The Union Territory of Pondicherry, earlier ruled by French, became a part of India in the year 1962. Pondicherry comprises 4 coastal regions/districts namely Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe & Yanam covering a total area of 492 Sq. Kms with a total population of 9.73 lakhs (provisional) as per 2001 population census. This UT is unique in the sense that the districts are not adjacent to each other unlike those in other States/UTs.
Pondicherry & Karaikal with an area of 293 Sq.Kms & 160 Sq.Kms respectively, are in the state of Tamil Nadu with a distance of 160 Sq.Kms apart from each other. Mahe with an area of 9 Sq.Kms is in Kerala adjacent to Calicut and Yanam with an area of 30 Sq.Kms is in Andhra Pradesh near Kakinada. These were the French Settlements when they arrived in India. It is the only UT in the country apart from Delhi, where Legislature & Council of Ministers are functioning. The languages spoken are Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, French & English.
Pondicherry, as described by Sh Jawaharlal Nehru, former Prime Minister “is the Window to the French Culture in India” and is also land of national poets Mahakavi Bharatiyar & Bharathidasan and the land of spiritualism where Saint Aurobindo and his disciple Mother lived.
Release of IT Policy at Pondicherry
In view of the geographical distribution of the districts specified earlier, administering the UT presents challenging opportunities for NIC in Pondicherry UT. Since its inception in 1988, NIC Pondicherry UT unit has been working with the Govt dedicatedly to establish e-governance in the administration as per the policies spelt out in the IT policy.
Major Achievements
NICNET
NICNET connectivity has been established & functioning satisfactorily in all districts for communication exchange. A Secretariat LAN has been set up with 100 nodes, which is connected to other departments by dial up lines. The UT Government departments are using NICNET for all the important services such as Internet access, Email, FTP, Video Conferencing etc., to make their functions e-enabled. A 2 Mbps leased line connectivity has been functioning as a part of the proposed Intranet, to link the departments namely Planning & Research, Revenue & Economics & Statistics with Secretariat.
Video Conferencing
A DAMA based Video Conference facility has been established which is being used periodically by the officials at Pondicherry to interact with others at Delhi and other places. ISDN facility is also available for VC purposes by which the office of the Collector of Karaikal district has been connected with the Secretariat for daily interaction.
NIC has played a key role in the setting up Telemedicine Centres with Internet access using ISDN lines between General & JIPMER Hospitals and recently the Appollo Hospital Chennai was also added to help the doctors for online consultation with other specialists.
IT Policy
With the aim of taking the benefits of IT to the masses, the UT administration announced the IT Policy in 1999 and NIC played a key role in the formulation of the same by being an active constituent of the committee set up for the implementation. Smt Rajni Rai, Former Governor, releasing the IT Policy
Smt Rajni Rai, Former Governor, releasing the IT Policy
E-governance initiatives
1) Computer Aided Ration Card Information System (CARIS) takes care of the maintenance of ration card & ration shop details such as addition, deletion & modification of names on-line. All important ration card related information are generated through web enabled queries and reports through the terminals distributed across the sections. The ration card details have also been hosted on the website http://civil.pon.nic.in
2) Land Records Information System at two taluk offices of Bahour & Villanur takes care of the maintenance of Land Records of all villages in these taluks. The mutations are done as and when changes take place and the patta, the land owner’s document, is also issued. Important queries and reports have been built in, to help the taluk offices to take decision on land related matters. Steps are being taken by the Government to extend this to other taluk offices in the UT.
Land Records Distribution by Hon’ble CM Sh.N.Rangasamy
3) Certificates Information System in taluk offices manages issuance of 9 different computerised certificates such as Nationality, Nativity, Income etc. to the public.
4) Issue of Birth & Death Certificates at Municipalities & Local bodies. The computerised system developed for this purpose issues these certificates within 15 minutes of receiving the applications.
Computer Aided Ration Cards being Distributed
5) Transport Information System takes care of issue of Driving Licenses, Registration certificates & Permits in the Transport Dept. The database of registered vehicles have been hosted on the website http://transport.pon.nic.in.
6) Employment Exchange information system takes care of the registration of candidates online and subsequently the submission of candidates for a vacancy when requests come from the organisations.
7) Old Age Pension distribution System for Social Welfare Department takes care of generation of acquittance rolls towards the distribution of old age and handicapped pension every month for 65,000 pensioners through anganwadi workers on 10th of every month. NIC has also developed a system towards the generation of ID cards for 8000 physically handicapped people to avail the schemes of the Government.
ID Cards being distributed under the Pension Scheme
8) Issue of Registration Certificates at Industries Department for the entrepreneurs who set up industries in the UT. A database on industries is maintained and the same Computerisation of Certificates being inaugurated has also been made available on the net at the site http://industry.pon.nic.in.
9) Property Tax Information system for Pondicherry Municipality takes care of the generation of demands to collect property tax from 26000 assessees and thereafter the posting of collection to arrive at the Demand Collection and Balance (DCB) statements and other reports as per the requirements.
10) Web Services Information system: NIC has hosted the official Govt website at http://pondicherry.nic.in in which all govt related information is published and maintained periodically. The exam results such as 10th, +2, JET (CENTAC) etc., have also been hosted and announced on the website.
11) Information Kiosk NIC has helped the Pondicherry Government in the installation of the first Information Kiosk in the Secretariat to disseminate Govt. information through website to the public and also to send grievances to the higher officials in the Govt. through E-mail.
Other Significant Projects
1) Budget Computerisation and its hosting in the Govt website 2) Payroll information system for all departments 3) File movement system in the secretariat and few department. 4) Public grievances system in Revenue dept. 5) Election Management Information system
Information Kiosk being inaugurated by Chief Secy Sh. T.T.Joseph, IAS
6) Issue of permits in Excise dept 7) Patient Registration at JIPMER Hospital 8) Personnel Information System 9) GIS for census department 10) Cattle Breeding Information system for Animal Husbandry Dept
Training Programmes
NIC has conducted several training programmes for the officials in various Pondicherry government departments and has trained around 1200 officials so far, to help them to improve their efficiency in the respective areas.
Inspection
Pondicherry is now being called the Hardware capital of the country and in view of the Govt. Policies, the leading Computer manufacturing Companies such as ACER, ACCEL-ICIM, IBM, HCL, HP & WIPRO have set up their factories here. Periodic inspections by NIC Pondicherry UT centre are being carried out in these units to ensure supply of good quality hardware for Government Departments all across the country.
National Level Projects
National Level Projects for the following Offices are also being carried out by the NIC Pondicherry UT centre:
· Registrar of Companies · Central Excise office · Joint Director General of Foreign Trade
Apart from the unit at Pondicherry, the district units of NIC at Karaikal, Mahe & Yanam are actively providing IT support to the respective district administrations in all the relevant areas.
The Future
NIC Pondicherry UT Centre has established close rapport and confidence with the Govt of Pondicherry in its IT related activities and has committed itself towards the implementation of the visions mentioned in the IT Policy. With the cooperation of the Govt machinery, NIC has aimed at establishing effective e-governance and transparency in the administration to help decision making and better implementation of programmes & policies of the Government so as to develop Pondicherry as an Intelligent UT in the Country.