Adorned by hills and plateaus, spreading natural splendor with sparkling rivers amidst dense forests, harboring variety of flora and fauna, West Singhbhum, situated in the southern part of Jharkhand state. The largest district of the state, came into being in 1990, when the erstwhile Singhbhum district was bifurcated, with Chaibasa as its district headquarter. Tribals, constituting majority, producing exotic agro forestry products for their livelihood, have a unique charm and provide tourists an insight to their ethnic legacy. NIC West Singhbhum, established soon after the formation of the district, focussed on ICT based solutuions for the district administration with the objective of ushering e-Governance for the benefit of masses. ICT Infrastructure: — Network & e-mail facilities: Video Conferencing service has been available to the district administration through 2 Mbps lease line. NIC e-mail facility is provided to all the senior officials including the Deputy Commissioner, Superintendent of Police etc. 2 Mbps lease line connectivity has been provided to the Post Office. State Wide Area Network (SWAN) was established with connectivity extending up to block level. Network facility is being used for online entry of MPR for Central & State schemes. — Common Service Centre's (CSCs) or “Pragyan Kendra”: Common Service Centres have been established in the district. Workshops were conducted to train Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) for implementation of different e-governance projects & other government procedures. — District Website: The bilingual district website http://chaibasa.nic.in, apart from providing statistical, geographical and historical information, also gives details of various welfare schemes and activities undertaken by the district administration like providing links for IAY Waiting & Sanctioned List, BPL families List etc. Excerpt of the letter from Sh. Sunil Kumar, IAS, DC, West Singhbhum, Chaibasa. I am happy to know that West Singhbhum District will be covered in the April'2009 issue of Informatics. Since 1988, NIC District Centre has been at the forefront, in providing ICT support to the administration on its various e-Governance projects. Major e-Governance projects like Prison Management for District Jail, Computerisation of Land Records, Treasury Accounting System, NREGA Soft, VAHAN/ SARATHI for Transport sector, CONFONET for Consumer Forums etc. have been with active support from NIC. We are going to implement e-Nagrik Seva & Public Grievance software developed by NIC through notified 'Pragya Kendras' (CSC's) in the district. I am hopeful that NIC will support extensively on our exercise to achieve “Integrated Village Planning Process.” The role of NIC in the current ongoing General Election process is commendable. Major ICT Projects: — District Jail Computerisation: The “Prison Management System” (PMS) along with the “Visitors Management System” (VMS) module was implemented at the District jail. The PMS helps to capture the case details of prisoners and the next date of appearing in court, date of release, etc. The VMS has helped in bringing greater efficiency and order in the prison. The details of every visitor, including photographs, are captured and monitored. — Land Records Computerisation (LRC): LRC Software was implemented in the district. Training on the different modules of the software was provided to the data entry agencies, Circle Officers, Inspectors and Karmcharis. Data entries of Khatiyans and Register-II data of more than 3 anchals were completed. The client-server software has been implemented in a LAN environment with MS SQL Server at the back end in .NET framework. — National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS): The NREGS Monitoring software was implemented at all the 15 Blocks of the District. The Role based Software captures the data at the grass root level. Registration details, Job card issued, Muster Roll Issued, Employment details, Work status, Paid Muster Roll, Fund availability, Expenditure detail and the status of Prospective Plan is available for citizens at the website. Various stake holders like Citizens, Gram Panchayat, Block Panchayat, Zila Panchayat & Line departments can enter data and generate reports. — e-Nagrik Sewa and Samvad : Workshops were organised to create awareness among the officials about e-Nagrik Sewa software for application, preparation and disbursement of various types of certificates like Income, Residential, Caste and Births/Deaths needed by the people. Public Grievance System e-Samvad and e Nagrik Sewa have been identified for implementation through the notified CSCs in the district. — Plan Plus: The district is among the 250 selected districts of the country supported under the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF). Plan Plus software is a decentralized Planning tool, which helps the administration to take informed decisions through the planning process. The software keeps track of the need assessment, identification of project, work details, preparation of annual plans, after the approval by District Planning Committee. — Treasury Computerisation: A web based Treasury Information System (Kuber) was implemented at Chaibasa and Chakradharpur Treasuries. Bank and treasuries computers were connected with the central data server through SWAN with 2 Mbps lease line connectivity. Bio-metric devices were installed for the Treasury officers to provide additional security level. — Transport Computerisation: The VAHAN & SARTHI software was successfully implemented at the District Transport Office. Smart card was introduced to replace the paper documents thereby storing information securely on a chip, which helps in monitoring tax collection. VAHAN helps to register vehicles, collect tax, issue various permits and record fitness of vehicles while SARTHI is used to issue driving and conductors licenses. — Immunisation & Nutrition Monitoring System (Mamta Software): “Mamta software” was implemented at the district hospital with an objective to monitor the health of pregnant woman and her child. It keeps tracks of intake of IFA tablet, TT dose, Tiranga diets, number of post natal visits etc. For new born monitoring the immunisation schedule, Anganwadi-wise due list of immunisation and the nutritional grade of the child are being monitored by the software, developed in .Net framework with SQL Server database. Other major ICT activities includes: - Computerisation of “Indira Gandhi Old Age Pension Scheme”, GPF /CPF Computerisation, Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP), ICT Support for 4th Grade Employees Recruitment, Network Support for Online MPR Entry of Rural Development Schemes, Support for establishment of IT Training Centre, Support to Nagar Panchayat Elections 2008, Integrated Village Planning Process, Agricultural Marketing Information System Network (AGMARKNET) For further information, contact: Collectorate Campus D.C. Office N.I.C. District Unit Chaibasa, West Singhbhum, Jharkhand jhrwss@nic.in