The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Sh. Virbhadra Singh recently inaugurated a number of IT related projects developed by NIC in a special function held at HP Secretariat. The Ministers for Revenue & Rural Development, Industries and Cooperatives, Food & Supplies and Horticulture attended the function. All Principal Secretaries/Secretaries, Heads of Departments and senior officers of State Govt were present.

The function to launch the NIC developed projects was organized by the HP Department of Information Technology. Sh. Sanjeev Gupta, Secretary Information Technology, Government of Himachal Pradesh presented highlights of the products being launched and stressed that some of the projects require inter departmental coordination while others can be simply replicated in almost all Government organizations to increase accountability, efficiency, transparency and objectivity. Brief presentations on these projects were made by NIC officers.

Sh. Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister, HP in his speech, complimented the efforts of the concerned departments, NIC and the IT Department in launching these initiatives. The following projects, designed and developed by NIC HP State Centre, Shimla were launched by the Chief Minister:

• References Monitoring System of NIC (REFNIC): The software has been developed by NIC in GUI interface using VB/SQL and is under implementation in more than 100 branches of HP Secretariat. The software keeps track of the file/letter movement and has features for eTracking of any letter and file by searching for the same by subject, date, name or any keyword on the Secretariat LAN as well as on the Internet (proposed). The software generates electronic and printed reminders automatically. NIC has imparted training to 520 officials on the REFNIC software for smooth implementation of the software. The Chief Minister mentioned in his speech, “I would like to compliment the Department of Information Technology as well as the National Informatics Centre in implementing this software.”

Release of REFNIC software CD by the CM

• Online Filing of Sales Tax Returns: Himachal Pradesh is the first and the only State in the country to introduce filing of Sales Tax Returns through the Internet. With the launch of this feature, more than 35000 registered dealers can avail of this facility for filing of the returns through the website of the department. Special camps at industrial areas of the State are proposed to educate the dealers about online filing. A demonstration of this interface was made by NIC and the feature is available at the official website of the HP Excise & Taxation department at http://hptax.nic.in

• Web Enabled Bilingual Library Search: The web interface for searching more than 60000 books in the HP Secretariat was launched and hosted at http://himachal.nic.in/library. This enables the members to search the books by author, title and accession number and publisher both in Hindi and English.

• Himachal Registration MIS (HIMRIS): The software for registration of land deeds was formally launched and the CD was released for replication in all Tehsils of Himachal Pradesh. The software speeds up and secures the process of registration of deeds.

• Web Enabled G2E Interface for TA/ Medical/Salary: The employees of the HP Secretariat, numbering about 2000, need no longer to make repeated visits to the Accounts and Cash section to find out the status of their medical, TA and salary bills, whether passed or not. The TA and Medical bills now be processed on the lines of Paybills by using a software developed for this purpose. The employees will enter their employee code in the web interface to know the status of their pending bills.

A view of NIC HP officers giving presentations

• Touch Screen Information Kiosk: A touch screen kiosk was inaugurated for installation in the Secretariat Reception. The software developed by NIC helps a visitor to the HP Secretariat in knowing the location, availability, meeting schedule, phone number, personal assistant information, room and floor number of any minister, officer and department. The touch screen will also have important G2C interfaces for general public.

• HRTC Time Table: The generalized time table of Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) was launched on the HRTC website at http://hrtc.nic.in. While the website and data has been entered by HRTC, the web interface for searching bus routes based on stations, time, class of bus has been developed by NIC Himachal Pradesh.

Touch Screen features being explained by SIO, NIC HP