The state government of West Bengal has come out with a comprehensive IT policy, which has led to the establishment of software development centres and growth of IT related business hubs of well known national and international companies in the state. West Bengal, today can boast of having the who's who of IT companies in the state. NIC, with its district centres located at all the nineteen district headquarters of the state, is the major IT solutions provider to the Government of West Bengal since last two decades. It has been a pioneer in providing ICT based solutions & services, touching almost all the sectors and departments of the state government. Dr. Debesh Das, Hon'ble Minister in charge of IT, GoWB inaugurating a workshop on e-Governance Key Activities ? NeGP Implementation The Government of West Bengal formed an apex committee under the chairmanship of the chief secretary and IT secretary as the convener, to monitor and expedite state level mission mode project as proposed under NeGP. As expected, NIC was chosen as a consultant for seven major departments of the government. These included Agriculture, Commercial Taxes, Cooperation, Labour, Municipal Affairs, Road Transport and Treasury. NIC state centre submitted a proposal for the preparation of DPR (Detailed Project Report) for each of these departments, which resulted in the tripartite agreement between the NIC, IT Department GoWB and the chosen department. The DPR is expected to highlight process change, gap analysis, if already ICT induction has happened, and resource requirement for the envisaged e-Governance system to function. This project is being executed through National Informatics Centre Service Inc. (NICSI) ? SAN (Storage Area Network) based Data Centre A Data Centre consisting of Enterprise Storage System, SAN and Server Farm has been installed at NIC Kolkata. A 155 Mbps OFC STM-1 line (supports upto 63 individual 2 Mbps connections) has already been commissioned, through which 2 Mbps leased line connections has been established with all 19 district head quarters of the state. The newly created ICT infrastructure plays a vital role in the implementation of the mission mode projects. Sector wise databases for various mission mode projects are being developed for the efficient delivery of services and rolling out the e- governance programme. ? Web Services The centre has developed and hosted a large number of websites for the state government, central government and PSU's located in the state of West Bengal. The development & hosting has gained importance due to the emphasis on transparency, service delivery and e-governance. Enactment of the “Right To Information Act 2005” has also enhanced the importance of web services. Open source tools are being used to monitor the hit analysis reports of all the sites hosted on the server. ? Sea Port Sector Computerization The state centre has successfully executed an enterprise level computerization project for the “Haldia Dock Complex”, which integrates the entire range of activities of the complex, carried out through various divisions. Taken up as a turnkey project involving almost 700 man-months and costing about Rs.8.0 crore, state of the art technology was deployed at every stage. A web-enabled 3-Tier architecture using J2EE framework under Linux based DB2 cluster as backend, the system has emerged as highly efficient and robust. The 100 Mbps OFC backbone based campus wide intranet and a Disaster Recovery System (DRS) has made the system highly secure and reliable with 24 x 7 availability. The software has been augmented with GUI-based “Container Yard Planning & Management” (CYPM), Port-Customs EDI and Photo-Permit system. At present, “Port Community Services” (PCS) is being implemented and integrated with the enterprise system to meet the national level requirement. The system is gradually taking the shape of a product, which could be implemented in any port of the country, with some customization, as a cost effective solution. As a sequel to this Kolkata Dock Complex and Ennore Port Limited, Chennai has shown interest to take the services of NIC West Bengal Centre. Dr. Samar Ghosh, IAS, Principal Secretary, Finance handing over the document for property registration ? Computerization of Commercial Tax System (IMPACT) Basic objective of IMPACT is to build up a comprehensive database for the Directorate of Commercial Taxes to improve revenue administration and enhance revenue collection. The system is VAT compliant comprehensive application software package, capable of handling all aspects of commercial taxes online and at all levels viz. check post, charge office, district office, range office and head office. Assessment of tax, Movement of Goods in and out of state and transit of goods using the state as corridor, Central Declaration forms (issue and utilization) are some of the operations performed by IMPACT. It has been implemented and made operational at the head office, check posts and district level charge offices. Altogether 7 important inter-state border check-posts and 52 charge offices have been made online through WB-SWAN. ? Computerization of Registration Offices (CORD) CORD, a project for handling registration process, including storing of documents in electronic form has been implemented in the state. The citizen centric service includes execution of registration of properties, documents, delivery of certified copies of registered documents, searching for ownership of a property among many others. The system automates various services such as stamp duties, registration fees, generation of notices, market value assessment, delivery of deed document etc. CORD software has been successfully implemented in the districts of Howrah, Malda & Bankura which has 90 Registration Offices (RO's) out of 238 ROs in West Bengal. Dr. Ashim Dasgupta, Hon'ble Minister in charge of Finance & Excise reviewing the xPERT Software ? Excise Programme for Effective Revenue Tracking (xPERT) xPERT, a web enabled application, involves creation, storage, analysis and dissemination of information, to monitor the day-to-day activities of the Excise Directorate, Government of West Bengal. The Excise offices at various levels are on a Virtual Private Network and connect to the web server, for online exchange of information and operations of various functions. This ensures establishment of a centralized data base and a single window source of information relating to import, processing, production, distribution, retail and consumption of commodities. The system facilitates better supervision for excise revenue administration and has been a major milestone in e-governance. The project has recently bagged the Microsoft e-Governance award 2007, for its impact and innovation. Participants at the training programme organised at SCRB Kolkata on CIPA Project ? Computerization of Kolkata High Court NIC state centre has been actively involved in providing ICT support to the High Court of Kolkata. The software has been upgraded to state of the art web based application using Oracle 10g RDBMS under a campus wide LAN set up connecting all the sections, offices and Court rooms. Few important modules of this software are Case Management Information System (LOBIS), Generation of Cause List, Caveat Information System, Judicial Service Information System, Judgments/Orders Information System, Exchange of Information among High Courts and Supreme Court ? Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) CIPA, a national project for managing and monitoring various activities of police stations, has been implemented in the state. In the first phase, the project has been successfully implemented at 49 police stations in the state. The important functions such as daily station diary, registration, investigation, prosecution etc. are being handled electronically using the software at the police station level. A training programme on GIS for the implementation of Utility Mapping project for Kolkata Metro Training Services NIC state centre regularly conducts training programmes for various state and central government departments. The programmes range from basic computer awareness to highly specialised ones, to meet the requirements of various e-governance projects. Other projects successfully implemented in the state ¡ Agri-Portal ( Matir Katha) ¡ AGRISNET (Agricultural Information System Network) ¡ Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) ¡ Computerization of Salary Accounts (COSA) ¡ DACNET (Department of Agriculture and Cooperation Network) ¡ DOCUNIC Document Scanning Software ¡ Employment Exchange Computerization ¡ Fund Flow Monitoring System (FFMS) ¡ GP Management & Accounting System ¡ Integrated Land Records & Village Map Computerization (BHUCHITRA) ¡ Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) ¡ Land Acquisition Information System ¡ Letter & File Monitoring System (LFMS) ¡ Missing Children Tracking System ¡ Missing Persons Information System (MPAS) ¡ Police License Information System (POLIS) ¡ Service Records Monitoring Information System (SERMONIS) ¡ Treasury Information System ¡ Vehicle Registration (VAHAN) & Driving License (SARATHI) ¡ Web Monitoring of P&RD Schemes (WEBMPR) Excerpts from a letter by Sh. Naveen Prakash, IAS & Special Secretary, IT Govt. of West Bengal – I would like to place on record that the West Bengal state unit of NIC has been working extensively for ICT induction in WB state government in several departments. Recently National Informatics Centre has undertaken the challenging job of preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPR's) for seven departments (Agriculture, Commercial Taxes, Cooperation, Labour, Municipal Affairs, Road Transport and Treasury) out of 15 mission mode projects awarded to the state under National e-governance Programme. I am hopeful that with NIC/NICSI's continuing support, the NeGP will be successfully implemented in the state. The Road Ahead With the establishment of state of art “Data Centre”, having several terabyte of storage space and high speed communication link, the road ahead is full of challenges as well as opportunities for West Bengal. The challenge to meet the growing aspirations of the people of the state to provide government services in an efficient and transparent manner on one hand, while on the other, an opportunity to develop high quality software systems and services, which can be rolled out at the state level to expedite e-governance at all the government departments, as enunciated in the National e-governance Programme (NeGP).