Transforming district Administration using e-governance -Tiruvarur experience

1. Transforming district Administration using e-governance -Tiruvarur experience Presented by:C.Umashankar IAS., TN umashankarc@gmail.com Join India e-governance – yahoo group, the most active e-gov group in India at http://www.groups/yahoo.com/group/lndia-egov

2. The pilot-e-district experiment at Tiruvarur Apologies for not using Open source software, the only best choice for e-governance Thank You IBM for sponsoring DB2- Universal Database (ver.7.2) for the entire Tiruvarur experiment

3. Tiruvarur

4. About Tiruvarur • Located at 350 km from Chennai • Coastal district & main Cauvery delta district • Wet land Agriculture provides the major livelihood. • Annual paddy yield 5,50,000 tonnes • Maximum in TamilNadu • Categorised ‘highly disaster prone’ by UNDP. Cyclones, droughts and floods are part of the district profile

5. Tiruvarur - demography • Total population 1165213 • Rural – 929431 (80%) • Very high rural poverty • Literacy 68% • Industry: only one fertilizer factory. The lone Sugar factory was wound up during 2001

6. Implementation details • Feb 14th 1999 to June 11th 2001. • All 7 Taluk offices, 10 Block offices, DRDA, Regional Transport Office and major areas on Collectorate fully automated. • Manual registers were totally done away with. All registers, office noting and statutory orders auto generated. • Digital signature & disaster recovery incorporated.

7. E-gov – Areas covered in district administration • Land record administration • National Old Age Pension scheme, Widow pension scheme etc. • Distress & Accident Relief Scheme • RTO – Driving license & Vehicle regn. • Birth and death registration – issue of certificates • HR admin in all 7 Taluk offices, 10 Block offices, Collectorate and DRDA

8. E-gov – Areas covered in district administration • DRDA automation – all Centrally sponsored and State sponsored scheme admin, financial accounting, technical estimate preparation, HR admin., ERP linkage. • DRDA -> All 10 Block office linkage • Block office automation – All Central and State sponsored schemes, noon meal scheme, financial accounting, HR Admin., material management, panchayat monitoring, social welfare schemes such as Marriage assistance scheme, etc.

9. E-gov – Areas covered in district administration • District Social Welfare Office – Marriage Assistance scheme with linkage to all Blocks. • Scholarship – pre and post matric: for Scheduled Caste students. • Collectorate grievance redressal mechanism. • PDS – use of optical mark Read (OMR) technology

10. E-gov – Areas covered in district administration • Cadastral maps (Field Measurement Book) – data capture and administration in one Taluk (Kodavasal Taluk). • Town Panchayat (local body) – total automation in one Town Panchayat on pilot basis. Property tax and other taxes assessment, receipts, financial accounting, drinking water admin, grievance handling, street light monitoring, material management, maintenance of all 27 registers online etc.

11. E-gov – Areas covered in district administration • HR management solution specifically designed for district police office. • Police station automation software (beta testing alone done)

12. Implementation details… • In house software development • Over 30 programmers deployed • Funding: Rs.25 millionEntire funding locally generated. • 802.11b based wireless networking. • Tiruvarur still continues its online operations.

13. Strategies adopted • Staff motivation strategy – awards for best Taluk/Block/staff/Sof. Adm. • Involving the government staff for designing the packages. • Software administrator strategy • Legacy data installation strategy • Funding the project – tender before actual fund availability.

14. Events – e-gov • May 16th 1999 – OAP and online grievance redressal software commissioned. • July 1999 – first batch of 77 computers arrived. • May 1999 – outsourced data capturing for land records commenced • July 1999 – application software training commenced for all Taluk staff. • Oct.1999- All 20 offices under district Collector were brought under HRMS software, titled OFFICE MANAGER • Oct 1999 – Regional Transport office public interface automated. • Nov.1999 - Implementation of online land record administration software commenced • Dec.15, 1999 – Chief Minister inaugurated the pilot e- district formally in an impressive function. • Feb 2000 – The last mile in land record administration – Jamabanthi integrated.

15. Events – e-gov • June 2000 - DRDA & Blocks – full automation software implemented – Projects, accounts, HRD and monitoring scheme implementation made online. • Inter linking of DRDA and Blocks using off line networking tools implemented. • Sep. 2000 - Town Panchayat (urban local body) – full automation software commissioned in Koradachery TP. • Feb 2001- Dist. Police Office – Customised Establishment Admin. software commissioned. • March 2001 – Police Station Automation software beta version got ready for field testing. • April 2001 - Wireless LAN towers constructed and wireless LAN commissioned covering all the 20 offices coming under the direct control of the District Collector. • June 11, 2001 – the district Collector was transferred.

16. Events – others • Sep.1999 - Severe Drought and associated law and order problem • Nov.1999 - The worst flood in 25 years • Sep-1999 - General Elections to Lok Sabha. • Nov. 2000 - Cyclone preparedness and a low intensity cyclone • Population census enumeration 2000 • Aug. 2000 - New Collectorate building inaugurated • General elections 2001 • Electoral roll revisions 2000, 2001.Intensive Electoral Photo ID project – 2000

17. Salient events • Paperless Taluk office camps, titled “Power of e-governance” conducted in all 7 Taluk areas. In each such camp, work equivalent to 6 months’ turnover committed. • Lal Bahadur Shastry Academy declared Tiruvarur as Centre for e-gov training for IAS Probationers. First batch came on Feb.10,2001.

18. Learning from Tiruvarur • Government staff were eager to adopt e-governance and paperless office functioning irrespective of their age. • Age, no bar to acceptance of e-gov. • Political parties, irrespective of their party affiliation were eager to support e-gov initiatives, in terms of funding and otherwise too.

19. Learning from Tiruvarur • Parallel running was discouraged. This enabled the system to reduce the work load of the government staff. This is a key to success of Tiruvarur e-governance. • Trust in the system from the users obtained through a tight workflow engine, digital signature for online transactions committed by Government staff and a disaster recovery engine built into all the packages.

20. Learning from Tiruvarur • Government staff did not demand extra remuneration for carrying out their job online . • No cash incentive was paid to the software administrator of each office for the additional system administration and training job. • Peoples’ representatives and general public were made to feel proud of the initiative through appropriate education and publicity measures.

21. Learning from Tiruvarur • The system was developed independent from its champion. • Taluk offices still continue their paperless functioning. • The Government staff were made to own the system • The systems were bilingual, user friendly and had built in decision support system. Subsequent events proved that the government employees could demand the best of system design. And they were ready to implement a well designed system without any incentive or even formal training!

22. Learning from Tiruvarur • What had been done in Tiruvarur can be done all over India.

23. The future! • The States which adopt scientific and planned e-governance strategy would become the sought after place for foreign as well as domestic investments. • Growth in human development index in these States would be in geometric proportion. • Open source software is a key to any sound e-governance strategy.

24. Let us say YES to a true e-governance movement in India. Thank You umashankarc@yahoo.com umashankarc@gmail.com Join India e-governance group at http://www.groups/yahoo.com/group/lndia-egov