Uttarakhand, the land of origin of Ganga and Yamuna, occupies a special place in the hearts of many people in this country & summons tourists worldwide to its alluring grandeur of natural beauty. Also known as Abode of Gods, the 'Devbhoomi', Uttarakhand with its majestic, snow clad mountains, lakes and rich plethora of flora and fauna, not only enables one to constantly think about the Himalayas but to behold their pristine magnificence time and again. Uttarakhand is the 27th state of the Republic of India carved out of Uttar Pradesh in the year 2000 and has its interim capital as Dehradun. With a population of about 85 lakhs (2001 Census) and an area of about 55,845 sq km, the 13 Districts of the state are grouped into three distinct geographical regions - the High mountain region, the Mid-mountain region and the Terai region. Keeping at pace with the global IT world, the Government of Uttrakhand has drawn a comprehensive programme to ensure that the benefit of e-governance reaches all sections of the society and economy. NIC Uttarakhand state unit was formally inaugurated on 10th November 2001 by the then chief Minister of the state, since then instrumental in steering Information and Communication Technology applications in Government Departments at various levels, facilitating improvement in Government services, wider transparency in Government functions and resulting in overall improvement in decentralized planning and management. Sectoral ICT — Land Records Computerisation at Tehsil Level The Land Records Computerisation in Uttarakhand has been completed in all the 84 Tahsils spread across 13 districts in the State with 100% financial assistance from MoRD and Technical Support of NIC. The project was initiated with an aim to create respect & trust for the State Government among the landholders and reduce inconsistency of land records data by minimizing manual intervention. The major achievements of the project include complete replacement of manual land records, Automation of Mutation Work Flow Process, Setting up of Touch-Screen Kiosks in the Tahsils so that public can view their land records free of cost. The project has ensured hassle free availability of computerised Record of Right/Copy of the Khatauni to Public, MIS reports of Khataunies for government functionaries, training to key stakeholders (revenue staff), setting up of necessary infrastructure and hardware at Tahsil Land Records Computer Centres. — Treasury Information System (TISNIC) Treasury Computerisation is one of the most successful IT applications of the state. All treasuries have been computerized and different modules have been developed for various activities of treasuries such as Accounts Maintenance, Pension Distribution, Group Insurance Management etc. The Accounts module takes care of the on-line system of data processing, data transfer from treasury to directorate, treasury, generation of reports viz. Cash book (Receipt & Payment), Posting Register (Minor & Major head wise), Posting schedule, 47-Ka,Kha,Ga, Warrant Register, CCL & DCL, PLA etc. and automatic printing of cheques. — Transport Offices Computerization The transport computerisation in Uttarakhand has been carried out with an objective to reduce vehicular crime rate, create national register of vehicles & licenses, fast retrieval of documents, issuance of Driving License to right persons etc. Apart from the computerization of State Transport Authority and Transport Commissioner Office, 'Vahan' the vehicle registration software has been implemented in eight offices of Regional Transport Officers (RTO) while Sarathi (Driving Licenses software) has been implemented at one RTO Office. Citizens are happy to get various services such as Vehicles Registration, Fitness Test, Permits for Commercial Vehicles, Tax submission & Driving Licenses in a faster and easier way. — Commercial Tax Computerisation of Commercial Tax department has been done for providing better and prompt services to traders/dealers as well as to increase the revenue from collection of Value added Tax (VAT) in the state. Some of the activities that have been computerized are - Online Registration of Dealers, Return Filing and Assessment System, Forms Issuance and Management, Challan Management etc. The project has been implemented at 28 AC Offices and 19 DC Offices and more than 17000 dealers have already registered through the system. — Employment Exchanges Employment Exchanges Computerisation has been started at five locations with an objective to bring efficiency and transparency in the system to benefit the department, the employer and the unemployed youth of the state. The application takes care of all types of Registration (fresh, backlog, vacancy, renewal, transfer, daily etc) and generates different reports/lists (Daily Updation List, List of eligible candidates against vacancy as per seniority, Lapse Registration List, NCOwise Registration List, Registration list for a period, Caste wise Registration List etc.). The software also has a search option to browse details by candidate name, date of birth, Labels and Letter to candidate, employer etc. — Sub-Registrar Offices The application is successfully implemented in six sub-registrar offices and takes care of registration of all types of deeds such as sale, lease, will, agreement etc. Various details of the property like location, area, names, photo and address of parties/witnesses are captured along with scanned deed for further retrieval. The Land/Structure rate calculations, in case of sale deed, are automatically done by the system and multiple reports (viz. endorsement on back of the deed, Index registers, Cash book receipt, Daily cash book etc.) are generated by the computerised system. — Forest Land Transfer System A Computerized Forest Land Transfer Cases Monitoring System developed by NIC Uttarakhand, keeps track of various pendancy levels of individual projects. The package provides information about the history of the case. In addition, it generates Forest Division Wise, Sector Wise, District Wise, Level wise, Circle & Zone wise detailed and summarized outputs. The software helps speedy disposal of Forest Land Transfer Cases. — Uttarakhand Government Orders and Gazettes on the Net This web enabled software has helped the state government in hosting approximately 7300 GOs of various departments on the Internet. The repository helps in searching and printing the desired GO based on different search options like department, date, category etc. The system has also been enhanced to provide Government Gazette notifications through this online searchable system. — Sankhyikiya Patrika Sankhyikiya Patrika a publication of the Planning Department having online socio economic indicators and sectoral statistics of resources of all the districts. The software captures the village & block level information about the district on different parameters like land use, production of crops, irrigation sources, education institutes, electricity usage, transport and communication facilities, gram panchayats, local amenities, animal hospitals, fisheries, etc. and compiles them into the Sankhyikiya Patrika — Computerisation of Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan In an attempt to computerize Drinking Water Sectors, NIC has developed and implemented Personnel & Payroll Information System, Equipment Information System, Resource Management, Scheme and Programme Management System, Water Quality Module, Management System, Material and Store Management System, Finance and Works Accounting Contractor and Supplier Information System, Billing and Demand Collection System, Pension System, Court Cases Monitoring System, Customer Relation Management System, Office Automation System, Decision Support System, Message Handling System for Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan and Jal Nigam. — E-payroll of State Government The e-Payroll application allows more than 1.10 lakh government employees to see their salary details (pay slip, pay schedules, GPF, bonus, income tax, advances & recoveries etc. on the web. The different MIS reports generated provide the G2G interface of the system. — Societies, Firms and Chits Computerisation of societies, firms and chits has been done at Dehradun and Haldwani. The software supports new registration and renewal, capturing of bye laws, objection letters management, summaries and queries and details of various societies and chits. — Counseling of Polytechnic Students Computerized Counseling was done to provide accuracy and transparency in seat allotment and admissions of Polytechnic students in different branches and Institutes of Uttarakhand. Students are allotted seats according to their rank and order of preference given in the choice list. Software also takes care of the reservation policy laid down by the Government In addition to the above, NIC Uttarakhand has developed — Web-based application for Twenty Point Programme, for monthly monitoring of physical achievements. The data is entered at districts and various monthly and cumulative reports are generated at different levels. — Automated system for 'Education for All' project that can effectively monitor the work progress in different school education development programs in the State. The web-based application takes care of data management, MPR, teacher recruitment etc. — Web-based application for the planning department including MPR of district plan, commodities price compilation, plan monitoring system, labour wages compilation etc. — Web-based Project Management System for the tourism department for monitoring physical & financial progresses of various tourism projects running in the state — Web-based Management Information Systems for Energy Department covering loan management, free-power system, aids management, bank guarantee etc. — Scheme Monitoring System for the social welfare department to monitor the social schemes running for the welfare of SC/STs. Court Computerisation — Uttarakhand High Court Nainital The High Court Computerisation software features filing of new cases, order sheets, case listing, generation of the web enabled cause lists, case status caveat matching etc. The software also enables tracking of cases transferred from UP to Uttarakhand. — District Court Computerisation The district court computerization has enabled generation of cause list which is hosted on the internet for general public. A number of reports / query are also generated through this software and a DVB VSAT is installed for providing internet services to district courts. — Lokayukta Uttarakhand's office Computerisation The Lokayukta Computerisation in Uttarakhand has been in place from last four years. The main objective is to expedite the disposals of cases/complaints registered and to create awareness in the citizens on procedures and processes for filing complaints/grievances. National Initiatives — 7th All India School Education Survey NIC Uttarakhand designed and developed the web portal for hosting the national reports for 7th All India School Education Survey conducted by NCERT with an objective to provide basic inputs required for future planning and management of school education, particularly, meeting the data needs for special initiatives in the fields of elementary and secondary education. — Right to Information Computerization of Uttarakhand Information Commission (UIC) was done to provide speedy disposal of RTI appeals and requests. An MIS and a website have been developed for disposal of RTI requests & dissemination of RTI related information to the masses. — AGMARKNET Implemented in 20 mandies of Uttarakhand through Agmarknet Portal http://agmarknet.nic.in this system helps to globalize the Indian Agriculture and brings awareness amongst the farmer community so that they can get better returns of their produces and crops. — Election In the recent assembly elections in the state, key areas where NIC provided ICT support in form of Election Data Management & Results Transmission Work at State and District Level, Computerisation of deployment of Personnel, Providing Video Conferencing facility to monitor the Poll Process and Training of polling personnel. — Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) The MHA(GOI) funded CIPA project has been initiated in 32 Thanas (Police Stations) of the state for providing faster response to Public and for reduction of manual records/register maintenance at Police Station. Apart from facilitating maintenance of details of criminals and keeping track of the status of cases this software helps in managing and accessing information faster. Infrastructure & Services — Videoconferencing Presently set up at twenty five locations of Uttarakhand, Videoconferencing has become an important mode of communication among various levels of Government. The locations include Rajbhawan, High Court, CM Office, Police HQs, Commissioners' Offices and Districts — Networking Government of Uttarakhand with the help of NIC has set up a Local Area Network of more than 900 nodes in the apex offices of the state which include Raj Bhawan, Vidhan Sabha Bhawan, Chief Minister's Residence, Secretariat and Police Headquarters. The entire network management, support and troubleshooting is being provided by NIC Uttarakhand. — Trainings NIC Uttarakhand State Unit training Cell conducts regular training programs for State government officers/staff. On an average every month, two one week computer awareness training programs are organized. — Web hosting The web servers (http://ua.nic.in) at NIC Uttarakhand host more than sixty websites of state government.