Gujarat, the westernmost state of country is one of the oldest business points in the world map. It is an abode to some of the largest businesses in India. A bulk of Gujarat economy's is generated from its agricultural and natural resources which includes cotton, sugar, peanuts, groundnuts, various milk products and petrol. The state has produced some of the finest management individuals from IIM, Ahmadabad & designers from NID. Today, Gujarat is amongst the most developed states in the country. It has shown robust growth on almost all parameters of infrastructural development, be it transport, communication, power or Information Technology.

NIC, Gujarat has provided ICT solutions for many citizen centric services like Issuance of RoR (Record of Right) from gram panchayats, Registration, Property Card, Single window Systems for Certificates and other applications benefiting the masses using the state NIC data center. Some of the key IT initiatives in the state include -

SWAGAT - State-Wide Attention on Public Grievances by Application of Technology

Chief Minister's Online Grievance Redressal System

SWAGAT is an innovative concept that enables direct tripartite communication between the citizens, the officials and the Chief Minister.

In Gandhinagar, the fourth Thursday of every month is a SWAGAT day wherein the highest office in administration attends to the grievances of the man on the street. Grievances are logged in, transmitted and made available online to the officers concerned who have to reply within 3 to 4 hours. The departments concerned have to be ready with their replies, before 3 p.m., when the Chief Minister holds video conferences with all the districts concerned. Applicants are called one by one and the Chief Minister examines each complaint in detail. The information sent by the department is also reviewed in the presence of the complainant and video presence of the Collector/District Development Officer/Superintendent of Police and other officials concerned. Attempts are made to offer a fair and acceptable solution on the same day and no applicant has ever left without a firm solution to his grievance. The record is then preserved in the 'SWAGAT' database and a separate log is maintained for each case.

“SWAGAT” has been replicated in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for online Grievance Redressal System of Chief Minister as “SAMADHAN ONLINE” in January, 2006 and as “e-SAMADHAN” in January, 2007 respectively.

Excerpt of the message from Hon'ble CM of Gujarat Sh. Narendra Modi on SWAGAT “I have been saying that e-Governance is easier and effective governance. True to this spirit, we have devised very futuristic systems and applications based on ICT & ITES. At the basis of these applications lie our major initiatives like State Wide Area Network, Broad Band connectivity to all villages, Jan Sewa Kendras working as one day governance centres, SWAGAT, Integrated Work & Data Management System, complete computerisation of land records, online financial transactions and budgetary exercises. People of Gujarat, whether living within the Sate or outside, can enjoy and boast of the easy accessibility of information and services online. We are still working to make our transactions as digitised as possible. In most of the applications applicable in the State, NIC has played a very pivotal and effective role”.

Hon'ble CM Sh. Narendra Modi and Secretary to CM Sh. AK Sharma, IAS with complainant during SWAGAT program

Excerpt of the message from Sh. A. K. Sharma, IAS, Secretary to CM on SWAGAT “SWAGAT is a very uniquely designed and efficiently managed online grievance redressal system, perhaps unparallel in the world. It has been cited as one of the global success stories in e-transparency & e-accountability. The system has its reach to the Taluka level which means that the citizens can use it sitting there. Moreover, it has the capacity to join all the stakeholders online and bring out final solution to citizens' grievances almost instantly. Hon. Chief Minister's personal involvement and commitment to develop and run this system has added to its credibility and efficacy. NIC's continued involvement and support has made this programme a consistent success”.

Awards

— Selected as one of the three international best practice case studies on e-transparency from Developing / Transitional Countries in a project sponsored by COMMONWEALTH TELECOMMUNICATIONS ORGANISATION & coordinated by THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER in 2003. — Special mention in e-Government category for MANTHAN AWARD for the year 2005. — Finalist for United Nations Public Service Awards, 2006.

Xtended Green Node (XGN) for Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB)

XGN has been developed for the GPCB (http://gpcb.guj.nic.in), facilitating the users in the day-to-day operations at the Head Office, 13 field offices & more than 17000 Industries. Operating since June-2008 the project has been instrumental in effective implementation of Pollution Control Act, Rules & Notifications. The core of XGN lies in the e-Movement & Online processing of e-Files leading to stoppage of Physical files. There are more than 750 daily concurrent users including Scientists and Industries.

XGN is being replicated in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Gujarat Portal Information and Service Delivery Solution for Government services in Gujarat

NIC has developed a portal (http://portal.gujarat.gov.in) under the guidance of Department of Science and Technology which has integrated service delivery system. It is a sector and citizen based information portal which provides single page for accessing majority of the government information & services.

Gujarat has also developed a service portal http://gp.guj.nic.in, which houses many application formats. Application will be processed on the portal and competent authority will give the decision (approve or reject) on the application based on the intermediate office procedures. All authorized government users can monitor the system at any level. It has the provision for applying online for any service for registered user of Gujarat Portal.

Home page of Gujarat Portal

Gujarat Ration Card Computerization (GRCC)

GRCC is a web based solution http://grcc.guj.nic.in, launched in April, 2007 for computerization of more than 10 million Ration Cards in Gujarat. It is a central architecture based system where the connectivity is provided through GSWAN up to the taluka level. The benefits include online G-Register, ration card details & transaction summary, MIS reports for monitoring & management of huge consumer base. The department of food and civil supply is in process of computerizing the kerosene and sugar allocation.

Socio Economic Survey 2002 (BPL List) (http://ses2002.guj.nic.in)

The main objective of the project is to prepare the list of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in rural Gujarat and to identify the beneficiaries for Rural Development schemes based on 13 socio- economic indicators. About 70 lakhs forms were filled up during the survey, which were scanned and converted to database to minimize manual intervention with the data.

e-Dhara (Land Records) & RoR@Village

NIC, Gujarat State developed comprehensive software BhuLekh Soft to capture the day to day land record transactions taking place and implemented it at the taluka level. All 225 talukas (e-Dhara Kendras) of 25 districts are equipped with a server, clients, printers, Bio-Metric Devices (Finger Print Readers), Scanners etc and the transactions are done online.

RoR@Village: Record of Rights (RoR) at Village (http://ror.guj.nic.in) is the integration of e-Dhara project with Vishwa Gram project. To start with, facility of issuing RoR is extended to Village Panchayat. The system uses Gujarat State Wide Area Network, SAN setup at NIC Gujarat State Centre and e-DKs. The entire process of filing the request for RoR by village Talati, processing & uploading of RoR by e-Dhara Dy. Mamlatdar and final printout by village Talati to the citizen has been automated.

Jan Seva Kendra

The initiatives taken by National Informatics Centre & District Administrations in Gujarat, to leverage on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for effective governance have not only resulted in innovation in governance but have also set a role model of e-Governance in the country. “Jan Seva Kendra” (http://janseva.guj.nic.in) is all about IT enabled service delivery to the citizens, bringing in the required transparency and eliminating chances of delay, harassment, nepotism & corruption.

The objective of the One Day Governance services is to provide all types of certificates (income, caste, domicile etc), renewals (arms license, hotel license, ration card etc.) to the citizen in One Day and for Non One Day Services an receipt is given with expected time of disposal on it. Services that used to take 5-30 days earlier are now processed in one day. The software has been implemented in 170+ talukas & district centers.

Jan Seva Kendra of Vadodara Collectorate office

Food & Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) A. Drugs Manufacturing License (Allopathic) Allocation (DMLA)

FDCA is liable to enforce the Drug Acts & rule in the state. The office activities are issue and monitoring of sales license, issue & monitoring of various types of drugs manufacturing license within a state, sampling and analysis of it, inspection of drugs manufacture unit and sales unit.

The FDCA-DMLA covers the computerization of activities related to Allopathic Drugs Manufacturers. Areas covered are issue of fresh license, renewal, additional product permission, approved technical person's details, company Profile, certificate issue, inspection, sampling report and fresh firm registration. (http://fdca.guj.nic.in/dmla)

Excerpt of the letter from the Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Sh. Raj Kumar, IAS, Government of Gujarat I am glad to know that NIC is planning to bring out an issue of Informatics Magazine which will focus on various e-Governance projects in Gujarat. In my opinion, “NIC is an organisation eminently suitable for a meaningful cross exchange of information of various functional organs of the Government and therefore, has the potential to implement an integrated e-Governance solution”.

B. Sales License

FDCA revolves around the Sales and manufacturing aspects related to Food & Drugs including Cosmetics. FDCA head office with 18 Circle Offices stationed in district handle more than one district operations. Each Circle office is headed by an Asst. Commissioner. 4-5 Drug Inspectors looking into field duties. The system is implemented in all circle office since Jan, 2007. (http://fdca.guj.nic.in)

Integrated Online Junction on Net (iOjN 4 Planning)

“iOjN 4 Planning” is a web enabled application developed with an objective to smooth the various types of administrative process and to introduce an effective monitoring system for expediting the projects which are sanctioned and funded under Decentralized Planning Schemes. Starting from the proposal, system takes care up to completion of the work.

Pension Information System, Department of Posts

NIC, Gujarat has developed a complete pension system for Department of Posts. It covers Pension Authorization (e-Nivrutti) which automates all the pension activities from inward to outward at DAP level. It supports Provisional Pension, Pension, DCRG & CVP calculation for various classes. It enables the case entry from division office and provides online status of any pension case. Voucher Audit module provides the schedule & voucher entry at dap & head office. It supports voucher generation for monthly pension & arrears due to DA change. It supports reconciliation of paid voucher amount with DAP authorized payment amount for DCRG, CVP and monthly pension.

Judiciary (Gujarat High Court and Lower Courts)

The two websites http://gujarathighcourt.nic.in, http://gujcourts.guj.nic.in/ provide both static and dynamic information like case registration, cause list, case status daily notices, certified copy etc. of Gujarat High Court & District/City/Taluka Courts respectively. The IVR, online judicial registers, mail services, SMS etc. have also been integrated to help the citizens. All back-office operations are digitized. The roll out for lower courts is in process.

Apart from these NIC, Gujarat has developed a monitoring system for Tribal Development Department (http://tribal.guj.nic.in), A complete software solution for Urban Land Records System (property card) (http://csis.guj.nic.in) which is under implementation. A document registration system (ReD) which has automated calculation of Market Value & Stamp Duty, generation of notice, capturing of photo and finger print, scanning of document pages to generation of index, Ready reckoner for the land value (http://jantry.guj.nic.in) and market value guidelines. The system is implemented in all sub-registrar offices.

Websites and Intranet Applications:

— Animal Husbandry - http://intranet.guj.nic.in/gahc — Agriculture Census - http://agricensus.guj.nic.in — Intra Forest - http://isfed.guj.nic.in — Birth and Death Entry Application - http://badea.guj.nic.in — Commissioner of RTO - http://intranet.guj.nic.in/rrs/ — Gujarat Information Commission - http://gic.guj.nic.in — EMI Employee Market Information - http://emi.guj.nic.in — Gujarat Assembly - http://www.gujaratassembly.gov.in — Schemes Portal - http://schemes.guj.nic.in