Kannada and Culture department of the Government of Karnataka has set a good trend by effectively implementing the e-office system, thereby going paperless.
Kannada and Culture Department director K A Dayanand, who received Sarvottama Award during the Republic Day celebrations in Bengaluru recently for the successful implementation of e-office in the department, spoke to DH and said the Kannada and Culture department took to the concept of the paperless office for the first time among all departments in Karnataka and swung into action in this regard.
It has been one and a half year since the e-office system is running successfully in all offices of assistant directors in various districts of the state. Also, the e-office facility has been made available to five to six deputy commissioner offices in the state. The system will shortly be implemented in Dakshina Kannada district administration.
Dayanand said that initiating the project two years earlier, the department of Kannada and Culture approached the e-governance department of the Central government, towards seeking the guidance for implementing in the state, the e-office software developed by National Informatics Centre.
However, the original one was in accordance with the Parliamentary secretariat rules. The system needed several modifications and updations to suite to the regional requirements including that of the language preferences and compatibility with state government regulations.
The same were achieved and the e-office system was implemented in the head office of Kannada and Culture department, based in Kannada Bhavana, Bengaluru. He said that Karnataka was the first state to implement the e-office system in any government department. Eventually, the system was extended to the district offices, with a total budget of around Rs one crore. The servers and technical assistance for the project was provided by the Central government free of cost.
Dayanand further said that the Archives department is the first office in Vikasa Soudha and Vidhana Soudha to go paperless. Currently, other 10 to 12 government departments have gone paperless.
Salient features
Dayanand said that the major benefit of the paperless system is the easy disposal of files and a quicker follow-up. He noted that with the implementation of e-office, the cost of papers and toners has come down to Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh in a year. Also, the processing of files is being followed up through video conferencing by the head office with all district offices. Kannada and Culture department director said that he had the system installed in his laptop and disposed-off several files successfully while he was on the USA tour as well.
Kannada and Culture department assistant director D M Ravikumar said that all correspondences to the head office of the department of Kannada and Culture as well as to the government, are now totally diverted to e-office mechanism.
The database has made it possible to search a particular file within seconds and there are no chances of files getting misplaced or the data being tampered, he said.
