Ganjam district is named after the Old Township and European fort. The name Ganjam comes from the word Gan-i-aam which means Granary of the World. It is spreading over the geographical area of 8070.60 square km. in Odissa. There are 22 blocks, 475 Gram-panchayats, 18 Urban Local bodies, 3229 villages, 29 Police Stations and 13 Assembly Constituencies. The district has played a great role in the political scenario of Odissa as four Chief Ministers of Odissa belong to this district. NIC is playing a major role in empowering the rural masses by spreading ICT based information & services. MAJOR ICT PROJECTS IN THE DISTRICT Web-GIS: The web based GIS system has been developed using open source technology that facilitates Browse Map, Query Map and Thematic Map. The unique step taken is to incorporate the NREGA data with photographs over Block-GP-Village maps. GIS system has been widely used during Parliament & Assembly Election for monitoring critical booths, generating Constituency wise booth maps with road network for election party movement. System has been used for disaster management as the flood / cyclone prone maps are generated with shelter centres & communica-tion facilities. The database compris-es of 147 parameters covering vari-ous important sectors of all villages. Online Character & Antecedent Verification The character and antecedents Verification report (CAVR) of poten-tial employees is required by the employer - spanning from GOI and various state governments to defence and public sectors. The District Superintendent of Police, DIG (Intelligence) and Collector of the dis-trict where the individual is residing issue the verifi-cation report. The applica-tion has been implement-ed for monitoring of requests received by the collectorate for CAVR in both civil and defence cate-gory and status thereof. The role based application reminds for pending cases and allows updating the reason of pending / other status of the application. Applicants can know the up-to-date status. The implementation of the s/w has drastically reduced the pend-ing cases, which ultimately helps to trim down the waiting time & both-eration of the new recruits to join in their services. Effective MGNREGA Monitoring System fetch National Award for Excellence The district has been recognised by GOI under the Scheme of "Award for Excellence in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)". Collector received the award in the annual function held for commemo-ration of completion of the fourth year of the commencement of MGNREGA at the Plenary Hall, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 2nd February 2010. Hon'ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Chairperson of UPA Smt. Sonia Gandhi have distributed the award. This has been possible due to effec-tive monitoring of the scheme using MGNREGA portal. The uniqueness added to this monitoring process is the "NREGA Help Line". Citizen can give com-plaint related to NREGA work over toll free number or through volun-teers available at various locations. The complaints are entered and a ref-erence number is given to the com-plainant. Based on the nature of com-plaint it is passed on to the Block level volunteer or to the supervisory officer for enquiry. The enquiry report is reflected over the database and accordingly decision is being taken by appropriate authority. The com-plainant using the reference number can ask for details of action taken after 48 hrs. — N.I.C. Ganjam district unit has been playing a vital role in providing ICT support to district administration and other offices of the district since 1988. NIC Ganjam is equipped with 34 Mbps STM line connectivity, VSAT, Video Conferencing facility, Collectorate LAN etc. STM Line connectivity has been provided to all major Post Offices, Revenue Divisional Commissoner's (RDC) Office, RTO office etc. Revenue Monitoring from Sairat Sources Sairat, Auction Sale of Public Property, is a major source of revenue. Types of sources include Stone / Murom Quarry, Sand bed, Fishery, Orchard, Ferry Ghat etc. The application so developed monitors village wise Sairat sources, year wise auction details, rev-enue derived from thereof. Portal dis-plays source details & auction dates for wider publication. Based on the auc-tion prices of last 3 years, the upset price for the current year is automati-cally calculated. C.M. Grievance Monitoring System (e_Abhijoga) facilitates citi-zen lodging the grievance at anytime from anywhere to CM and obtain the up-to-date status. Online Paddy Procurement System facilitates data entry from the paddy procure-ment centres setup in GPs. 361 Millers, 475 Paddy Purchase Centres, nearly 103000 farmers have registered over the portal and transaction of Rs.177 crore has been made last year. Planplus software monitors Backward Region Grant Fund scheme. The District Plan and Action Plan are being generated financial year wise. Ganjam district has been selected as pilot district for the implementation of two important NeGP Mission Mode Programmes i.e. e-District and e-PRI. Besides, several National and State level projects like Land Records, Vahan & Sarathi for Transport, AGMARKNET for RMCs, MPLAD/MLALAD for district plan-ning unit, Computerisation of Recruitment System, Automation of N.S.A.P. schemes for Rural and Urban etc. have been successfully implemented. Appreciations: The technical support during the visit of His Excellency Honourable Ex-President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has been highly appreciated. Honourable Chief Minister Sri Naveen Patnaik has given "Certificate of Appreciation" to NIC officials for the "e-Gram" project. The paper on GIS presented by Sri S.C.Misra, DIO, Ganjam in the International Conference on e-Governance held in I.I.M., Bangalore was well appreciated. — SH. V. KARTHIKEYA PANDIAN I.A.S, Collector & District Magistrate, Ganjam. It gives me immense pleasure to inform that N.I.C Ganjam plays a vital role for spreading informatics culture in Ganjam district by designing, developing and implementing various e- Governance projects to make the administration citizen centric. I appreciate the active support of Sri S.C. Misra, DIO (Scientist-D) and Sri R.K. Das, DIA (Scientific Officer) and hope for continued motivated performance in the future.