Hazaribagh - meaning city of thousand gardens, part of Chotanagpur Plateau endowed with natural hills, beautiful scenery, excellent climate, mountains & valleys, is situated at a height of 2019 ft above the sea level. About 45% of the district is forest area and is enriched with different types of ores & minerals. Coal is a major mineral and coal mines are major source of livelihood. The district comprises of 2 Subdivisions, 16 Development Blocks and 257 Gram Panchayats. NIC Hazaribagh - established in 1990 has been pivotal in implementing various e-Governance projects in the district. Many ICT initiatives were taken up from time to time, leveraging the cause of e-Governance, delivery of citizen centric services and promoting transparency in the district administration. SUNIL KUMAR, IAS, Deputy Commissioner, Hazaribagh ICT improves the interaction between government and citizens, and also increases the administrative effectiveness and efficiency in the government operations. It is the application of information technology for efficient and effective functioning of government processes in order to establish Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent (SMART) government. NIC Hazaribag is playing very crucial role in designing and implementing ICT based applications in different government offices of the district. I appreciate the enthusiastic and sincere efforts of District Information Officer, Mr. S.K. Deo and Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows- Mohd. Karimuddin Malik and Mr. Vinod Chandrwal for the successful implementation of various e-Governance projects in the district. MAJOR ICT INITIATIVES yy District Portal: The district portal www.hazaribag.nic.in designed and developed by NIC, Hazaribag is single point access for important information about the district and government programmes. It provides information related to MGNREGA, Old Age Pension, Public Distribution System etc. yy DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) Scheme: Hazaribagh is the pilot district for roll out of DBT scheme. Payment system has been implemented for pension, scholarship, wages etc through Aadhaar enabled bank accounts. Hazaribagh has secured first position in the state and is among the most progressive district in India under the scheme. Technical support is provided to implement payments through DBT in 16 sectors. yy Social Security Pension: Under the National Social Assistance Program, all the pensioners are enrolled with Aadhaar No. which is linked to their CBS bank A/c. Nearly 76% pensioners are availing pensions through DBT at their doorstep by using Biometric hand held devices- Micro ATM. The important outcome of DBT rollout has led to the elimination of fake beneficiaries from the whole system. During the exercise, approximately 10,000 traceless benificieries were eliminated from the pension schemes which ultimately created vaccancies for new elgible persons. yy Biometric Attendance System: Biometric attendance machine has been installed at 23 offices including District Collectorate, hospital, DRDA, and block offices. All employees have been registered under Biometric Attendance System for marking their daily attendance. NIC Hazaribag processes the summary of attendance and submits it to the treasury for disbursement of employees’ salaries. yy Online Mutation System: Under NLRMP, an online mutation system was launched recently at three circles viz – Tatijharia, Daru & Churchu of Hazaribagh district. The applicant applies for mutation through online mode and simultaneously land transaction details is sent through SMS to both the seller as well as the buyer and after verification the Register – II is updated. yy Health: District administration initiated the payment of Janani Suraksha Yojna ( JSY) incentive through DBT to eligible pregnant women. NIC has developed and installed the Hospital Management System at the District hospital. The software provides single point access to patient information, monitoring of drugs, OPD information etc. yy e-Mulaqat: Hazaribagh district launched the e-Mulaqat service for prisoners relatives. Currently, 16 e-Mulaqat Centres are operational in the district. The relatives can talk to the prisoners of Central Jail, through e-Mulaqat Center through video conferencing. yy e-Nagrik Seva: e-Nagrik Seva, an application for providing G2C services is implemented through Common Service Centres (Pragya kendras). All the 257 Gram Panchayats (GPs) have CSCs and each of them is equipped with necessary hardware & software resources. The e-Nagrik Sewa software facilitates submission of application forms by the citizens for issuance of certificates like Caste, Birth, Death, Residential and Income. The citizen interface provides for the submission, tracking and monitoring of applications along with the facility to download forms and guidelines issued by the government from time to time. Authenticity of the issued certificate can be checked from anywhere. Till date more than three lakh certificates have been issued by CSCs in Hazaribagh. The software is providing hassle free services to the citizens. yy e-PDS: NIC Hazaribag has issued more than three lakh digital ration cards and the process of data digitization has been almost completed. PDS software has been implemented by District Supply Office with help of NIC to monitor the location of trucks and tankers loaded with ration in the district.