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N. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, June 30

TAKING forward its initiative to usher in a paperless office and e-Governance, the Tamil Nadu Government has decided to implement the Secretariat Knowledge System (SKS) on a pilot basis in three departments - Finance, Personnel and Administrative Reforms, and Information Technology.

The main objective of the SKS is to build an electronic workplace and automate the numerous functions at the Secretariat, the headquarters of the State Government.

According to official sources, leading names in providing IT solutions such as Microsoft and Tata Consultancy Services, and others such as Aithent Technologies, LL2B.Com, Alsec, and Sakshi Automation have evinced interest in implementing pilot projects for SKS. Letters of approval for implementing of pilot for "proof of concept" at some of the departments have been given to some vendors.

Simultaneously, the Government is also studying similar systems already implemented or under implementation in other places so that the best solutions and tools are implemented at the Secretariat here, according to the sources.

The Government had, in July last, set up a steering committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to implement the SKS.

The steering committee has constituted a four-member working group formed with the Managing Director of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot) as Chairman, which held its first meeting recently and decided to try out the SKS in three departments.

The SKS, according to the sources, has been conceived as an electronic work place with the objectives of policy based processing, knowledge and information sharing, prioritising work, enhancing productivity and office management. The proposal for the SKS was originally mooted by TCS, after which the Government decided to constitute a steering committee headed by the Chief Secretary.

According to the sources, the main problems identified in the functioning of the Secretariat - which houses the offices of the Chief Minister, ministers, and secretaries to various departments and the departments themselves - are: high proportion of establishment work, multiple levels of processing, inter-departmental consultations, multiplication of files, and prioritisation of files. It is to chiefly address these problems that the SKS was thought of.

The sources point out that a Local Area Network (LAN) is available in the Secretariat connecting all departments. Besides, individual departments have been given computers, which are used for carrying out work within the respective departments. Still, most of the work is carried out manually.

This is how typically a scheme is prepared or a rule finalised. The lowest level officer in the department first initiates a note manually in the form of a file, which is then sent to all the officials concerned within the department for their information, comments or approval. If the matter pertains to another department, the file is sent to the department concerned for the comments and approval of the officials concerned. After that, the file goes back to the department where it originated, which then takes a decision on what needs to be done.

During this process, the officials say that previous Government orders, rules and guidelines need to be referred and verified, precedents checked, and related issues and policies adopted by other States verified. This means that records have to be accessed, which has to be done manually.

A lot of time is taken up in the process. Moreover, manual errors may lead to complications. The SKS seeks to solve all these problems and also shorten the process from the moment a proposal is mooted to when a decision on it is taken.

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