Port Blair, October 15: The National Informatics Centre (NIC), a wing of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, is developing an e-Governance appstore on the lines of Google Play Store and Apple’s Appstore. Addressing a seminar in Port Blair, Dr Shefali Sushil Dash, Deputy Director General of the country’s premier institution that promotes e-Governance initiatives said, at present, the NIC facility called “eGov App Store” contains 39 applications which are accessible for mostly Government organizations.
However, it is now developing a new facility called “Open Zone” in which even private players’ applications would be included for download by all, after due testing for credible performance. The currently available applications and components in the eGovAppStore help various departments in the Centre and States and District Administrations to avoid duplication of works as the best computer software application in the country could be followed uniformly by all the Departments without spending time, manpower and money on developing a new one for every organization. The most popular apps as of now include e-Office, e-procurement, e-hospital, e-land records, pay roll applications etc.
The NIC has also put into operation a system called “Etaal” that analyses the data on public usage of electronic services being offered by the Centre and State Governments and local bodies like issuing of birth certificates, payment of various utility bills like electricity consumption charges and land tax, offering medical facilities to the citizens, distribution of subsidies, ration cards and voters identity cards and similar other services.
The analysis their usage on a real time basis is helpful to give special attention to whatever areas that are found to be lacking. Government bodies that are offering web based services are free to enroll themselves under the scheme with the NIC, though it is not made as compulsory. Once registered, the software tracks only the data on the number of usages and not the details of the transactions and therefore the sensitivities related to confidentiality is not compromised, she explained.
States like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are making strides in utilizing this facility and senior officials are monitoring the citizens’ usage of service delivery through electronic mode without human interventions regularly. She recalled in the meeting that, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been the pioneer in making the initiatives to digitize the land records.
The NIC’s State Informatics Officer, Port Blair, Mr K.Narayanan, Delhi NIC’s senior technical directors Mr IPS Sethi, Mala Mittal and representatives from various Islands Administration Departments took part in the event. (PIB)
