In a determined move, the Uttar Pradesh Government has initiated steps to make the concept of ‘Paperless Secretariats’ all-pervasive across its offices to bring in greater efficiency, accountability and transparency
The Government of Uttar Pradesh has been implementing various programmes to realise its vision of ‘Paperless Secretariats’, so as to ensure efficiency and transparency in the functioning of its departments.
To this end, in addition to the concept of Green Governance, the government is also implementing eOffice project. In the first phase, the project has been introduced in the Information Technology & Electronics Department to make it completely paperless.
The implementation of ‘Paperless Secretariats’ initiative will speed up the process of movement and disposal of files of various projects being implemented by different departments. Also, tracking of files will become very easy and the errant officials can be taken to task for sitting over files beyond the stipulated period. Uttar Pradesh has, thus, become one of the few states in the country where such an arrangement has been developed and implemented in a record time. This is one of the biggest and important steps towards making Secretariat buildings ‘paperless’. The move will also prevent the files being lost or damaged anymore.
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These virtual files are being stored in the state-of-theart State Data Centre (SDC) located in Lucknow. The State has set up its data centre based on the latest Cloud Computing technology, which has its roots in the concept of virtualisation. Backing up of all the files stored in SDC on regular basis and availability of Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) shall ensure that data of the State is not lost in case of any accident or natural disaster.
Inward letters are scanned and diarised under this project, so there is no need to track the incoming correspondence through manual registers. eOffice facilitates scanning of receipts and their conversion into a format suitable for further processing. Once converted to electronic form, the system ensures that receipts are ‘sent’ and ‘delivered’ securely. Digital signatures are used to authenticate users.
eOffice creates an electronic environment that replaces the paper file system. The sender of a document can request the receiver to respond by a certain date and also trigger reminders before and after the due date. Since files are maintained electronically in a central repository, e-Office provides users with the facility to search files based on recipient, subject and other keywords. It identifies pending files and receipts and their pendency. It also generates reports on file creation and movement.
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To achieve this milestone, training on e-mail and digital signature has been provided to the entire officials of the Information Technology & Electronics. e-mail IDs of all the officials have been created for online receipt of the letters generated, and login credentials and digital signature of all the officials of the department have been created.
The move is sure to pave the ground for escalation of ‘Paperless Office’ concept in the State.