The vision of Chandigarh Administration is to create a knowledge-based society through extensive use of ICT. As a key initiative to achieve this objective, the Administration has decided to set-up Electronic Citizen Service Centers across the city. This initiative is named as Project eSampark. The project aims to bring together all the departments under one single umbrella and give citizens of Chandigarh a “multi-service” – “single-window” experience. The ultimate objective is to use ICT as a medium for effective interaction between the Administration and the public so that exchange of information and access to Chandigarh Administration departments is speedy and easy.
| Strategic Planning and Implementation Success of eSampark project initiated by Chandigarh is the result of strong planning and a phased implementation strategy adopted by Administration. Studies were conducted to understand the best practices across such projects. A framework was drafted for the initiative based on which the strategies were defined for participation of the partner departments, selection of technology, public partner, financial partner etc. The Department of IT has been the main facilitator to integrate the existing Citizen Services application developed by NIC and BOT operators. To ensure clarity, the roles and responsibilities of various agencies involved in the project were well defined from the beginning itself. While the Overall Ownership & Administration are under Department of IT, Process Re-engineering is handled by Participating Departments. NIC looks after Technical Support, Network & Data Center whereas Front-end Operations and Banking & Payment Gateway are under the purview of SQL Star and UTI Bank respectively. The most critical aspect of the project has been the continuity of the services to the citizens of Chandigarh. Therefore a parallel path strategy was adopted which meant continuing the traditional service centers in parallel to the eSampark centers so that in case of any failure, there is no disruption in the services to the citizen. Following services were selected for the first phase: · Payment of Electricity Bills · Payment of Water Bills · Payment of Traffic Challans · Payment of Taxes · Issue of Bus Passes · Space Booking (Municipal Corporation) · Birth & Death Certificates · Senior Citizen Cards · Disability Card · Passport Applications · Tenant/Servant Registration There are eight eSampark centers planned to be in place with around 32 service counters spread across the city, out of which six are operational. Each center operates from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm on Monday to Saturday. All the centers are connected with Network and Data Center set up by NIC. It not only provides the Online Transaction Processing through its centers and web-enabled portal (http://chandigarh.gov.in) but also is a major source of information dissemination. Online Payment Gateway for making payments using UTI Bank Debit Card and any Credit Card is also available through the portal. All operations in eSampark are executed as per the defined standards i.e. naming of the register, file to review of a passport application, execution of an enquiry to the cash handling procedure etc.
| Post Implementation Analysis A well-structured PR strategy has been adopted and Chandigarh Administration issues press releases from time to time informing citizens about the eSampark services. A handbook providing detailed information on eSampark processes has also been published. In order to serve the citizens better, a Citizen Satisfaction survey was conducted. After six months of operation the objective was to understand the citizen requirement, get their feedback and then improve the services provided at the existing centers as well as at the upcoming centers. Today eSampark is a ‘One-stop-shop’ for over 11 G2C services through 6 eSampark Centers. In a short span of 6 months, the transactions number has increased from zero to 65,000 from the eSampark centers. In next two months 2 additional such centers have been planned by Chandigarh Administration. Besides this, as a next phase of the project, it is envisaged to introduce non government services as part of the project such as phone bills etc which are expected to increase the transactions manifolds. These results have been achieved based on the state-of-the-art technology, robust infrastructure, citizen facilities available at these centers and above all, process reengineering. The facilities provided by the eSampark centers has relieved the citizens of Chandigarh from the hardships of standing in long queues or visiting the government offices many times to get their job done. eSampark project has also increased transparency and improved flow of information relating to the citizen services provided by the government. Now on an average a service from eSampark center is delivered in few minutes without any inconvenience. Chandigarh Administration has already started next phase of the project called ‘Jan Sampark’ that would be implemented in each sector. The aim is to provide IT based services to citizens who do not have access to computers. Photo Caption: E-Sampark Counter at Sector 10, Chandigarh The eSampark Project won the Golden Icon Award for ‘Professional Excellence for Process Reengineering’ in the 8th National E-Governance Conference held at Bhubaneswar in February this year. For details, please mail to dit@chd.nic.in