With a large pool of highly skilled manpower and a solid backbone of old/new economy Infrastructure, Tamil Nadu enjoys the reputation of being one of the best administered and most investor friendly states in India. It has been judged as one of the best e-Governed states in the country in a recent survey. The following report gives an overview on why Tamilnadu is gradually developing into a centre of e-Governance excellence in India. National Informatics Center has been providing IT support to the Tamil Nadu State Government and the Central Government Departments in the State for various e-Governance projects. Some of the major e-Governance projects which NIC TNSC has initiated are given below. e-Procurement NIC, TN has developed a Generic e-Tendering system in consultation with NIC (HQ) team and NICSI, which caters to the requirements of various departments of Government of Tamil Nadu. The first phase of disseminating tender related information started during July 2007 and on an average around 2000 tenders per month are made available to the public through the website http://tenders.tn.gov.in. Phase II, involving submission of e-Bids online started from November, 2007 onwards. Enrollment to the e-Tenders site is free of cost to the bidders. The system handles all the stages of the tender process from online submission to award of work. The system developed adheres to Open Standards and Open Technology. It has been certified as security compliant by STQC, Chennai. Prospective Bidders and Government Officers are trained on a regular basis. All the bid documents are digitally signed and encrypted and safely stored in the server before tender opening. The product is currently being rolled out in the States of Orissa, Haryana, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and NICSI. e-Services for Land Records 'Anytime/Anywhere Land Records' which gives details on plots of land in rural areas to citizens over the Web was launched by Hon'ble Minister of Revenue, Tamil Nadu in May 2008. Salient features w Chitta (Ownership) details can be viewed / printed by providing Patta number and at least one of survey number or subdivision number owned by the Pattadhar. w A-Register extract of the plot of land with details of soil class, soil type etc can be viewed / printed w Chitta and A-Register extract generated through the system is given a unique reference number and the same can be verified through the verification option. w Citizens can verify if a given survey / subdivision number is a Government owned land or owned by other citizens. w Facility to agencies like Banks to verify A-Register and Chitta extracts generated from this Website by submitting the Unique Reference Number printed on the extracts. The data is hosted at NIC servers comprising of more than 3.4 crore records of Survey No./Subdivision details and 2.5 crores of ownership details The date from the taluks is getting replicated using open source software tool Symmetric DS to NIC data centre. e-Services for Transport e-Services for Transport Department which was launched by the Hon'ble Minister for Transport in June 2008 enables citizens to fix up appointments with RTOs for any transactions. One can now register and also know the status of Grievances online. The service also facilitates RTO officials to view the details of vehicle registration, Driving licence, check for theft / stolen vehicle, check for NOC issue, tax paid in other RTOs, view and reply the grievances from citizens and view/ update the status of online appointments. The database contains information of more than 66 lakh vehicles. The data from the RTOs gets replicated to NIC Data centre using Open Source Tools. CollabLand - Software for Digitising Field Measurement Books CollabLand is an Open source Software tool developed by NIC CAD division and NIC, Chennai to render the Field Measurement Maps pertaining to Land Records. It's objectives are to Create FMB Map from Ladder table, View / Print FMBs on request from citizens, Handle transactions like Sub Division / Clubbing and Integrate Non Spatial and Spatial data The Software has been initially implemented in four taluks of Tamil Nadu and approved by the Revenue Department, Government of Tamil Nadu for implementation in all taluks of the State. More than 82,000 FMBs have been entered using CollabLand. It is being implemented in 22 districts of the State and more than 200 Surveyors in the State have been trained. e-Filing of VAT Returns of Commercial Taxes A web based Application Software has been developed for Commercial Taxes, Tamil Nadu. It facilitates “Any time / Anywhere” filing of Returns such as Form I, Form J, Form K, Form L and CST. Dealers can sign up e-filling voluntarily and can modify entered details anytime/ anywhere till the confirmation of the Returns; alternatively view their profile after confirmation of e-Returns. Confirmations of online submission of Returns and intimation of notice to defaulters are intimated through e-mail. The application also facilitates to search on Commodity code and Tax Rate based on commodity name, TIN search, Search on Clarifications and provides the option to upload purchases and sale of commodities, export goods details in Excel Format. MIS report on Filers and Non-filers, Revenue Collections, Cross verification of Sales and Purchases etc are generated automatically. More than 50,000 dealers are filing their returns online every month and more than 40 lakh records are uploaded as Annexures every month. Online Micro, Small or Medium Enterprises (MSME) A website for online submission of applications to obtain acknowledgement for 'Entrepreneur Memorandum' required for setting up Micro, Small or Medium Enterprises (MSME) was launched on 08/08/2008 by Honourable Minister for Rural Industries, Tamil Nadu. Any new entrepreneur who wants to establish Micro, Small or Medium Enterprise can visit the website http://www.msmeonline.tn.gov.in and file his application online. After the application is filed, the acknowledgement for Entrepreneur Memorandum Form is generated online. This will facilitate the MSME unit to apply for Local body clearance, TNPCB clearance, etc. MSME Part II has also been launched through this site. This is applicable after the MSME unit starts production. e-Services for Civil Supplies Department Monthly PDS Allotment Software: An online system has been developed for arriving at monthly PDS Allotments. The system is used by all Taluk Supply Offices in the State. Allotment particulars for any period for any shop/ agency/ godown/ taluk can be viewed by District/ State level officials. Citizens can register themselves to get monthly emails about allotments made to their Fair Price Shop. Consumer Grievance Redressal System: A system for consumers to register their complaints relating to PDS as well as non-PDS goods and services. Monitoring and follow-up is done by the Commissioner of Civil Supplies and District Consumer Protection Officers. Online Monitoring Systems for Civil Supplies Department § Price Monitoring: A reporting system for daily/ weekly retail/wholesale price data of essential commodities and vegetables from Districts for State level consolidation. § Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation: Facilitates daily online reporting by 31 Regional Offices of TNCSC regarding Stock position in 226 Godowns. Allotment, Liftment, Stock Movement, Procurement and Market Prices are reported on a daily basis through this. § Enforcement Cell: An online system for the officials of the enforcement wing of the Department to report details of cases detected, prosecutions made, commodities / vehicles seized. Tamil Nadu Government website The Tamil Nadu Government website http://www.tn.gov.in/ has been designed, developed and maintained by NIC, Chennai. The website was awarded the 'Best Government website' in the 11th National e-Governance Conference held at Chandigarh. The website contains citizen charter, GOs of Public Interest, policy notes, public utility forms, tender notices and displays, particulars of Governor, Chief Minister, Ministers, MPs, MLAs, Secretaries, Collectors, State Government Telephone directory, Statistical Handbook, Pensioner's guide, Geology & mining rules, Monthly review of Tamil Nadu Economy, Links to Govt. related websites etc. Online Grievance Day Petition The “Public Grievance Redressal Monitoring System” is a web based application that has been used in the Hon'ble Chief Minister's Special Cell since 1993. Apart from looking into and pursue action on the petitions received from various sources, it also ensures that the grievance is redressed along with suitable replies sent to petitioners by the appropriate departments. Web based Online Grievance Monitoring system has been implemented in 13 districts. GIS for District Planning District GIS has been initiated for two pilot districts viz. Cuddalore and Nagapattinam under the guidance of Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission. Salient Features of the application are: § Any layer may be dynamically linked to any kind of attribute dataset. § Dynamic thematic or choropleth mapping § Simple Query module to enable query on the above attribute datasets and Complex Spatial or Administrative queries to query on GIS and attribute datasets. § Non-numeric based dynamic thematic/unique symbol map creation module § Spatial Search on Administrative Units e-Governance for Chennai Metropolitan Development Agency (CMDA) The basic objective of the e-Governance system in CMDA is to automate the entire process involved in Building Plan Permission System. The System is completely workflow model and Intranet based with role based authentication. The complexity of the Building Plan Permission can be seen from the fact that the workflow involves a large number of steps (exceeding 50 in many cases), from Counter Stages till final Approval /Refusal stage. The system was launched by the Hon'ble Minister for Information and Publicity and Chairman, CMDA. The System so designed facilitates monitoring the status of Building Plan application requests by concerned CMDA officers through Intranet and enabling applicants to view the status through Internet. Online Progress Monitoring System for Project Arrow Web-based online system has been developed for Project Arrow, for the Department of Posts (DoP) to monitor the infrastructural and operational changes being introduced in more than 1500 Post Offices, on a daily basis, across the Country. This also allows for monthly updation of Revenue-Expenditure details by the Post Offices. The PATRAM (Postal Accounts Transaction Maintenance) Software has been designed to maintain all accounting and auditing details being maintained in the Postal Accounts Office (PAO) through various registers. The PATRAM system has replaced 3654 manual registers at PAO Chennai. It is being implemented in 15 other Postal Accounts Offices for the circles of Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, J&K, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, and Kerala. Directorate of Teacher Education Research Training (DTERT) Counselling Directorate of Teacher Education Research Training (DTERT) conducts single window counseling for admission to various Teacher Education Institutes in Tamil Nadu. Intranet based software has been developed to smoothly address the requirements of admission process, generate admission order and various reports. The software caters to Rank Generation of candidates as per the norms, Registration of the candidate, Counseling, Special Category Counseling, Admission Order generation, Allotment Cancellation and MIS Reports. Open Technology Centre Open Technology Centre is a division of National Informatics Centre, a nodal agency for Open Technology aiming to enhance the adoption of Open Technology (which includes components like Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Hardware, Open Course ware and Open Product Design) in e-Governance applications managed by NIC/NeGP. The services on Open Technology can be accessed at https://portal.otc.nic.in. NIC TNSC is also extending various services to the Government Departments like Internet and e-mail facility, training, VC facility, Web Site hosting, Handholding Support etc. For further Information, contact P. Krishna Prasad State Informatics Officer NIC, Tamil Nadu State Centre E-2A, Rajaji Bhavan, Besant Nagar, Chennai - 90 sio@tn.nic.in