In the modern era of Science, Technology and Innovation, effective use of ICT is imperative to meet the ever-growing expectations of citizens and businesses. From mere automation, eGovernance is continuously evolving to provide access, equity and empowerment to the masses. The State Government of Gujarat was early to identify the importance of ICT as an effective tool for Good Governance and has been a frontline State in the Country for implementation of eGovernance projects. For the same purpose, NIC Gujarat State Centre has been designated as the technology partner to the Gujarat Administration. NIC Gujarat is a technology partner and key advisor to the State and Central Government Departments in Gujarat. It has played an important role in setting up the key ICT infrastructure to bridge the gap between citizens and government, using technology as a conduit to achieve the Prime Minister’s vision of Minimum Government with Maximum Governance. The services by NIC Gujarat include study of user requirements, identifying and prioritizing areas for digitisation, system design, development, implementation, training, and technical support for hardware procurement, networking, LAN, WAN, Video Conferencing etc. Since its inception in 1988, NIC Gujarat State Centre has been designing, developing and implementing ICT solutions to deliver better citizen-centric services in the State across its 33 districts.
ICT Initiatives in the State Some of the major digital initiatives implemented in Gujarat are:
CM Dashboard Gujarat CM Dashboard is a first of its kind system to access data from all the State eGovernance apps and provide the same for monitoring against pre-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The CM Dashboard assists the Chief Minister Office (CMO) to drill down to various levels (viz. Zone, District, Taluka, and Gram Panchayat) in real time for red-flagged items and intervene in the administrative machinery with a simple voice call. As a result, the government will be more productive, efficient, and transparent. The major key stakeholders in the Gujarat CM Dashboard, besides the CMO, are Secretaries to the Ministries, Heads of Departments, Collectors, District Development Officers, and Superintendents of Police. The CM Dashboard consists of modules such as the Executive Dashboard, Sector Dashboard, District Dashboard, Corporation Dashboard, GIS Dashboard, Department Star Rating, PRAGATI-G (Project Monitoring), Aspirational Districts, CCU Dashboard, and Jan-Samvad (Feedback Mechanism). These services can be availed through Jan Seva Kendra in districts / talukas and through Digital Seva Setu in Gram Panchayats. Digital Gujarat app is linked with PFMS for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to eligible applicants, whose data is Aadhaar verified. The applicants also get regular notification through SMS, Sandes and email. Mukhyamantri Matrushakti Yojana (https://1000d.gujarat.gov.in) Mukhyamantri Matrushakti Yojana (MMY) was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in the august presence of Hon’ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel during the “Gujarat Gaurav Abhiyan.” In this scheme, the pregnant and lactating mothers every month will receive 2 kg of chickpeas, 1 kg of tur dal, and 1 kg of edible oil free of charge from nearby Anganwadi Centres. An app of same name, MMY, is designed and developed by NIC to track nutrition provided to pregnant and lactating mothers for an initial 1,000 days along with their newborn child to improve the nutritional status of both mother and child. For this, it is integrated with the Health Management Information System for registration of beneficiaries and Supply Chain Management of Public Distribution System for the distribution of commodities. iORA Integrated Online Revenue Applications (iORA) is a common service delivery platform for all services provided by the Gujarat Revenue Department. Some of the major services provided via this portal are issuance of digital Record of Right (RoR), non-agriculture land conversion certificate, new to old tenure conversion certificate, COVID-19 ex-gratia assistance, land allotment certificate, inheritance / mutation certificate, RoR correction and farmer certificate verification. The citizens can get these services by applying and paying a nominal application fee. The system, then, randomly distributes the application to an officer from a pool of concerned officers, who need to dispose of the application within 72 hours or the system gets locked until the copy of the signed order is not uploaded online. COVID-19 ex-Gratia App It was launched as a part of the iORA portal. It enables the family members and legal heirs of COVID-19 victims to submit their application for the ex-gratia claim of Rs. 50,000. The application can be filed online by uploading the death certificate of the deceased and other documents prescribed by the Gujarat State Health Department. This app is also integrated with the Gujarat State Birth and Death Registration Portal (eOlakh) for authenticating the data of deceased persons. Collector Portal (https://collectorportal.gujarat.gov.in) Collector Portal is an online web-based application to monitor collector office and other ground-level revenue office related activities. At the highest level, the end-user can generate and monitor 28 reports from various departments. gARVI 2.0 (https://garvi.gujarat.gov.in) gARVI 2.0 is an online property registration system which offers applicants to apply for online property registration by submitting PAN, Aadhaar, property documents, registration fees and stamp duty and get an appointment at the respective Sub-Registrar Office (SRO) for the document verification through a system-generated token, thus, simplifying the processes for providing evidence of titles, facilitating the secure transaction and preventing any unlawful disposal of land. Smt. Avantika Singh Aulakh, IAS, Secretary to Chief Minister, Gujarat, stated: "Since its launch in 2020, Gujarat CM Dashboard has proved to be a highly effective tool for monitoring the delivery of services and receiving feedback from the people. It has been effective in bringing a paradigm shift in governance by creating performance-based and outcome-oriented work culture in the state. Be that as it may, the Dashboard has become the backbone of Gujarat’s model of good governance pioneered by the Hon’ble Chief Minister. Expectedly, it has not only received appreciation from all quarters but has also generated interest from other state governments. I sincerely thank NIC for handholding the team from the Government of Gujarat in this journey and wish all the best for further such initiatives in future." The system enables the SRO to deliver the registered documents to the applicant on the same day. Moreover, the portal allows access to property-related information online in case of examining the legal authenticity of any property. GJ-TPDS (https://pds.gujarat.gov.in) Gujarat Targeted Public Distribution System (GJ-TPDS) is an integrated web-based platform which has been implemented in all 33 districts of the State. Through Ration Card Management System (RCMS), citizens can apply for online services such as issuance, updation, and deletion of ration cards and their members. It also has a provision to split the ration card, declaration of guardian member, and issuance of a duplicate ration card. It processes over 2 lakh applications every month. As of now, over 1.35 crore ration cards have been digitised through the system covering 6 crore (95%) of the state population. RCMS is integrated with Digilocker, Umang, PMJAY, eOlakh and Digital Gujarat for a better service delivery. Similarly, on the supply chain side, the Bank Challan Module helps Fair Price Shop (FPS) owners to pay online their receipts. They can also track movement of food items from 50 FCI godowns to 220 State godowns through Supply Chain Module. It also has a provision to track door-step-delivery to 17000 FPS with mobile based information delivery. Other citizen-centric solutions provided under GJ-TPDS are eFPS for ration sale automation, iLMS for ease of doing business, Farmer Procurement for state-wide produce procurement. iKhedut (https://ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in) iKhedut is an integrated service portal catering to the farmers of the state. It helps farmers to avail over 250 welfare schemes under a single roof. It facilitates services like DBT, SMS notifications etc., ensuring full transparency in the process. As of now, the iKhedut portal has disbursed 183 million rupees to the eligible applicants. Agriculture Input Dealer Licence System (https://ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in/eParwana/) Recently, iKhedut services have been extended by adding the Agriculture Input Dealer Licence System module to provide agriculture dealer licences in the state. It takes care of issuing fertiliser, pesticide and seed licences for manufacturer, wholesale and retail dealers. The whole licensing process is automated and time-bound, thus, bringing transparency to the system. As of now, 19,000 licences have been issued by the system. OJAS (https://ojas.gujarat.gov.in) OJAS (Online Job Application System) is a comprehensive web solution developed for aspirants to apply online for the various government job notifications by submitting personal, education, experience, training, photo / signature, preferences and other details. Kamal Dayani, IAS, Addl. Chief Secretary, Revenue Department, Gujarat, stated: "Gujarat has always been at the forefront of innovation in governance. Hence, when it comes to the advances that the state has made in eGovernance, NIC has a lion’s share of contribution in this. The quality delivered by NIC has led the state to faster, more efficient, and more secure administration. For the citizens, they can apply for mutation of their land, from anywhere in the world, using iORA, hosted and maintained by NIC. Using eSeal, a digital signature developed by NIC, citizens can download an authentic and approved copy of their important revenue and record of rights like VF 7/12 and VF 8A. For the administration, gARVI 2.0, a portal developed from scratch by NIC for the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) Office, has made the process of registration faster, more secure, and more transparent. Similarly, Collector’s Portal, hosted by the NIC, allows the concerned authorities to monitor the progress of the collector of each district, state-wide. A module on COVID-19 Ex-Gratia relief was added to iORA by NIC, for the citizens to apply for COVID-19 relief announced by the government. These apps have enabled the state and its administration to weed out time-consuming and archaic processes, replacing them with a new generation, swift, and state-of-the-art platforms. We are sure that NIC will be central to Gujarat’s eGovernance vision and its progress, and we wish to conjointly deliver the best of it." OJAS ensures a speedy and transparent recruitment process to fill the vacancies advertised by various state government ministries and departments. Since 2009, OJAS platform has been used by over 105 state departments for their recruitment processes. As of now, over 2100 state recruitment exams have already been conducted using the portal. It has also been replicated in the High Court of Gujarat and the Union Territory of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. A candidate has to do the One Time Registration (OTR) for online submission of the application. The same profile can be used for applying to further examinations. OJAS is integrated with Digilocker for document management and Credit / Debit / UPI based payment gateways for the payment of examination fees. OJAS sends alerts through SMS and Email for each stage in the recruitment process. The applicants can also access the platform through their Android smartphones. On the application management side, the administrator can access modules for advertisements, applications, exams, interviews and document scrutiny with MIS reports. The administrator can also confirm the examination schedule, generate candidate roll numbers, allocate exam centres, plan interview / mains exam alongside various other exams related activities. The verification of short-listed candidates is done through the decision support system (iASS). OJAS has hugely benefited both GPSC and students by drastically reducing legal issues, court cases and grievances of applicants.
Other Key Initiatives SWAGAT (https://swagat.gujarat.gov.in) SWAGAT, which means ‘Welcome’ in Gujarati, Hindi and other local languages, is a citizen-centric application designed for effective, transparent and speedy redressal of citizen grievances at various governance levels in the State. The app helps the administration to solve public grievances at the state, district, taluka and village level. At the highest level, the platform is monitored by the Chief Minister’s Office for ensuring the time bound redressal by the local administration. XLN (https://xln.gujarat.gov.in/) eXtended Licensing Node (XLN) is a licensing system developed for Gujarat Food & Drugs Control Administration to offer online drug licensing services in the state. R.B. Barad, IAS, Chairman, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, stated: "A first of its kind in hazardous waste management, the Vehicle Location Tracking System (VLTS) on eXtended Green Node (XGN) developed by NIC and launched by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel on World Environment Day, 5th June 2022; has marked its importance. This e-surveillance system monitors the route of hazardous waste carrying vehicles and ensures that such vehicle ply on a pre-decided route for the disposal and transportation of the hazardous waste at the destination pre-decided at the time of ticket generation has enhanced tracking of hazardous waste movement in a very transparent manner." GPCB-VLTS (https://gpcbxgn.gujarat.gov.in/gpcb_vlts) GPCB-VLTS is a vehicle location tracking system developed for Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) to track and monitor the movement of vehicles carrying hazardous waste from industrial sites to waste management facilities for safe disposal. It sends various alerts to the concerned stakeholders in case the vehicle deviates from predefined routes. iRCMS Integrated Revenue Case Management System (iRCMS) is an integrated solution to manage revenue cases throughout the State. Currently, 568 state revenue offices are using iRCMS for timely disposal of revenue cases. As of now, over 14 lakh cases have been filed and 5.5 lakh orders have been uploaded on the iRCMS system. iRCMS is developed on an open source platform and supports local languages apart from English. The system is integrated with other government apps using secured APIs, which helps in capturing non-disputed land details of other state government departments, thus, it also acts as a land bank. A user (citizen) can also avail details of the case with order copy and daily case board through the portal. The iRCMS portal also has a provision of SMS intimation to stakeholders on important case events. DMLA (https://dmla.gujarat.gov.in) Drugs Manufacturing Licensing Application (DMLA) portal monitors Drugs Manufacturing Licences (Ayurvedic / Allopathic) issued in the state. DMLA offers Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G) services such as issuance, renewal, and amendments of licences / certificates with payment of a nominal service fee. Dr. H.G. Koshia, Commissioner, FDCA, Gujarat, stated: "The Ayurvedic Drugs Manufacturing System (AyuDMLA) is a remarkable ICT solution for Food & Drugs Control Administration, Gujarat. It provides various services such as obtaining fresh licences, renewal of licences, amendments in licences and issuance of various types of certificates online to the Ayurvedic Drugs Manufacturers of the state. I was delighted to know that the NIC Gujarat and FDCA Gujarat teams have done tremendous work to develop such eGovernance solutions for the FDCA, Gujarat." AyuDMLA (https://ayudmla.gujarat.gov.in/) Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturing Licensing Application (AyuDMLA) is designed to take off load from DMLA portal. AyuDMLA issues licences / certificates related to Ayurvedic drugs manufacturing, highlighting the growth in Ayurvedic treatment across the state. iILMS Integrated Institutional Litigant Management System (iILMS) app has been designed to make speedy and transparent communication between various State Government Departments and Law Officers. The app is integrated with Sandes and Janparichay for viewing the case status and litigation details in the courts. It also provides a multi-level dashboard for officials and intimates the stakeholders in various stages of the case through SMS and email. Krishi Sahay Package (https://www.digitalgujarat.gov.in/ksp/agriapp) Krishi Sahay Package app facilitates farmers in applying for financial assistance against crop loss in case of natural disasters. The farmer can submit their application through the nearby eGram Kendras. The app is integrated with PFMS for DBT of farmer payments. Anganwadi Workers / Helpers Recruitment (https://e-hrms.gujarat.gov.in) Under eHRMS, an end-to-end recruitment solution has been developed for the recruitment and appointment of Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and Helpers (AWHs) across the state. As of now, it has processed 111,680 applications culminating in the recruitment of 12,600 Anganwadi workers and helpers. DBT Honorarium to Anganwadi Workers / Helpers DBT Honorarium is a centralised reimbursement system that is designed to reimburse 55 crore rupees every month to over 1 lakh Anganwadi workers and helpers. The system is integrated with the attendance system and PFMS for DBT payment. eOlakh (https://eolakh.gujarat.gov.in) eOlakh is a portal designed for the issuance of birth / death certificates across the state. It has been implemented across 14000 registration units in the state. It gives the real time picture of events to state authorities. As of now, over 74 lakh birth and 34 lakh death events have been registered through the portal. BetiVadhaao (https://betivadhaao.gujarat.gov.in) BetiVadhaao is a web-based app to fill various forms under Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC & PNDT) Act, 1994 to get sonography clinics licence in the state. The PC & PNDT Act, 1994 was enacted to prohibit prenatal sex determination across the state. CSIS - Gujarat (https://csis.gujarat.gov.in, https://e-milkat.gujarat.gov.in, https://srs.gujarat.gov.in) CSIS-Gujarat helps to digitise, maintain and monitor urban land records with the highest level of transparency.
Central Projects NIC Gujarat Centre, in addition to being a technology partner to the State Government, also works on the implementation of several ICT projects initiated by the Central Government. Some of these projects are National Knowledge Network (NKN), NICNET, Web / Cloud Hosting Services, Cyber Security Services, Video Conference Services, eTransport, eCounselling, iRAD and eNivrutti.
Accolades • SKOCH Gold Award 2021 for Gujarat CM Dashboard • SKOCH Gold Award 2021 for SSJSY-III • SKOCH Silver Award 2021 for iASS - Integrated Application Scrutiny System for GPSC • CSI SGI 2021 Award of Appreciation for iORA
Way Forward NIC Gujarat is committed to achieve the objective of Digital India to empower its citizens through delivery of eServices by adopting the state of the art technology and emerging ICT technology. Focusing on the capacity building in the human resources on the latest technology including Open Source, Microservices, Block Chain, Cyber Security and Mobile App first approach for and implementing the innovative idea in the new eGovernace Solution.