Maharashtra Govt Machinery To Be Vertically Linked By SWAN

The government of Maharashtra has an e-governance roadmap in place that pursues an integrated approach for back-end and front-end systems. Some of its e-governance initiatives include the Citizen Service Centres (CSC), the sales tax system, the treasury solution etc.

The state IT Department is actively looking forward to the completion of the vertical connectivity of the SWAN (State Wide Area Network). This vertical connectivity will facilitate seamless integration of all government machinery in the state starting from the top to the taluka level. “The connectivity will be completed by the end of the current fiscal year i.e. 2008-09,” said Kshatrapati Shivaji, IT secretary, Government of Maharashtra. This exercise is slated to be followed by horizontal expansion of the SWAN.

He went on to say that the Document Journey Management System (DJMS) already deployed at the Mantralaya is proving to be very beneficial in the area of file handling. The solution helps to track files right from the origin stage to the disposal one and finally the file is archived for future reference. The DJMS has played the role of an end-to-end solution for file management for all government records.

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Talking about the implementation of the Decision Support System (DSS) at the Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), Shivaji said, “Under the current system of functioning, policy decisions are taken in days; however, operational decisions take years to be made. The DSS will cut short this time lag involved in decision making and planning”. The solution is designed to convert non-coherent and raw data into knowledge and was adopted by the DES in the past month.

Moving on to other IT solutions deployed, Shivaji said that while the Koshvani (Treasury Solution) is giving better results, the Mahabhulekh (Land Records System) is proving helpful for citizens by providing them updated information on the 7/12 land records via the Internet. ( http://164.100.111.5:8080/mahabhulekh/ )

Maharashtra state is celebrating 2008-09 as the year of IT. “Initiatives like this act as a catalyst for changing people’s mindset. They create an awareness and environment among employees about the importance of the use of IT,” stressed Shivaji. He further added that the government was in discussion with MCGM for making Mumbai city Wi-Fi enabled.

Regarding the adoption of open source at various government departments, he said, “It depends on the project and the discretion of the department. The availability of in-house technical expertise also makes a difference.”

One of the important initiatives by the state involves the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) in the Public Distribution System. “This envisages tracking the stock on government vehicles until it is delivered to the shops earmarked for the PDS,” concluded Shivaji.