Himachal Pradesh focuses on BharatNet, citizen services and computerisation of departments

Himachal Pradesh is moving with decent speed in rolling out the BharatNet project, despite of its hilly terrain. Express Computer speaks to Rohan Chand Thakur, Director – IT, Himachal Pradesh

For Himachal Pradesh, there are three areas of focus to empower citizens to access government services. Firstly, the IT department is in the process of making the Government to Citizen (G2C) services available online to citizens. An e-district platform has been rolled out for the purpose, under which, the Chief Minister will soon launch the Five-Certificate scheme for government school students in 10 and 12 grades. The objective is to ease the process of job applications and other purposes where the certificates are required. They will be provided a class, agricultural, bonafide, domicile and BPL certificates (for students that fall in the below poverty line status). These will be made available online; the certificates can be applied, approved and sent online to the student’s e-district account, which will be maintained as a locker.

The next step is to push these certificates into the DigiLocker, a digital locker service established and run by the central government. It facilitates citizens to store certain official documents on the cloud. “Currently the government is running pilots in some schools in Himachal Pradesh,” informs Rohan Chand Thakur, Director – IT, Himachal Pradesh. Currently, there are about 70 different G2C services available on the e-district platform.

The other focus area is to build the baseline infrastructure viz BharatNet project. The HP government has signed an MoU with the gentral government to build the second phase of the project. It covers close to 3,000 gram panchayats, which include the hilly and tribal areas as well – this project will be completed in the next 18 months. This will considerably boost the state government’s capacity to provide a number of citizen services. Importantly, Himachal Pradesh has also received funds from the central government to set up Wi-Fi hotspots in the state. The Wi-Fi spots are being rolled out through the Common Service Centres (CSCs). “This is inspite of the challenge of the terrain and the large size of the average panchayat in HP, when compared to the geographical span of the panchayats in plains,” says Thakur.

Thirdly, the Aadhaar platform is being leveraged to its optimum. As of now, more than 60 government schemes have been DBT-enabled, based on the data from Aadhaar. “In the last six months, 26 new schemes have been onboarded over the Aadhaar platform and the beneficiaries have started receiving the disbursals,” says Thakur.

Efforts are underway to improve the efficiency of government departments; whereas, e-office and e-procurement projects are under implementation. Any project worth more than Rs 5 lakh has to be procured through e-procurement. The objective of e-office is to computerise the daily transactions / government communication and move towards a paperless work ecosystem. Some departments have taken a lead in computerisation while some are laggards.
Overall, the objective of the HP government is to improve the internal working of the government using technology; build a robust IT infrastructure to provide the backend support and extend an outreach to the citizens to provide various G2C services.

The thrust is also on making the Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) aware about co-ordination for providing services digitally rather than providing copies of revenue records, because these services will move online in the future. Citizens will access them online just like buying an air ticket; they will no longer ask the VLEs. They are being thoroughly trained for the purpose of providing digital services to the citizens. The backend IT infrastructure is completely ready for the purpose. “Even the charter for VLEs provides the highest commission for digital services,” says Thakur. They should provide more value added services like digital literacy, which provides higher commission rather than providing conventional services, which will go online in the future.

Thakur also heads the Kaushal Vikas Nigam (KVN). He is converging the work of the IT department and KVN under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. The KVN is serving as a Training Service Provider (TSP) for the local youth for job profiles like grassroot level telecom operator, Wi-Fi operator. The BharatNet project also requires the availability of trained technical manpower, which is currently unavailable.

The department is also conducting workshops for litigation monitoring. There are multiple cases filed against the government, and it’s challenging to track the case progress. “We already had a software for litigation management, designed a couple of years ago. People have to be told repeatedly to use them,” points out Thakur.

The state is also working for a new system for digital payments to further the cause of DBT. Software Technology Parks will soon be setup to encourage local entrepreneurs; two parks are planned, one each in Shimla and Kangra, near the airport. An MoU with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has also been signed.

The state has provided the right IT backend infrastructure for the excise department. A consultant has been appointed by the department to design an independent software. Cyber security and data storage is in the State Data Centre (SDC) in Shimla. Alongside, the DR site is also provided by the state. The department has a solutions committee, in which the IT department has a representation. The SWAN provides the field connectivity to the field offices of the department. Post GST implementation, significant internet speed and bandwidth rationalisation has been undertaken in order to control costs and also provide 24×7 services. This has led to increase in the internet speed in the key offices, where the requirement is round-the-clock.

The state is giving final touches to shortlist the GoI’s empanelled cloud service providers (CSPs) as well as setting up the DR site.

Engaging with startups
It’s important to have an objective in mind when partnering with startups; it shouldn’t be done to imitate others. Himachal Pradesh will empanel software companies, who have set a certain benchmark in their space. This will facilitate any of the state departments to pick from the empanelled companies and work with them for their respective software requirements. “We have empanelled 10 software companies in HP,” informs Thakur. The government is also in touch with certain companies for their manpower requirement.

Focus areas
BharatNet project – A major portion of HP’s geography has a hilly terrain. It’s challenging to pull the fibre optic cable infrastructure in those areas and thus, 165 Panchayats, which are in the hilly areas, will be covered through VSAT instead of optical fibre. In the plains, the optical fibre will not be underground, but will be overlayed on electrical poles. Himachal Pradesh has the best electrical pole network in the country. The state was 98 per cent electrified in the year 1985. Whereas, 95 per cent of Phase I implementation of BharatNet is completed, which amounts to 270 panchayats.

Land records
The land records have been digitised, and they need to be updated regularly. A major roadblock is that updation happens at the Tehsil level and it takes about a week for that to get reflected in the server. The revenue maps of most of the districts are digitised. In the next three months the revenue map of any land entity will be made available online. The RoR (a book with the Tehsildar, containing the records of village owners and the land they own) was available until now, but the revenue map wasn’t available online. The major benefit will be that citizens will be able to access their records online. Hitherto the villager had to personally visit the Tehsildar for the purpose and there were cases of harassment, due to land related issues. The cost involved will also be reduced. “In villages, the biggest source of litigation is land related. The land records going online will bring a dent in these litigations. It will also free up the manpower. The Patwari, who was involved in land related issues will now be able to concentrate on village development jobs,” adds Thakur.