Puducherry, a French colony until 1968, has four geographic regions, namely Puducherry, Karaikal (150 Km inside Tamil Nadu on the East Coast), Mahe (680 KM inside Kerala on the West coast of Kerala) and Yanam (850 Km inside AP on the East coast).
Puducherry has a population of about 8,00,000 and has 5 Communes (French word for Panchayaths) as Development Blocks. Karaikal has a population of about 1,70,000 and has 5 Communes. Mahe (about 40,000 population) and Yanam (about 35,000 population) have one Commune each.
R. Ramachandran State Informatics Officer NIC Puducherry ram@tn.nic.in
Sivanandam. S Puducherry Correspondent siva@pon.nic.in
NIC's presence in Puducherry was established in the year 1988. Ever since, this UT, then called as Pondicherry, has been increasingly using NIC services year after year. NIC has been catalytic in every major event that has changed the facet of Pondicherry, be it the development of the UT or taking ICT to its various towns and villages.
Sectoral Progress Following are some of the sectors in which ICT has made a big headway in the Union Territory
Revenue The land records in the UT have been computerized using 'Nilamagal', a software developed by NIC. The complete land holding details have been published on the web and are available in the public domain at http://dos.pon.nic.in. This project, jointly funded by the DIT, MCIT, GOI, and the Govt of Pondicherry computerizes the entire work flow associated with the Mutation process and provides for Issue of “Patta Copy” (Record of Rights) as an Across-the-counter service within 30 minutes. The citizen can track the status of his Petition through the Kiosk, in addition to viewing land and owner related information easily.
Inauguration of Nilamagal software by Hon'ble Chief Minister, Puducherry.
e-Pathiram software for the computerization of the Registration Department has been installed at Pondicherry, Karaikal and Mahe Districts in about 9 offices for online use. Regular online operations have commenced and CD based periodic backup is being taken by various Sub Registrar offices. The Registration guideline details can be obtained from the website http://registration.pon.nic.in/glr
In order to ensure data protection, the system has been developed in such a way that back-up is taken daily and if it is not done for even a single day, the system comes to a halt and can be restored only by the orders of the SRO.
Grievance Day Petition (GDP), a web based system developed by NIC Tamil Nadu to allow for online petition filing of public grievances as well as online status tracking of the complaint has been adopted, and launched for Karaikal District. The service, available at http://gdp.pon.nic.in/kklonline is currently under test stage.
Land Acquisition support software is in use at Karaikal District and Villianur Taluk using which all statutory notices and displays are generated online with complete details for public information for any Land Acquisition.
Grants Computerisation - Computerisation of all grants data related to Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Scheme has been done in various Talukas along with installation of requisite assistance monitoring software.
Revenue FMB - CollabLand, an open source based software has been developed which compiles revenue related data in villages for use across several departments. One pilot village FMB has already been completed by the Survey Department using Collab Land which allows for a high level of data security.
Transport Vahan & Sarathi systems for computerization of vehicle registration and driving licences respectively have been fully implemented in the UT. Backlog of nearly 3 lakh records have been ported onto Vahan system from the legacy system. In 2008, the Transport Department in Puducherry plans to use the Permit module and upgrade to smart card system.
Commercial Taxes (VAT) Online VAT Computerization has been implemented in the region from July 2007 using open source systems (Postgres SQL), including online cash transactions at the department HQ Counters. The registration operations started at Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam districts through VPN access. As a part of the on-going process, many F-series (Registers for DCB used in reconciliation with directorate of Accounts / Treasuries and required BI) have already been completed and approved and the rest are on the way. The VAT related forms can be downloaded by the public from the web at http://vat.pon.nic.in/downloadforms.aspx
Various VAT Forms are easily downloadable from the Net.
Local administration Property Tax regime of Municipal areas in Puducherry, Oulgaret and Karaikal has been computerized and the system provides for web based (http://ptax.pon.nic.in) information on the dues.
Online Birth and Death registry information system is being provided from Pondicherry and oulgaret Municipalities in respective counters. A web application is under active consideration of the department.
Web Services With an aim to establish a firm web presence of the UT administration, NIC has developed and hosted informative websites for 35 departments which can be accessed from the main Puducherry web portal. http://www.pon.nic.in.
Puducherry Government Portal
Some of the newly launched websites of the UT include Arts & Culture Dept: website for Bharathiar Palkalai Koodam www.bpk.pon.nic.in Animal Husbandry: http://ahd.puducherry.gov.in Women & Child Department: http://wcd.puducherry.gov.in Health Department http://health.puducherry.gov.in
Training NIC conducted trainings on e-Governance and RTI related issues for the Administration officials from time to time. A training on e-Governance at Puducherry Secretariat for about 80 officers and about 20 participants from UGC Academic Staff college from Pondicherry University was also conducted during the past year. Every year about 300 participants are trained on various e-Governance related subjects and Office automation tools
Judiciary In this sector, ICT has taken big strides with the implementation of District Court Software from City Civil Courts Chennai. The codification scheme is currently being devised by the District Courts for all Masters. The Judicial officers have been trained on LINUX and KRP concepts by the NIC personnel. The site preparation for New Court Complex including LAN specifications have been submitted to the District Courts.
Under the Confonet project, District and State Commission Forums have also been computerized with over 90 cases updated in the system so far. Training has also been provided to members of each forum.
Police Under the Computerised Integrated Police Application (CIPA) project, software has been installed in 30 out of 41 police stations in the UT and trail operations have also begun in 27 police stations. A large number of police personnel have also been trained in computerization and use of the software.
Govt. Press has also been computerized from 2005-06 onwards with gazettes being published online, as a sequel to the internal Stores automation and all its internal operations are now online within the Govt. Press. http://styandptg.puducherry.gov.in
tourism.puducherry.gov.in
Tourism Complete ICT support for the International Yoga Festival including Yoga Competitions data updates are provided as an annual feature at Puducherry. In addition a lot useful tourism related information is constantly updated on the tourism department's website http://tourism.puducherry.gov.in
Planning Web based Online Budget and Expenditure monitoring system using intranet web services has been developed for the Planning Department. Department extensively uses the following website during the monthly Plan Review Meetings, http://demo.pon.nic.in/schemes/home.htm
Education Pondicherry has been one of the nodes for All India Under Graduate Medical Counseling for admissions to MBBS and BDS at JIPMER campus. A project to undertake online counseling for the same is being successfully carried out each year in tandem with NIC HQ and NIC, Kolkata.
A system to streamline scholarship for Professional Courses has also been developed and the data entry is currently going on. This involves computerization of Tuition fee reimbursement to all medical students sponsored through CENTAC up to Rs.1.75 lakhs per annum. In cases where the parental income exceeds Rs.5 Lakhs, the assistance is up to 75%. The system has been developed using PHP and Postgres SQL on MS Windows Server environment
In the Bharathidasan Government College for Women in Puducherry, a complete solution to computerize all admission, exam and fee processing related activities has been developed and implemented for one cycle of 3 year undergraduate course.
Social Welfare Old Age Pensions scheme for 97000 pensioners (including destitutes and widows) has been implemented through a computerized system developed by NIC which is now migrated to ECS and completed for 4500 beneficiaries along with various bank statements. The others continue through the Anganwadi based disbursement. The data for over 16000 disabled beneficiaries is completely online.
Payroll Computerisation Under the PAYSOFT system, Legacy support at more than eighty offices has been changed to centralize online web based system with Electronic clearing facility. So far more than twenty government Offices including the Chief Secretariat are using this web based system and Electronic clearing facility.
Employment A Windows based intranet and Online Registration Software has been developed for the employment exchange and legacy COBOL data of 2 Lakhs records has been ported.
An open source software developed by NIC HQ and approved by DGET at National level has also been demonstrated to the Employment Exchange and this software is now in implementation stage.
Software support by NIC Puducherry is being extended for almost all recruitment examinations, currently for Police and ADW Departments. The support is also being extended to the fire service department.
Apart from these, national projects such as Agmarknet, electoral roll system etc are also being successfully implemented in the UT.
Government Directory on a CD With the support of NIC Pondicherry UT Centre, computerization of Government Press of Puducherry has been taken up. As part of this objective, NIC has developed a software for searching the contents of Government Telephone Directory like Name of the officer, Department, Designation, Office, Residence and Fax telephone numbers. Considering that almost all the Government offices are provided with computer systems, the CD version will have better utility for easy search on Department, Name and Telephone numbers. This CD contains information about 48 State Govt. Departments, 27 Autonomous Bodies, 15 local bodies, and 34 Central Government Organisations including Public utilities.
Release of Government telephone directory by Hon'ble Chief Minister Sh N Rangasamy.
Infrastructure The three districts of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam are well connected through NICNET and provide email and other Internet based services to the department. 2Mbps leased line connectivity is operational in Karaikal and Mahe while the same is on the cards in Yanam.
NIC Puducherry is connected to NIC Chennai and thus to NICNET via 2 x 2 Mbps LL circuits and through SCPC / DirecWay VSATs. Many local office complexes have LL / RF Net connectivity from NIC.
The IT Department staff fondly refers to Puducherry as the Hardware Capital of India. The NIC UT Unit carries out Acceptance Testing related to procurement of systems by NIC and NICSI from about 9 factories located here. The Puducherry SWAN has already been proposed and is likely to be commissioned this year. With this, Puducherry has high aspirations for becoming the nerve centre for ICT in the area in the times to come.