Established in November 1989 by Shri RCS Negi, then District Informatics Officer, NIC Pithoragarh was created to address the ICT requirements of the Pithoragarh District Administration. Since its inception, the District Centre has played a crucial role in the implementation of numerous eGovernance applications, including national, state, and district-wide initiatives, which have enabled the administration to make informed decisions, formulate comprehensive plans, and offer better public services.
NIC Pithoragarh has been a vital partner in the development of the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand. Its contributions in implementing various eGovernance projects, providing technical support, and delivering government services have greatly benefited the citizens of the district. Its efforts have not only improved transparency, efficiency, and accessibility but have also contributed to the overall growth and development of the region.
ICT Initiatives in the District Inner Line Permit https://pass.pithoragarh.online/ Inner Line Permit (ILP) is a single-window system designed to govern the movement of individuals in specific locations near India’s international border. It aims to provide G2C services to citizens by connecting them to respective government departments and providing information at the point of service delivery. In the past, the process of passing applications had become a major challenge due to rapid growth in tourism. However, after implementing the ILP System, the process became fast and transparent. Some of the major benefits of ILP System include • Auto-generated tourist registration at nodal level • Real-time ILP with validity check option using QR-code • One-click access to local weather report • Secure payment gateway, which is connected to DeGS account, for paying online ILP fees The system is developed using Laravel 9 for front-end and My SQL for back-end.
Queue Management System (QMS) It is a challenge for any hospital to reduce patient wait times, offer timely service, and increase patient satisfaction. The most common issue observed in patient satisfaction surveys conducted at District Hospital Pithoragarh is long waiting time. Other issues which were found in the planning survey • Waiting area cannot hold a large gathering • More than anticipated number of patients are assigned to one doctor on duty • Overcrowding led to patients using their personal connections with hospital staff and doctors to bypass the queues To resolve all these issues, a token-based QMS application was launched. This application has five components, namely • QMS Web Portal (https://token.dh.pithoragarh.online/display) • QMS Doctors App Android & iOS • Display Signages (https://token.dh.pithoragarh.online/display) • District Hospital Feedback Application (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=online.pithoragarh.dh) • Web Portal For IPD Registration (http://dh.pithoragarh.online) Some of the benefits of QMS application are: • Delivers real-time information such as important medical advisories and announcements • Source of engaging with patients through personalised messaging • Streams live videos / television for infotainment • Shares upcoming events and disease awareness seminars
Baithak Baithak is a meeting scheduler which enables government departments to schedule meetings conveniently and update minutes of the meeting for further reference. It has four levels of users: • Super admin: state-level user who can assign admin roles on district level • Admin: district-level user who can create district level departmental users, master departments and assign users to their departments • Department: department-level user who can create a user for his department, can schedule / book a meeting and add other participant departments for meeting alongside upload minutes of the meeting after completion of meeting • Public: citizens who can self register on app and can see the meeting and minutes of the meeting Some of the major features of this app are: • Token-based, role-based users • Search and find meetings • Notification alerts regarding any new meeting and announcements • Profile updation and feedbacks
NIC Pithoragarh has been extending excellent support to District Administration in various eGovernance applications. I appreciate their ILP pass and Hospital QMS applications. ILP pass simplify whole process to visit Om Parvat / Adi-Kailash / Chota Kailash and Token based QMS in District Hospital Pithoragarh. They also sped up the ex-gratia benefits to the visitors coming to Pithoragarh under different categories. The proactive support from NIC to roll out various eGovernance projects and sharing of government information through the District website and other official websites as well as active support during General election, By-election, GP-lection and ULB-election. Reena Joshi, IAS District Magistrate, Pithoragarh
Important Events Organised The District Centre provided ICT assistance to District Administration for agniveer, yoga instructors, and other district recruitment drives in the district. It also provided infrastructure facilities for the 2022 district excise and liquor licence auction. In addition, it offered ICT support during capacity building exercises for the DoPT sponsored COMMIT Project.
Accolades • CM Excellence Award 2021 for Token-based Queue Management System at District Hospital Pithoragarh • Skoch Order of Merit 2022 for QMS • Skoch Silver Award and Order of Merit Certifica-tion to Baithak • Ranked under Top 10 in DGMS Challenge pro-gramme by DG NIC for mobile apps development in 2021
Way Forward NIC Pithoragarh District Centre has made significant strides in bridging the digital divide in the district. It has provided relentless support to the district administration and with several new state-of-the-art projects in the pipeline, it aims to take forward service delivery to a new level.