Committed to help Gujarat implement welfare schemes via ICT: PV Mohan Krishnan, DDG, NIC Gujarat

Could you brief us about NIC Gujarat’s association with the Gujarat Government in implementing various citizen services in an effective manner?
National Informatics Centre (NIC) Gujarat has played a phenomenal role in helping the state government roll out and strengthen several citizen services. Gujarat is one of the leading states in embracing latest technologies for the benefit of people. Being a large state, there are multiple IT support agencies involved in different applications. However, the Gujarat Government relies on NIC when it comes to applications which handle sensitive data. Additionally, NIC with its knowledge of the processes in different government domains, requires minimal time in understanding requirements and providing quickly implementable solutions. This USP has helped NIC to be of help in a state where a dynamic culture exists in terms of policy formulations, which require modifications in work flows of existing systems.

NIC has always been at the forefront in using modern IT tools to launch and simplify services. Please share some of the exceptional projects of NIC Gujarat that has helped the state government in rolling out citizen services in the recent past
NIC is strong in the G2C and G2B service delivery segment. Few of them are critically large systems. The Public Distribution System (PDS) is handled by NIC in the state. The application looks at the distribution side as well as the supply side. Another system for citizen services is the Integrated Online Record of Rights (IORA) and the citizens can avail it online. People can check the status of their applications online. NIC also has a portal, known as Integrated Online Revenue Applications (IORA) through which people can do conversion of land from agriculture to non-agriculture, make any type of land-purchase or conversion related payments. It is an online system where any one can convert his/her land title from agriculture to non-agriculture or pay the premium on the land.

In the health domain, NIC has helped the state health department to put in an online birth and death registration system in place. Initially, NIC had developed a child and mother health tracking system known as ‘eMamta’ after that it got scaled up at the national level. In fact, from ‘eMamta’, we were sharing the data with 108 helpline which keeps a track on the health of the expected mothers. According to the data, around 10,000 institutional deliveries took place because of the coordination between ‘eMamta’ and 108 helpline in a year, which is commendable. It is a good example of how information technology helped the government save the lives of the expecting mothers and the babies by giving them medical assistance when they needed it the most. The Birth & Death Registration System (e-Olakh) has evolved into a comprehensive system catering to urban and
rural areas.

Besides, NIC has developed and managing the application for drugs licensing (manufacturing and licensing) under Food & Drugs Control Authority. This application is a G2B space application catering to the pharmaceutical industry. At national level many states are using the software. We have developed an online job application system which is used by Gujarat Public Service Commission as the state government has mandated ‘OJAS’ as the primary platform for recruitments.

It is learnt that NIC played a phenomenal role in execution of the Centre’s PM Kisan scheme in Gujarat. Agriculture is one area where implementation of welfare schemes for farmers is been done at a significant pace. Could you please share what was the role of NIC Gujarat in helping the state government to implement farmers’ welfare schemes?
NIC is indeed privileged to be a part of the execution of the PM Kisan scheme and Gujarat ranked second in the the registerations of beneficiaries after the launch in record time. Though it was a Central Government project, the state government directed NIC Gujarat to launch a state level application so as to ensure quality data going through multiple validations at time of capture itself. It leveraged on the Digital Gujarat framework managed by NIC Gujarat for capturing data from the grass root levels in the state and thus having a wide spread of data capture points. NIC Gujarat developed the State PM Kisan software within a week. The whole machinery of the state government was working for the PM Kisan scheme round the clock in coordination with NIC Gujarat.

NIC is proactively extending its services to the agriculture department of Gujarat Government. All farmer related information is with NIC Gujarat through ‘i-Khedut’ web portal, which is a repository of information relating to different schemes of the agriculture department. It also has a G2C segment for people. It is 100 per cent scheme management portal for farmers through which they apply for various government-run welfare schemes to get the benefits. That apart, the portal has also brought animal husbandry, fisheries and horticulture departments into its fold to roll out welfare schemes.

NIC Gujarat was again called to deliver when the recent monsoon created hardships for the farmers and the state government announced a monetary benefit scheme for each agriculture land parcel being paid to the main owner of the land. The application called “Krishi Sahay” was rolled out. About 32 lakh records were captured after launch in December first week. The first lot of funds transfer has also happened.