Himachal Pradesh pioneers ahead by providing good governance to citizens by implementing important eGovernance initiatives. Besides the success of LokMitra Kendras at Panchayat level, many citizen centric services are being provided to the citizens at their doorstep. The NIC State Centre has played a crucial role in ICT development in the State since the last 28 years and majority of eGovernance applications of the State have been developed, implemented and are being maintained by NIC.
Himachal Pradesh meaning ‘Snow-laden Region’ or ‘In the lap of Himalayas’ is a beautiful State situated in the northern region of India which comprises of an area of 55,670 Sq. kms with population of about 68 lakh. This State is famous for its abundant natural beauty and is bordered by Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab in the north and west respectively, Haryana in the south-west and Uttarakhand in the-south-east. The State is bordered by China in its east. Himachal Pradesh is spread across valleys, and 90% of the population lives in villages and towns. However, the State has achieved 100% hygiene and successfully imposed environmental protection and tourism development, and it is the only State, which forbids the use of polyethylene and tobacco products. Himachal Pradesh is one among the fastest growing States of India. To provide good governance to the citizens, the State has been a pioneer in implementing eGovernance initiatives and with the success of LokMitra Kendras at Panchayat level, many citizen centric services are being pro-vided to the citizens at their door-step. The NIC State Centre has played a crucial role over the last 28 years and majority of the eGovernance applica-tions have been developed and are being maintained by NIC.
HIMBHOOMI (INTEGRATED LAND RECORDS COMPUTERISATION) • LRC (web-enablement): The HimBhoomi software provides the copies of Record of Rights ( Jamabandi, ShajraNasb) to citizens through the Internet and from Citizen Service Centres (LokMitra Kendras). The software is being web-enabled and has been inte-grated with both registration of deeds and the maps (musavi/tatima). • Registration (HimRIS): Him-achal Pradesh Registration Infor-mation System has been imple-mented in all the Tehsils of the state. This application helps in carrying out registration of deeds including the deeds related to Land Records. The application has been integrated with Land records to reflect the transactions in Land Records once the deed is finally endorsed as well as uses the data available in Land Records while registering the deed. The applica-tion provides facility for automatic calculation of stamp duty and regis-tration fee as well as capturing of photographs and scanning of regis-tered deed. • Digitization of Maps: The Bhunaksha software developed by NIC headquarters is being imple-mented for the spatial data. Both attribute and spatial data have been integrated to issue map copy along with Jamabandi using the existing web enabled solution. The solution has been hosted on the Meghraj cloud. Web enabled Bhunaksha application will be used by revenue officials to keep the spatial data up to date by incorporating map related transactions.
HIMKOSH (INTEGRATED FINANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM) • Budget Processing (eBudget): It covers preparation of Budget Es-timates, Supplementary Budget, Re-appropriation and List of Works. • Budget Distribution (eVitran): eVitran is linked with eBudget. All the budget allocations are being carried out by all HODs to respec-tive DDOs. Sanction Letters are being generated. HODs can also take surrender from DDOs. DDO can receive budget allocation from multiple HODs after mapping. • Integrated Online Treasury Information System (eHPOLITS): Application has been developed and hosted on Cloud and will be operational in all treasuries/ sub-treasuries from April 2016. • Cyber Treasury (eChallan): Through eChallan, any one can deposit government fee or tax through online payment system. The system accepts all receipts as per Estimate of Receipts. Offline challan can also be generated. Ap-plication is integrated with depart-mental portals of various depart-ments for receiving payments. • eSalary&eBills: Application has been enhanced to generate any bill. It has integration with eVitran, ePension and eHPOLTIS. Pending Salary/ Salary arrears can also be generated through the new system. • ePension: All the State Civil Pensioners/Political pensioners who receive pension from State Treas-uries are covered under this system and receive pension through ePension portal which covers pension revision/arrears. The application is integrated with Jeevan Pramaan for receiving Life certificates. • eStamps: Web based centralized solution implemented in all treas-uries and made a part of eHPOL-TIS. eStamps maintains the record of double lock system and keep record of sale of stamps to individ-ual/vendors. • eNPS: NPS application is devel-oped for monitoring the employees contribution, preparation & compi-lation of employees contribution file as per format given by NSDL and withdrawal bill (Government Share) is prepared by DTA on the basis of consolidated report. • AGVLC: Data generated in sys-tem is being shared with AGHP as per their format. One Login is provided to them for downloading files. • eKosh: All the payments and ex-penditure data is in public domain, which is being used by various stakeholders for reconciliation and budget estimations etc.
EGAZETTE Himachal Pradesh was the first State to publish the State Gazette online, which saves time and money. eGa-zette is now published on a daily basis and is digitally signed. The Gazette (http://rajpatrahimachal.nic.in) is searchable in free text format for the last 9 years (2,350 Gazettes covering more than 22,000 notifications).
EMPLOYMENT JOB PORTAL The web-based software has been developed for the Employment ex-changes, where the candidates seek-ing Government and private employ-ment can register themselves for this purpose. The Job Portal allows private industries to register and search/hire candidates as per their requirement from this database of nearly 9 lakh registered candidates. The candidates can view the status of their registra-tion, view vacancies and renew their job card online.
ELECTORAL ROLLS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (ERMS) The objective of the ERMS is to lev-erage the use of electoral rolls gener-ated by the Election Commission of India during the Parliament and State Assembly elections for the purpose of Panchayat/Urban Local Bodies elec-tions, thereby saving the duplicity in efforts, time and money invested by the State Election Commission. The ERMS software solution has been developed for management of Elec-toral Rolls to conduct elections for Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies by the State Election Commission of Himachal Pradesh. The software has been able to re-generate the electoral rolls for the PRI/ULB elections suc-cessfully in the last two elections held in 2010-11 and 2015-16 by addition/ deletion/ updation of ECI electors on yearly basis.
INTEGRATED ONLINE HOTELS RESERVATION SYSTEM (IOHRS) The iOHRS is a hotels reservation system (http://hptdc.nic.in/ohrs) de-veloped for the HP Tourism Develop-ment Corporation which is integrated with the Mobile App and major on-line travel portals through a channel partner. This system can be adopted by Corporation of any State with mi-nor customization. The software has helped to increase the business of the HPTDC besides providing better ser-vices to citizens through Internet.
MANAVSAMPADA (EHRMS) This software takes care of all human resource management requirements of all employees of a State. The soft-ware is hosted on the National cloud (http://ehrms.nic.in) and users can on-board the software by filling a form. The complete record of the employ-ees can be captured in the software to generate the eService book, which is further kept updated through elec-tronic transactions related to trans-fers, training, leave, qualifications etc. The Pension papers can be generated through the software by fetching data from the eSalary system, as being done in HP. The replication of software is in progress in the States of Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh.
SWAYAMSIDHAM (EDUCATION PORTAL) This portal at (http://rmsahimachal.nic.in) provides an online interface for teachers and students to train them in enhancing the quality of education in classes 9th to 12th by making all kinds of resources available on the Portal and enriching this content by participa-tive contribution. The objective has been to make the schools self-reliant, self-supportive, self-accountable and techno-friendly. It will establish standards for teaching-learning, assessment, school leader-ship and management. This will help to moni-tor on a continuous basis the change in learning level of students and thus making the schools self-accountable.
WORKS MIS The Works MIS software is a web-enabled solu-tion for covering the 14 functions of Irrigation and Public Health Department. It has been developed as a complete solution to not only automate the functioning of the entire Depart-ment, but also to provide the decision makers with sufficient online information to provide better services to citizens through proper and timely execution of water supply and irrigation schemes in the State. The software is workflow based and is capable of generating all account-ing and inventory reports in real time mode. The software takes base data of schemes from the State Budget database and the planners are able to monitor these schemes through eSa-miksh, a linked software.
MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATIONS A number of useful applications for the follow-ing work areas have been developed and im-plemented:
• Online Permits for visiting Rohtang Pass (in Kullu District) as per direction of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) http:// hpkullu.nic.in • Sealed and Restricted Road permits in Shimla city • Telephone Directory and Billing System • Single window interface for setting up industries in the State under ease of doing business • JailVaarta- video conferencing of prisoners with their relatives • REFNIC/ CM-REFNIC for mon-itoring the processing and move-ment of references/PUCs/files • A repository of all State Govern-ment forms at http://himachal-forms.nic.in • Digitization of Ration Cards under the ePDS program
MOBILE APPS Realising the increased usage and potential of smart phones, 18 Mobile Apps have been developed under Android, Windows and IOS platform for citizens, businesses and employ-ees. These are being used extensively and are receiving good feedback from citizens. Based on feedback, enhance-ments have also been carried out in these Apps. All the Apps are availa-ble on Apple App Store/Google Play-Store/ Windows App Store and are accessible from http://himachal.nic.in/mobileapps. These Apps are devel-oped in such a manner that they store relevant data on the mobile phone and the users can view this data even without Internet connectivity. Some of the popular Apps are listed below:
WEBSITE DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & HOSTING The State Government web-portal (http://himachal.nic.in) has been de-signed by NIC and is being main-tained over the years. The portal con-sists of about 80 individual websites and content is hyper-linked to keep it a single point of information dis-semination. The web-portal is GIGW compliant and all websites are securi-ty audited. All these websites are host-ed on the NIC cloud, Meghraj and Himachal Pradesh is to first State to accomplish this task of cloud hosting. The web-portal has also won the Na-tional eGovernance and Web-Ratna awards.
NICNET/NKN The NICNET/NKN provides Inter-net connectivity to the Governor Sec-retariat, Chief Minister Office, Vidhan Sabha, High Court, HP Secretariat, CGO complex Shimla, HIMSWAN, State Data Centre and the 12 Depu-ty Commissioner offices. The Video conference facility has been provided in all these offices and 4 tribal sub-divisions (Kaza, Pooh, Pangi and Bhar-mour) by setting up 24 VC studios. The VC set up of NIC is integrated with HIMSWAN to provide VC fa-cility upto Block level covering all sub-divisions and blocks. A total of 22 Educational/Research Institutes have been connected to NKN.
STATE LEVEL INITIATIVES BY NIC HP DISTRICTS In Himachal Pradesh, the NIC Dis-trict Units have also been assigned State level projects for development and coordination in the State. These projects are: • Transport: The issuance of driv-ing licenses (Sarthi) and registra-tion of vehicles (Vahan) are coor-dinated by the NIC Kangra and all interaction with the Central NIC team is done by the Project Coor-dinator after getting feedback from all the DIOs. HP is the first State to replicate web-enabled Saarthi in 40+ RLA/RTOs by porting the existing data and offering online services to citizens. • The Schemes MIS software has been developed by the NIC Man-di and implemented in the State for sanctioning and monitoring of all developmental works under the Plan head. • The Hot Diary Tracking Sys-tem (HDTS), developed by NIC Hamirpur, is a system for monitor-ing of important communications at the Deputy Commissioner level by scanning these and forwarding electronically to field functionaries for necessary action. The software has been replicated in Governor Secretariat too. • The NIC Bilaspur designs and de-velops the CMS based websites in Hindi and English. The Governor House and Hindi Rajbhasha bilin-gual websites have recently been developed.
• The NIC Shimla is coordinating the IVFRT, MGNREGA and AGMARKNET National projects in State and has received appreci-ation from the Ministry of Home, GoI for successful implementation of the IVFRT project in State. • The scanning of old land records is being coordinated by the NIC Una through NICSI empanelled agency for creating a document management system for the record dating back to the year 1865. • The development of standard citizen services under the Ser-vice Plus framework has been assigned to the NIC Districts of Chamba and Sirmaur and they have developed a system for ap-plying and issuance of certificates to the Nursing Institutes. • All Districts actively support the election process for both the ECI and PRI/ ULB elections for LokSabha, Assembly, Panchayati Raj Institutes/Urban Local Bodies in web-cast, randomization of poll-ing parties, compilation of results and other required technical sup-port.
DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAM AND NATIONAL LEVEL PROJECTS Under the Digital India program, the State was among first States to imple-ment the Aadhaar Enabled Biomet-ric Attendance System (AEBAS) and Jeewan Praman, digital life certifi-cates and Central/State Government pensioners. During the Digital India week, all officers of NIC contributed in creating mass awareness among citizens and launching various online citizen services. The State was award-ed the 2nd prize in making online contributions during the Digital India week. The national level projects im-plemented in the State are eProcure-ment, MNREGA, ePRIsuite, IVFRT, NADAL, NADRS etc.
AWARDS Various projects of NIC Himachal Pradesh have won accolades at Na-tional and International level. More than 20 prestigious Awards have been won by NIC HP including, 10 National eGovernance Awards, 4 CSI-Nihi-lent eGovernance Awards, 3 Mantha-n eGovernance Awards, 3 Web-Ratna Awards and Stockhold Diploma. The Awards won during the year 2015-16 include the following: • National eGovernance Award-Gold Icon for Integrated Online Hotels Reservation system • 2nd Best State in the country dur-ing the Digital India Week activi-ties • 2 CSI Nihilent eGovernance Awards for HimKosh and HimBhoomi software • Skoch Award of eGovernance for Manav Sampada (10 other projects were awarded the Order of Merit) • Swaym Sidham- Finalist in Manthan Awards. • State Civil Services Awards for ERMS (2014) and eVidhan (2015). • Two Papers on “eGovernance-Time to Transform and Make it Participative” and “Decade of eGovernance in Himachal Pradesh Transport Department- Towards Digital India and Way Ahead”, published in the Compendium of Papers during the 19th National Conference on eGovernance