Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite to its twin city of Kolkata. The history of Howrah dates back over 500 years! Major attractions of the Howrah District are: the iconic cantilever Howrah Bridge or the Rabindra Setu, the Indian Botanical gardens, Belur Math, Panitras Samtaber, Garchumuk, Gadiara, Vidyasagar Setu, and Santragachhi Jheel are among the few. It is also known as ‘Sheffield of the East’ due to its cluster of small scale industries. The State Secretariat ‘Nabanna’ is also located in Howrah District.
NIC Howrah District Centre has participated in the development of “AI-enabled early screening of Covid 19 using Chest X-Ray images” and the Development of Face Recognition based Attendance System (FRBAS) for contactless attendance under the guidance of CoE-AI, NIC Hq. NIC Howrah District Centre has also developed an “AI-enabled mobile app for tracing Missing Children” under District Governance through Mobile Challenge (DGMC).
Overview Since its inception in the 1980s, NIC Howrah District Centre is pioneering in designing, developing and implementing ICT projects to use scientific and technological means to assist the District Administration in good governance. It is supporting the District Administration in the implementation of various flagship eGovernance programmes of the Government. NIC Howrah has been facilitating system study, technical consultancy and innovative use of ICT tools and established a state of the art communication system for providing efficient G2G and G2C services by the District Administration. Howrah District Centre is actively engaged in developing various AI-based tools in different eGovernance sectors.
Dr. Subrata Roy Gupta Scientist-D & DIO s.roygupta@nic.in Sudipta De Scientist-C & ADIO Sudipta.de@nic.in
Development of cutting edge eGovernance solutions using Emerging Technologies NIC Howrah District Centre is involved in the development of “AI-enabled early screening of Covid 19 using Chest X-Ray images” and the Development of Face Recognition based Attendance System (FRBAS) for contactless attendance under the guidance of CoE-AI, NIC Hq. NIC Howrah District Centre has also developed an “AI-enabled mobile app for tracing Missing Children” under District Governance through Mobile Challenge (DGMC).
ICT Initiatives in the District Online performance monitoring system of various schemes The online performance monitoring system provides a dashboard for the district administration, line and engineering departments in the district for the review meetings held from time to time at district and block levels. The stakeholders can create custom reports and insights on the progress made under different schemes. • Customizable dashboard using filters on schemes and locations • Comparative analysis with previous progress. • Customizable alerts on schemes based on physical and financial progress • Generate 54 point report for review meetings, scheduling of meeting and broadcast notification, user-level notification and user-specific notification • API for fetching existing Portal’s data • Multi-modal Accessibility
Online Recruitment Management System NIC Howrah District Centre has developed an Online Recruitment Management System through which the entire application processing of recruitment can be managed. The candidates can fill up an online application form, get an acknowledgement slip, download admit card, check the status of the application, and know the result of the recruitment Through this system.
Online Police Verification Reporting System This software facilitates online processing of the entire Application Life Cycle for Police Verification Reports. This would reduces the turnaround time and improve accuracy and traceability.
Other Key Initiatives in the District General Elections In addition NIC Howrah District Centre has provided extensive technical support and related services during Parliamentary & Legislative Assembly Elections. Activities such as Polling personnel data management through the WBPPMS portal, Polling personnel and Counting personnel randomization, party formation, training allocation, with various reports and allied activities were undertaken.
District Website District Website howrah.gov.in has been newly designed and developed using the Secure, Scalable & Sugamya Website as a Service (S3WaaS) platform. The Website provides comprehensive information on the spectrum of domains like history, tourism, art, culture, handicraft, flora and fauna, access to utilities, government schemes and citizen services related to the Howrah district.
eOffice (https://howraheoffice.wb.gov.in/) eOffice has been implemented in more than 100 nodes covering all offices of the District Collectorate. The eOffice project was inaugurated on 1st August 2019 by Smt Mukta Arya, IAS, District Magistrate & Collector, Howrah. NIC Howrah District Centre has also participated in beta testing of Sandes, the Government Instant Messaging System.
Adopting digital governance is the need of the hour. NIC Howrah has played an important role by developing ICT projects like the new District website in S3WaaS Framework, Online Police Verification System, Online Progress Monitoring System, Online Recruitment Management System and is supporting many other State Government’s flagship projects, ICT infrastructure and services which is pivotal for the District Administration in serving the citizens. Our digital initiatives have improved the participation of citizens, created ease of service delivery, resulting in good governance. MUKTA ARYA, IAS District Magistrate, Howrah
Technical Support NIC Howrah District Centre has provided statewide technical support to flagship projects such as Kanyashree, SaboojSathi, Utkarsh Bangla, Rupashree, Banglar Siksha etc. NIC Howrah has provided technical support for the implementation and roll-out of State-level flagship projects like Duare Sarkar, Laxmir Bhandar, Jaibangla and National level projects like e-Procurement, e-Prosecution at Howrah district. Also, technical support has been extended for nationwide users of National Tracking System of Missing and Vulnerable Children – TrackChild 3.0.
Data Analytics Dashboard NIC Howrah has also developed a prototype Interactive data analytics dashboard using the latest open-source data visualization tools which may be used in various eGovernance Projects.
Network and Video Conferencing Services NIC District Centre Howrah has 2 number of 34 Mbps (BSNL and PGCIL) links. NICNet Connectivity of NIC Howrah has been extended to more than 100 user nodes. NIC has a Video Conference Hall with the capacity of 20 Participants which supports video conferencing services at all levels. It has also facilitated extensive use of web VC since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Awards Officials of NIC Howrah District Centre have participated in the development of different flagship programmes of Govt of West Bengal which has won various national as well as international recognition in recent years. • Kanyashree Online: National eGovernance Award, UNPSA Award, UN WSIS Award • SaboojSathi Online: National eGovernance Award 2019, UN WSIS Award 2019 • eGovernance Portal of Utkarsh Bangla: UN WSIS Award 2019
Way Forward Keeping up with the latest technological advancements, NIC Howrah is spearheading development of cutting edge solutions for facilitating good governance by leveraging the potential of AI, Data Analytics, Mobile applications and web-based applications.
Contact for more details District Informatics Officer NIC Howrah District Centre, New Collectorate Building 4th Floor, Room no. 17, Howrah West Bengal - 711 101 Email: dio-hwr@nic.in, Phone: 033-26411224