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Vivek Atray
Additional Secretary, Electronics & IT Department
Government of Haryana, Managing Director, Haryana State
Electronics Development Corporation (HARTRON)

“HARTRON draws its efficacy from the fact that we understand the important role that information technologycan play in transforming governance and improving the quality of people’s lives,” says Vivek Atray

What is the mandate of HARTRON? Tell us about the organisation’s key achievements.
Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation or HARTRON started working independently with effect from 1st Jan, 1983, after the organisation was bifurcated from Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (HSIIDC). The Corporation has been a pioneer in Information Technology and has a number of prestigious projects to its credit. HARTRON is the first organisation that undertook the Voter Identity Cards Projects in India. The identity cards project was the largest database application in India, wherein the details of voters were to be maintained along with their photographs. The project was executed with the highest accuracy of 98 percent in India, which is a record. HARTRON draws its efficacy from the fact that we understand the important role that information technology can play in transforming governance and improving the quality of people’s lives. The organisation is powered by a team of highly qualified professionals who have experience in the core technologies like GUI based Development, Image Processing, Data Ware Housing and Web enabled development.

What are the key projects that HARTRON is handling now?
As you know, the State Data Centre (SDC) has been identified as one of core infrastructure projects under NeGP of Government of India. The Haryana state data centre has been implemented by HARTRON and has been built on an area of 4196 sq ft with a server area of 941.56 sq ft. This data centre is co-located with State Network Management Centre which has been already established under Haryana State Wide Area Network. This is a state of the art data centre, and is fully equipped to provide the necessary services to the various government departments.
Another key project implemented by HARTRON is the Haryana State Wide Area Network. In fact, Haryana is among the first States to have implemented State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and by now about 800 offices of various departments have been connected horizontally on this network and are using this network for running their applications and other day to day work. HARTRON has also played the most important role in the execution of the State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and in e-District and e-Panchayat schemes. The state was the first to roll out CSCs in April 2008.

HARTRON has taken initiatives to provide IT education to students in the state. Please tell us about these initiatives.
HARTRON has been providing education by setting up of Franchise Centres in the state. Presently 88 Franchise centres are running successfully under the name of HARTRON Approved Workstation throughout the state. Aim is to keep pace with prevalent market needs, and the courses have been designed to prepare and mould the work force in region to meet the specific demands of the industry. The response that we are seeing from the students for the courses that HARTRON is providing is quite good. Up to March 2012, approximately 40,000 students had been enrolled. More than 7000 students have already been enrolled for the current session.

What about providing job related facilities to the students who pass out of HARTRON Franchise Centres?
Are some initiatives being taken in that direction? We are keen to provide job related opportunities to all IT professionals of the state. In fact, HARTRON is acting as a Placement Organisation for IT professionals. These professionals are being recruited by HARTRON and are provided to the user organisation on job work basis. The duration of such contract is minimum one year. For getting the right kind of manpower of various prestigious projects of the State Government, HARTRON is in always in a hunt for the quality professionals .The professionals are recruited through open advertisements. More than 5000 computer professionals have been placed with various State Government Organizations by HARTRON including professional including professional in niche areas like Web-enabled applications, Software development using Visual basic, Oracle, SQL Server, D2K, Java, Perl, CGI etc.

“HARTRON is the first organisation that undertook the Voter Identity Cards Project in India”

At times, e-Governance initiatives are not able to deliver maximum benefits to the people as there is lack of adequate capacity building in the concerned IT departments.
HARTRON is doing lot of work in the area of capacity building. We keep conducting specialised training programmes for e-Governance at regular intervals. The training that we impart is focussed on capacity building under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
The capacity building programme that HARTRON is implementing has been developed by National Institute for Smart Governance (NISG), Hyderabad. In the state we are awarding highest priority to Human Resource Development. Special emphasis has been laid for HRD up-gradation with a twin objective of providing necessary manpower to the IT sector for its growth and to improve the employability of the residents in IT sector. On a regular basis HARTRON conducts specialised appreciation course in computers for officials in various government departments of Haryana.

In your opinion what are the major achievements of HARTRON?Also, tell us about some of the initiatives that HARTRON has taken that are good enough to be replicated in other states of the country.
HARTRON has made many important contributions in the development of e-Governance in the country. We have also played a role in development of IT industry in general and in capacity building. The Corporation has executed the Police WAN Project connecting all the Police Stations, District HQ and State HQ. The PASHUDHAN Project, developed by HARTRON, has been accepted as a national model, fit for replication in the country. Then there is the Project YATRI for Computerisation of Roadways Depots.
This project has been a role model for State Transport Undertakings in the country. I have already told you that HARTRON has been a pioneer in Information Technology and has a number of prestigious projects to its credit. HARTRON was the first organisation that undertook the voter Identity Cards Projects in India. The identity cards project was the largest database application in India, wherein the details of voters were to be maintained along with their photographs.

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