History has not been very kind to Bengal. The partition followed by continuous influx of innumerable homeless people since independence has put the State under severe test time and again. The dilemma has been between extending a helping hand to worst sufferers of a series of man made calamities on the one hand and on the other hand, relieving the State economy from the consequent pressure. However, the state is forging ahead coping with such difficulties one after another. Though a late starter in the IT revolution, it is now a thrust area since late nineties. With three Technology Parks and State Wide Communication Network in operation, the State has attracted some of the giants in the IT industry. NIC has always played an active role as facilitator for Government Departments and has major e-governance projects to its credit.
The NIC West Bengal State Unit has been actively involved with the promotion and penetration of Information Technology towards E-Governance in the State and District administration. Over the years, NIC has developed and implemented several citizen oriented application software packages and have provided extensive support to the operating officials towards sustenance and success of such applications. The NIC, West Bengal State Unit has headquarters at Vidyut Bhavan, Salt Lake, Kolkata with centres at Writers Building, New Secretariat Building, Calcutta Highcourt, Nizam Palace(CGO) and Rawdon Street. NIC also has its district units at all the district headquarters in West Bengal providing valuable IT support to the district administration.
Major Applications
Chief Minister’s Secretariat
Cabinet Meeting Information System Cabinet Meeting Information System for Chief Minister’s Secretariat has been developed and implemented with an aim to facilitate effective working procedure and reduce routine and tedious manual work. The system is functional since January 2000. The system facilitates the Secretariat in quickly generating bilingual reports on Notice of Meetings, Agenda, Proceedings and Decision of Cabinet meetings. The activities covered are the Examination of Memorandum, Preparation of Notice for a meeting, Preparation of Intimation letter of meetings, Preparation of Agenda from memorandum and proceedings and generation of all relevant reports both in Bengali and English language.
Department of Finance
Annual State Financial Budget NIC has developed a fully automated budget system for Preparation and Publication of the annual state financial budget. The main features of the system are linkage with previous year’s budget database, minimal data-entry and an online interface for instantaneous monitoring. Some of the other important modules are Re-Appropriation of Budget Allocations among different Account Heads, Statistical Analysis of Budget figures across years. The current years budget has been fully automated.
Treasury Management System The On-Line Treasury Management System developed by NIC, West Bengal State Unit, has been running successfully since early nineties at 38 different Treasury Offices in the state. A web version of the software is also ready for implementation. The main components of the system include payment of bills and receipt of Government dues. Payment involves Receiving of Bills, Issue of Tokens, Checking availability of fund for a DDO on a particular Head, Passing of Bills, Printing of cheques, and Delivery of cheques while receipt involves Scroll Entry, reconciliation and reports generation.
Computerisation of Registration of Documents (CORD) The major functional areas of the Registration Offices under the Inspector General of Registration in West Bengal have been computerized and the citizens are getting benefit of electronic governance. The Registration Offices in and around Kolkata have switched over to the IT-enabled CORD System and more Offices shall be taken up in a phased manner. The software essentially takes care of such functional areas as (a) Checking of prohibition on the property being transacted, (b) Determination of supporting paper based on transaction type, (c) Determination of market value, (d) Determination of Stamp Duty, Registration fees and Additional fees, (e) Maintenance of Accounts, and (f) Generation of Index Registers. E-search for detailed transactions of a particular plot or details of transaction can now be generated ensuring speedy retrieval and accuracy.
Inspector General of Registration hands over the Regsitration Document after processing through CORD
Computerisation of Salary Accounts (COSA) Following a Government decision to implement COSA in more than 10,000 Offices of the Drawing and Disbursing Officers in the State, COSA has been implemented simultaneously in more than 300 Offices. COSA is made available also on the Web for ready implementation by the DDOs. COSA ensures accuracy and timeliness in the generation of Pay Bills, Pay Slips, GPF & other Loan Schedules, Deduction schedules, Form-16 etc. The distinct feature of COSA is that it neither requires any front end tool nor any DBMS for porting to the user machine.
Information Management Promotion for Administration of Commercial Taxes (IMPACT) With a view to introduce e-Governance in the ensuing Value Added Tax regime which contemplate cross check at every step of transactions, NIC has undertaken the project IMPACT for computerization to ensure Business Process Re-engineering on VAT specific issues, Identification of core processes and sub-processes there under, IT friendly process design, IT adaptable forms and Web enabled services. The first phase involving Registration Process, Challan process and monitoring, Return Process, Waybill management and Assessment Process has been implemented successfully. The entire system is web enabled and covers all the activities from the check posts to the Circles and Head Quarters. To facilitate the dealers and citizens, the NIC has installed a RF link at the Commercial Tax building. Further, this is the first project of the State where Disaster Recovery System has been implemented.
Pension Bill Preparation through Treasuries Monthly Pension payment bill preparation covering all categories of pensioners is being done in all the treasuries through software developed by NIC. This has reduced the delay in disbursement of pension to the pensioners.
Pension Processing and Information System for State Government Employees The system has been implemented since the last two years and the total process has been automated. The salient features include payment of Gratuity, Commuted Value of Pension on day of retirement, Automated calculation of Pension amount, Gratuity, Death Gratuity, Commuted Value of Pension, Family pension among others. The database of all employees retiring after 30 months has been created and continuously updated.
Directorate of Pension, Provident Fund and Gratuity A total automated system has been developed and implemented to capture data from the receiving counter, process on the line until the generation and dispatch of Pension Payment Orders. This useful system for the Pension of School Teachers, Municipalities, etc. has been able to reduce the time for processing by at least 50%. Extensively used, it has now been decided to host a pension information related web site for the benefit of the old people who will not have to travel for queries.
Department of Land and Land Reforms
Computerised Land Records System (BHUMI) and Application of GIS Land Records computerization in West Bengal started in 1991. Since then nearly all Land and Land Reforms Offices in 341 Block offices are made functional and today Record of Right(RoR) are delivered to the beneficiaries on-line. A web enabled version is also ready for implementation once the necessary communications network is in place. Kiosk based Land information System implemented in a Block on pilot basis, will soon be replicated in many more blocks. Mutation as well has now been brought under this online system. The enormity of the project and its successful implementation earned West Bengal the reputation of being an IT enabled State. NIC has actively played the role of a domain expert in GIS activities. Digitisation of Mouza ( Revenue Village) has been completed in the pilot district of Hooghly. NIC has also been involved in working out a viable technology to integrate Khatian data with the digitized maps. There is also plan to put the entire information including GIS on the web as a process of forward integration towards electronic governance. Integration between the Land Records and Registration has also been successfully tested on pilot basis.
Land Acquisition Information & Monitoring System (LAIMS) LAIMS has been developed and implemented in all the districts of West Bengal. Activities handled by the system are Award Calculation, and Case monitoring System for Land Acquisition Cases under LA Act-I, Section-17, Revival cases (from Act-II to Act-I) and non-revival cases (Act-II cases).
Department of Transport
Computerisation of Regional Transport Offices (RTO) The Motor Vehicles division at Beltala, Kolkata was first computerised in 1988 and has since then been successfully functioning with on-line operations. The operational features of the systems include Motor Vehicle registration, Tax collection, Certificate of fitness and Issue of Permits. Nine RTOs have started online services and the remaining ones are expected to come under the fold very shortly. Computerized system for National Permit and Permit for State Carriage/Luxury taxi have also been developed and implemented.
Judicial Department
Case Management Information System The various activities of the system includes : Filing of fresh cases both for Original and Appellate sides Generation of Monthly/Daily Cause list Updation of case status on a continuing basis Caveat entry and searching, generation of daily institution and disposal reports Online searching and retrieving the details of cases (through public counter)
Judicial service information system A database containing personnel & confidential records and posting details of the Judicial Officers under the administrative control of the Calcutta High Court is being maintained for evaluation, promotion and posting of such Officers.
Panchayats and Rural Development Department
Online Monitoring System The Department has come under the fold of NICNET through installation of an IPA VSAT. The officials of the Department are thus e-enabled for block level monitoring wherever the Blocks are connected. A web based system has been developed to capture various returns from the different units of the Department. NIC is also entrusted with the task of implementation of Zilla Parishad Accounting System in most districts. An integrated and online (web enabled) e-governance system (Priasoft) is under implementation covering all the three tiers of the Panchayat Raj Institutions(PRI). The state Government has in principle agreed to create necessary infrastructure for implementation of such an e-governance system.
Department of Consumer Affairs
Consumer Disputes and Redressal System(CDRS) The CDRS has been implemented in all the District Consumer Fora in the State. Essential features of the system include: Automatic generation of a unique case ID Generation of 1st hearing date on the basis of available date and criteria On-line updating of cases in Court Room Document management with respect to the order/judgment of cases
Citizen Service An informative and action oriented portal has been designed and hosted for use by consumers. The web site plays a vital role in awareness creation of the ordinary consumers. The key features include: The Rights of the Consumers, Code of Fair Business Practices, Consumer Charter, Directory, Major Initiatives etc.
Comprehensive System in Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) A comprehensive System covering the entire gamut of operational activities is developed and implemented as a Turnkey Project of ICT. The system is catering to each of the operational personnel through a 200 node campus wide LAN with respect to all the functional areas such as Marine Billing, Railway Billing, Cargo Billing, Vessel management, Projects Management for in-house Office Automation System.
Generic Utility Software
File Movement & File Tracking System : The system helps in tracking movement of a file within a department and beyond. This user friendly, customized software allows generation of various review and monitoring reports. The software is implemented at Department of Information Technology, Department of Consumer Affairs and its district Offices and the Land Records Directorate in West Bengal. It is operational under SQL/VB Client Server(C/S) environment as well as in Access in single user mode under Windows.
Letter Monitoring System (LMS): The system assists in monitoring the actions taken on letters received in a department. Operating under SQL/VB in C/S mode, the system is presently implemented at the Chief Ministers’ Secretariat, IT Department, Consumer Affairs Department and the Directorate of Land Records.
Fund Flow Monitoring System (FFMS) : The system helps departments to release the fund allocated by the Finance Department to its different schemes up to sub-detail head, its directorates and other bodies under its control.
Service Record Monitoring System : The software has been implemented for the maintenance and monitoring of Service Records for IAS and Provincial civil service i.e., WBCS(EX) officers in Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms, IPS officers in Home(Police) Department, Officers of Judicial Department, Officers of Department of Consumer Affairs and Officers of Department of Health and Family Welfare.
Public Grievance Redressal & Monitoring System : The software has been implemented at Chief Ministers’ Secretariat and the general grievance Cell at the Writers Building. All the grievances received are fed through the software that generates various utility MIS reports like the Status tracking of grievances, action taken, pending statistics among others.
Web Services for the Benefit of Citizens NIC has developed and hosted citizen oriented websites on behalf of many State and Central departments in West Bengal. The Secondary Education Board and Higher Secondary Council have since launched their websites. The other citizen centric websites hosted by NIC are Official Websites of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, Government of West Bengal, Department of Consumer Affairs, Agricultural Market Prices, Public Health Engineering, Power Department, Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation, National Institute of Homeopathy, Passport office, Commercial Taxes, Environment Department, Finance Department, Panchayat & Rural Development and the Websites of Districts.
Training There is a well equipped training center in Kolkata. The training is organized on computer awareness/ Office Automation/ e-Governance etc. for the Central/State Government Officials and staff including the DOPT sponsored training.
District Centres District centers, the backbone of NIC, located in the office of the District Magistrate, are also equipped with the state-of-the-art hardware, software and networking equipments. The District Administration have been effectively supported through IT and its application to develop Government-Citizen interface through the Digital mode by DIO/ DIA. The NIC District centers are proactively involved in computerization of some of the projects like: Land Acquisition, Land Records, Payroll preparation, On-line Treasury System, District Court Information System (DCIS) etc.
Ongoing Projects Some of the ongoing projects of the NIC State Centre include, among many others, Online Registration of Marriage , Licensing software for Home (Police) Department, Zilla and Gram Panchayat level software development, Preparation of Annual Plan, Total Computerisation of Paradip Port Trust, Orissa and Computerisation of City Civil Courts in Kolkata.
For further information, please contact State Informatics Officer NIC West Bengal State Unit DJ Block, Bidyut Bhawan, Sector II Salt Lake, Kolkata – 700091 Email : subir@wb.nic.in