Thanjavur District, the Rice Bowl of Tamil Nadu is one of the thirteen coastal districts of the state. Thanjavur gained prominence during the period of Chola Kings, who made it their capital. The District is famous for the Grand Anaicut, an ancient dam built around 1st century AD across the Cauvery river, the Bragatheeswarar temple also known as the Big Temple and Saraswathi Mahal Library where over 30,000 palm leaf and paper manuscripts in Indian and European languages are preserved. The NIC unit was setup in Thanjavur District in 1988 in the Collectorate Building and since then, the NIC cell is committed to offer extensive services in the area of Information and Communication Technology to the various State and Central Government Departments. The present of NIC in the District has helped in making tremendous strides towards empowering the District Administration with IT tools, training Government officials, and implementing e-governance programmes and thereby strengthening the role of NIC in the District. — Key Activities Land Records Computerisation Tamil Nilam which covers A-register and Chitta computerisation for 906 Revenue Villages is one of the major projects implemented in all the 8 taluks in Thanjavur District since 2003. It provides online transaction of patta transfer, sub-divisional modifications and extracts of chitta. Vahan and Sarathi One RTO office at Thanjavur and Two Unit offices at Kumbakonam and Pattukkottai have implemented the packages Vahan and Sarathi for delivering services on Driving License, vehicle registration, Fitness certificate on vehicles (FC), etc. CM Cell Petitions Monitoring System A Web based software developed at NIC, TN State Centre is being implemented for processing the grievance petitions of the public received by the Hon'ble Chief Minister's special cell. The software also enables to feed the replies district-wise and monitoring pending petitions helping the District Collector to review and dispose off the pendancy. The replies are being fed daily from various departments in the district. Certificate Monitoring System This system provides the facility to issue copies of certificates like - Birth/Death, Legal Heir, Nativity, Community etc. On an average about 400 certificates are issued in the 8 taluks every day. Touch Screen KIOSKs Touch Screen KIOSKs have been installed in three taluks namely Thanjavur, Kumbakonam and Pattukkottai for people to get easy access to databases which give information on birth/death registration, issuance of certificates, guideline values, OAP details and Land particulars. OAP Computerisation Disbursing of Old Age Pension to more than 40,000 OAP pensioners, printing M.O forms and schedule, and ensuring that they are dispatched before 5th of every month is done through NIC Computer Centre. Public Grievance Management System NIC has developed a package which accepts the grievances of the people online and gives acknowledgment to the petitioner. It further provides facility for reviewing and monitoring of this scheme more effectively and efficiently by the District. About 400 to 500 petitions are received from the public every week. SC/ST Scholarship Disbursement Disbursement of scholarship to about 4000 SC/ST students studying in Schools, colleges and universities in the district are being computed annually institution wise for early payment to the students. Treasury Computerisation Computerisation of treasury accounting system is being implemented in the District Treasury unit and all 8 Sub-treasury offices. Receipts and Payments accounting, Cheque issue system and Pension disbursal system are some of the functions computerised at District Treasury. District Website District website has been developed and hosted at http://thanjavur.nic.in. It provides comprehensive information on History, Facts at a glance, Tourism, Revenue Administration and other departments, IT in the District and Citizen services. Saraswathi Mahal Library The Library software centrally developed by NIC has been implemented and is operational at the Saraswathi Mahal Library, a library established in 1600 A.D. (one of the oldest libraries in India) where 35,000 Manuscripts details have been entered and it is planned to complete digitisation of nearly 50,000 manuscripts before December 2007. Local Area Network LAN connectivity has been established in the Collectorate administration connecting all sections and Deputy Collectors covering 40 Nodes. It also extends to nearby offices like District Treasury, Adi-Dravidar welfare office and the DRDA. LAN at these places facilitates the use of E-mail, Internet and file sharing among various departments. Video Conferencing Video Conferencing facility has been established in the district through DAMA VSAT. It is widely used to have conference with State Secretaries and Commissioners wherein they review the schemes implemented at district. Besides a 2 MBPS leased line is also operational and facilitates both Internet and video conferencing in the district. Training Imparting training is a continuous and regular activity in the District NIC unit, which provides training to Government officers on application software, general awareness, web-applications etc. More than 70 % of the department officers & staff have already been trained on computers. Various other projects undertaken by NIC include Public Distribution System (PDS) allotment, District Revenue Administration (DRA), Arms license, CM cell petitions, File Monitoring system, Daily collection balance, house building advance monitoring, etc. Other departments like Health, Employment, Agriculture, TNCSC, AGMARKNET, District Court, Ex-serviceman's office, DRDA are covered under e-governance projects in the district. E-mail and Internet facilities have been provided to almost all the departments.