Situated in the north-eastern India, Nagaland is considered to be one of the most remote states in the Country. Implementation of developmental work has been an uphill task due to the difficult terrain of the state and in this context, the presence of NIC in Nagaland acquires more significance. NIC State Centre was established in Nagaland in the year 1989. Except for the newly created three districts i.e. Kiphire, Longleng and Peren, NIC District Centres are fully operational in all the other eight districts. NIC Nagaland State Centre, located at the New Secretariat Complex, Kohima is the apex NIC body in the state and co-ordinates with the working of all the District Centres and the State Government. NIC had pioneered in bringing IT culture to Nagaland way back in the early nineties with its nationwide satellite-based computer communication network (NICNET). It provides e-mail services, Internet access, file transfer facility, office automation, development of computer-based Management Information System (MIS), etc. Setting up of Community Information Centres (CIC) in 52 blocks of Nagaland has extended the reach of NIC in providing services to the people at the grassroots level. NIC has helped in making the state of Nagaland a part of the Global village. The NIC Infrastructure and its major activities in the state are as follows: -
€| LAN and MAN at Kohima Presently the Web, Proxy and Database servers are running on Pentium-III based servers at the State Centre, Kohima and support the Secretariat LAN and Web-Based Applications. For data communication, NIC Nagaland State Centre is connected to Guwahati through a 2 mbps leased line and backup link is being provided through SCPC–DAMA VSAT with 256 kbps bandwidth. Another 4 mbps leased line has been approved for the NIC Nagaland.
The CISCO 2611 model router supports the Secretariat LAN with 90 nodes and 24 hours telecommuting services through PSTN lines having 41 dialup users account. RF link, which has been integrated to State Secretariat Network, has been made operational. There are 25 RF sites connecting to 21 Directorates, Chief Minister’s residential office, the Raj Bhavan, Chief Secretary’s residential office and the VIP Guest House. All the senior officers of the state government have been provided with an official e-mail account.
A dedicated Network Operating Control Centre (NOCC) is being set up that will support 268 nodes including 20 Wi-Fi access points through OFC backbone in the State Secretariat along with RF links connecting the State Directorates at Kohima.
€| Video Conferencing Video Conferencing (VC) Studio was established at NIC Nagaland State Centre in the year 1999 using SCPC-DAMA VSAT. The connection provides 128 kbps uplink and 256 kbps downlink speed for data communication and upto 384 kbps for VC. Recently, another milestone has been reached with the commissioning of 13 VC studios in the state connecting all the District HQs, Nagaland House, New Delhi and Chief Minister’s residential office, Kohima. Taking advantage of the VC facilities, senior officers of the state government can now reach out easily to the officers posted in remote districts of the state. Chief Secretary has conducted several VC sessions with DCs, SPs and other senior officers in the districts to assess law and order situation and various developmental activities.
€| State Data Centre NIC Nagaland State Centre is equipped with SAN System having one TB storage capacity. Five Rack Servers have also been installed at the State Data Centre that will be used for facilitating e-governance and citizen centric applications in the state.
€| E-governance Plan for the State In collaboration with the State Government of Nagaland, NIC had prepared a Rs. 60 Crore E-governance Plan for the state, which was approved by the State IT Council headed by the Chief Minister of Nagaland in July 2004. The IT Projects included in the e-governance plan are as follows: • Nagaland Online: Nagaland State Wide Area Network, is a backbone network to connect State Secretariat, Directorates, Districts, ADC/SDO Offices and Blocks, which will be further extended to cover villages and schools. • IntraNaga Portal (G2E and E2G): A web portal that will cater to all the requirements of the state government employees. • E-Delivery: Project for the delivery of citizen services over one’s preferred medium like CICs, Internet, IT Kiosk, IVRS and ICSC. • Naga-Smart Village Net/RD-Net: Project to inter-connect each of 1200 Village Development Board/Council wirelessly.
Each VDB/VC centre will be equipped with a PC and necessary peripherals.
• School-Net: To enable e-learning, the Nagaland State Wide Network will link all the government Educational Institutes (702) upto middle level schools.
• Integrated Citizen Service Centre: To provide a single counter access to avail various citizen services such as utility bill payments, obtain statutory certificates, submit applications, seek information on government programmes and schemes, access other special services, etc.
• Capacity Building: To train all the state government employees on basic usage of computers, Internet and MS Office tools.
Some other projects include: • E-Literacy among masses & Elected Representatives. • Computerization of State Treasuries and Commercial Taxes • Modernisation of Information and Public Relation functions
€| Major Projects • Personnel Information System: This project was implemented recently with the inauguration of PIS Cell (Home) at the State Secretariat, Kohima by Hon’ble Minister for Home, Govt. of Nagaland, Sh. Thenucho. The software for this project was developed by Land Record Division, NIC HQ, and customised by NIC Nagaland to meet the local requirements. The project will be extended to all the state departments and 11 district headquarters in the state. The PIS software can capture details of all employees of the state government and provide a comprehensive database for Enterprise Human Resources Management.
• Inner Line Permit Computerization: Any person who desires to cross the Inner Line of Nagaland requires an Inner Line Permit (ILP). NIC Nagaland has developed software for computerization of ILP that has already been implemented in most of the districts. The major activities of ILP Cell in the Deputy Commissioner’s Office are listed as under:- • Issuing Application Form. • Verification of Form and support Documents. • Registering the new applicant. • Registering renewal. • Collecting registration fee. • Depositing fee to treasury on daily basis. • Issuing Inner Line Permit. • Prepare various reports for submission to higher authority.
• Weather Information System: NIC Nagaland has developed and hosted a web-based application ‘Weather Information System’ for the Soil and Water Conservation Department. The Soil Department feeds the data from 14 Meteorological Stations situated in different parts of the state. Citizens can access this information from the links provided on the state government portal i.e. http://nagaland.nic.in.
• Village Profile: NIC Nagaland has developed a comprehensive web-based database on village profiles, which would be of immense help in planning developmental work at the grassroots level. This database contains profile information of over 1000 villages with 38 different information parameters in each record. Link to the database is provided on the state government portal.
• Daily Situation Report: With the implementation of this web-based application developed by NIC Nagaland, the administrative officers from remote location can send online daily situation report to the higher authorities in the state. Only authorised users can access this system.
• Pay Roll Processing System: Designed by NIC Nagaland, this system can generate report for salary statements like Pay Bill, Bill Abstract, GPF Schedule, HBA Schedule, GIS Schedule, MCA Schedule, Pay Slip and all the standard deductions like professional tax, house tax, income tax, and recovery for advances. The system is user friendly and is generic in nature, which can be implemented in all the state government offices. Altogether 24 departments/offices have implemented this application.
• Randomisation Software for Election Department: Developed by NIC Bhubaneswar, Randomisation Software was implemented successfully in Nagaland for the May 2004 Lok Sabha Elections. The Software made the system of polling duty allocation more efficient, error free and unbiased.
• Habitation Survey 2003 for Nagaland: Implementation of Habitation Survey 2003 for the state of Nagaland was completed successfully this year and the final report has already been transmitted to the concerned Ministry.
• AGMARKNET: Computerization of Agricultural Produce Marketing Centres (APMC) in the State of Nagaland has been taken up in a phased manner. The APMCs already computerized are Khuzama, Jalukie, Pfutsero, Dimapur (4th Mile), Wokha Sadar, Mokokchung Sadar, Aizuto, Dimapur, Kuhuboto, Phek, Zunheboto, Kohima, Tuensang and State Marketing Board, Kohima. These APMCs are provided with a PC and necessary peripherals to connect with the nationwide agriculture information network.
• 7th All India School Education Survey was completed in the state successfully. The data has been transmitted to NIC HQ and NCERT.
• Computerization projects for PHED, treasuries and the transport department are in the process of implementation.
• PMGSY: NIC Nagaland is giving technical support to the PWD (Roads & Bridges) of the state for the data entry of the centrally sponsored schemes implemented in the state since 2001. Training was also imparted to the district officials for the successful online data entry.
• Rural Development Projects: NIC has developed applications like Ruralsoft, RuralBazaar, Priasoft, BPL, DRDA Portal, etc. for online monitoring of centrally sponsored schemes. The NIC state centre as well as the district centres are conducting training sessions for the departmental staff.
• 3rd Minor Irrigation census: Data entry for the minor irrigation census was completed successfully at NIC State Centre.
€| Web Services At present 22 websites have been designed and hosted by NIC Nagaland for various departments and districts like: • Labour Employment (http://labourngl.nic.in) • Agriculture (http://agringl.nic.in) • Information Technology (http://itngl.nic.in) • Dimapur district (http://dimapur.nic.in) • Kohima district (http://kohima.nic.in), etc.
€| Training Training is an essential component in bringing about IT culture in the State. NIC conducts intensive Computer Awareness Training of one-week duration for the government employees. Training is imparted mainly on office automation, Internet and VC. Training on sectoral applications is also imparted to the employees of end user departments.
NIC also provides resource persons to the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) and Administrative Training Institute, Kohima whenever they conduct seminars/workshops and training on ICT Tools.
A training session was conducted for the State Secretariat employees on Mass Skill Upgradation at NIC State Centre, Kohima, wherein 400 employees were trained on ICT tools. In continuation of the programme, 112 typists of Nagaland Civil Secretariat were trained in MS-Word.
In coordination with NICSI, NIC Nagaland organised two DONER sponsored training on ‘Utilisation of IT tools in Government’.
€| NIC District Centres in the State All the NIC district centres are equipped with SCPC-DAMA VSAT for VC and Internet facilities are provided through DVB VSAT. NIC District Centres provide LAN network to the DC Office complexes and provide telecommunication services through RAS Finder. The districts websites were designed and developed by the respective NIC district centres. Packages like ILP, Arms, AISES, EAS WWR, ICDS, AISES and E.A.R.A.S are implemented in the district. Online data such as meteorological data are fed from NIC district centres.
€| Community Information Centres (CICs) With the setting up of CICs in all the 52 blocks, the information flow within and outside the blocks has now become easy and the rural people are now able to communicate with the outside world through CIC Internet facility. Services provided in the CICs are as follows: • Facility for learning basic computer usage and Internet browsing to access all types of information for general public and students. • Emails, Internet and Video Conferencing. • Booking of Train/Flight tickets online. • Urgent messages are being communicated to the concerned Govt. offices / NGOs. • A 29” colour TV connected through VSAT link has been installed at all the CICs for broadcasting educational, medical (telemedicine) and general awareness programmes aired from the NIC HQ, New Delhi. The local people are benefiting a lot from these broadcasts. • Latest information on various examinations and election results is made available to students and general public through CICs. The use of Internet gains a lot of importance in the remote areas where other means of communication are poor. In such context, educated unemployed can rely on the services of CICs for seeking jobs as well as higher studies while remaining at their respective home places. Any news, information, current events, etc. from the national and international newspapers and magazines can be accessed through the Internet. The facilities provided by the CICs have helped the people in availing citizen services and accessing information more easily and efficiently. A recent data states that the total number of visitors to CICs in the state was over 41,000 and the total number of persons trained was about 3,500. CICs in Nagaland generated a revenue in excess of Rs. 7,65,000.
With the efforts of NIC State Centre and active support from the State Government, Nagaland is marching forward to become one of the best e-governed states in the country. The implementation of various e-governance activities and computerization projects, highlight the State’s commitment to provide better citizen services.