Kerala also known as "God's Own Country" is the first Indian State to achieve total literacy. The State has excellent communication infrastructure. NIC Kerala was established in 1987 as part of the nationwide computer and communication network, NICNET. NIC district centers are located in the 14 district head quarters attached to the respective collectorates. NIC, one of the total solution providers for Government of Kerala, is actively involved in most of the IT enabled applications and has changed the mindset of the working community in the Government to make use of state of the art technology in their day to day activities to provide better services to the citizens.
Major e-Governance Projects and Achievements
SMART Move (Customised VAHAN - SARATHI) SMART-MOVE is a package automating all the citizen centric procedures in the Transport Department and obviating the necessity to maintain manual records. The information, which is of public interest is made available through multi-channel services like CALLS (Computer Aided Learners Licensing System), SMART-Touch (Touch screen facility implemented in RTO's / SRTO's), SMART-Web http://rto.kerala.nic.in and SMART-CDS (Central Data Services). The software is implemented in 56 out of 60 RTO's/SRTO's. and Office of Commissioner of Transport as a BOMT model.
IT KOCHI 2006 NIC Kerala has won the 2nd Runner up prize for best stall in the ICT for all categories during the “IT Kerala 2006” held at Kochi.
Web Services NIC Kerala is providing web site development and hosting services to various Government Departments / District administration / Organisations on both Linux and Windows platforms. At present 43 websites are hosted at Kerala supporting varied technologies. gov.in domain registration - About 75 gov.in domain registrations have been done for various organizations in Kerala. An Open source tool provides daily, weekly and monthly hit analysis reports of all sites hosted on the server.
Network services Kerala is connected through 10 mbps PGCIL connectivity with redundant 4 mbps leased line to the national backbone. ISDN PRI line providing 30 simultaneous dialup connections is also available. Two mbps leased line network is extended to all districts. Email services have been extended to Government departments and about 389 email accounts have been created. Network has been extended to Passport Offices, Immigration Bureau, Registrar General of India, Kerala High Court, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), NIC Internet & Training Centre (NITC) and State Wide Area Network (SWAN). Connectivity has been established with SWAN through the State Data Centre. The project "Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK)" is implemented through the Kerala SWAN for effective administration of Personnel, Payroll and Accounts information related to Government establishments.
Training services NIC Kerala conducts computer awareness programmes for various State & Central Government departments. Training on application software, technology update programmes etc. are also conducted. Around 70 such programmes were conducted for different departments during 2005-2007. 137 project specific training programmes were held. All trainings go through pre-course, in-course and post-course activities through a portal (training.kerala.nic.in) E-learning services are provided for the state and district officials of Government of Kerala.
Open Source Initiatives Various open source initiatives have been taken up by NIC Kerala for standardization and cost effectiveness using open source for online and other applications. Various flavours of Linux like Redhat, Fedora and Mandriva have been deployed on the mail server, web server, intranet server, application and database server. Open Office trainings have been imparted at State and district levels covering over 500 revenue officials. Open office CDROM was distributed to all the participants of the training. NIC-Kerala took part in the “Linux Asia 2006” - Asia's Premier Open Source conference & Expo held in New Delhi.
Content Management Systems (CMS) Award winner CMS like Mambo and Joomla have been used for deploying 15 Kerala Government websites. Any Government official with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage the contents of the CMS site.
CAPNIC NIC, Kerala State centre has developed the software - CAPNIC (Centralized Allotment Process) for conducting online counseling for the allotment of seats for professional courses in Kerala. The software is developed taking care of all the existing rules of communal reservations and special reservations. Floating seat concept is also implemented in the system.
IDEAS IDEAS is an electronic file tracking system for monitoring file movement. The system is hosted in the central data server and can be used by the Secretariat departments, Directorates and Ministries and enables inter-departmental file tracking.
CLAIMS (Computerized Lok Ayukta Information Management System) Case Information System (CIS) which was developed by NIC Pune, has been customized, value added and implemented as CLAIMS an application for Kerala Lok Ayukta. http://lokayuktakerala.gov.in CLAIMS is also customized for Kerala Women's Commission - VANITHA and for DRT (Debts Recovery Tribunal)
Dairy Net “Dairy NET” is a Collaborative portal for Dairy department and cooperative societies deployed at Wayanad district using LAPP (Linux, Apache Postgre SQL & PHP) and provides farmer centric applications. It establishes a rural information center and disseminates dairy related statistics. The major services provided by the portal are :
- Milk production and related details made available for each milk producer.
- Ranking of farmers based on quality/quantity of milk production.
- Cattle sales/purchase facility
- Information exchange between Dairy societies, Dairy department and allied agencies.
DCSuite DC Suite is an integrated suite of applications for the Collectorate based on an integrated solution architecture covering all functional areas and activities of the Collectorate. It is a web enabled solution built on industry standard software technologies and best practices. Public Access, transparent administration and service delivery are the key features of the project. The applications, which are of public interest, are given access through INTERNET, SMS and touch Screen based kiosks. DC*Suite has been implemented in Palakkad district and replicated in Malappuram, Kannur, Ernakulam and Kasargod districts of Kerala in 2006. Replication process is in progress in the remaining districts.
e-DROP(Deploy Randomly Officials for Polling duty) e-DROP is a LAMP based solution for randomly assigning officials for poll duty saving a lot of effort, time & cost. Posting of officials is done as per the criteria given by Election Commission and Government. The system also generates posting orders. The officials can view their place of posting on the web.
GIS (Geographical Information System) NIC Kerala is working with Department of Planning, Government of India and bringing out National Spatial Database (NSDB) with identified 163 parameters. Thematic Atlas for all the 14 districts of Kerala is being prepared. All the departments can make effective use of NSDB and the thematic atlas. The themes can be used by various departments for better planning. The thematic maps can be viewed at http://foss.kerala.nic.in/gisnew.
Agricultural Services Online Agriculture Marketing Information (AGMARKNET) has been implemented in 95 markets in the state. DACNET an intranet based e-governance solution has been implemented in the state. Under this project Content Schedule Management System which is a Mass Media Support to Agriculture Extension, Pest Disease Monitoring System and an online portal for Seed Production and Management have been implemented. Hortnet - is a Portal to implement e-governance solution in the Directorate and field offices of State Horticulture Mission (SHM). System Provides Commodity wise best practices for managing crop, pest, nutrient, water etc. It is available in http://hortnet.kerala.nic.in
TETRA-PDS - Targeted Efficient Transparent Rationing and Allocation - Public Distribution System TETRA PDS is a solution for any Taluk Supply Office in the country to achieve smooth implementation of Ration Card Management System and Allocation process. It consists of modules for Ration Card Management System and Allocation of food grains from Taluk Supply Offices based on theoretical requirement of the dealers. TETRAPDS-RCMS: For the on-going process of Renewal of Ration Cards in the State, RCMS modules have been enhanced to print laminated ration cards with bar code and photo of the card owner. The software has been implemented in all 69 Taluk Supply Offices/City Rationing Offices in the State. WebPDS- the Official portal for Civil Supplies Department http://civilsupplieskerala.gov.in
Business Intelligence (BI) Models: http://bi.kerala.nic.in The following BI models have been developed for various Departments of Government of Kerala: i. Expenditure data model for Treasury Department ii. Stamp Duty and Registration Fee collection of Registration Department iii. Office Expenses model for Civil Supplies Department iv. Disease Surveillance model for Health Department v. Health Model from Gujarat Database vi. Model for AISES (All India School Education Survey)
EXAMINATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EMS) Examination Management System is a comprehensive system with candidate registration and Internal assessment modules distributed to schools, portal for compilation of data from schools, tabulation and result processing module with certificate and mark lists printing and various statistical reports deployed at the Pareeksha Bhawan and result dissemination. At present the examination management system is installed for the SSLC Examination (Class-X), Higher Secondary (DHSE- Class-XII), Vocational Higher Secondary (VHSE- Class-XII), KGTE (Kerala Government Technical Education), TTC (Teachers' Training Certificate) Examinations of Government of Kerala. The results generated by EMS are published in http://results.nic.in
BHUREKHA - ISO certified Land Records Information System implemented at village level The main objective of BHUREKHA is to issue Record of Right to land owners. The scope of the project is to computerize land related activities, collection of various taxes and issue of certificates in Taluk/Village offices. Bhurekha is implemented in 63 taluk offices and 548 villages. It supports G2C, G2E & G2G functionalities of Taluk and Village Offices. The main activities taken care are Land records maintenance at taluk / village offices, Mutation, Issue of certificates & collection of taxes, protection of Puramboke land being encroached by private parties etc.
“The Online Query System of BHUREKHA helps revenue officers get relevant information at their fingertips.” Excerpts from a letter by Sh. Jyothilal, IAS, Special Secretary IT, Govt. of Kerala
National Informatics Centre established in 1987 has been working very close with the IT initiatives of the Government of Kerala. NIC has been instrumental in changing the mindset of the government staff and has successfully implemented various G2G, G2E and G2C services. Transport, Treasury, Open Source, IDEAS, Higher education, DC*Suite, Agriculture, Civil Supplies, Exam Management, land Records, Entrance Examination Counseling, Registration are some of the key areas where NIC has done commendable work. NIC's continuous presence is the key factor of success in many of the government initiatives and I wish NIC to become role model in supporting Govt. of Kerala to render effective services to the common man using ICT.
For further information, please contact V. S Raghunathan State Informatics Officer NIC Kerala State Unit, CDAC Building, Keltron House, Vellayambalam, Trivandrum - 695 033; Ph: 2729894, 2724529 sio@kerala.nic.in
Story compiled and Edited by: R. Gayatri, Regional Editor - Informatics