file'', curret file, etc. On pressing the button, the terminal will also indicate those files which will have to be cleared on priority basis in view of public importance. It is hoped that smartGov will ensure quicker disposal of files, bringing the pendency to nil. About 1.2 lakh files are pending in the Secretiaat today, the Chief Miniser said. Asked how this would serve the common man, Mr Chandrababu Naidu said every file reflected one tragic story or another, as they were created based on representations/petitions received from the public, etc. When a file was cleared at the Secretariat level, it amounted to solving that particular problem once and for all. At a later strage, he said, he had plans to take the exercise to mandals and districts at which levels, the benefit to the public would be much more. By November 1, the personnel dealing with the files would have acquired total adaptability to the new system.

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