The Mysore palace has taken a green step forward by starting the process of computerising its internal administration.
Office files of the last five years are being digitised as part of the project. All intra-office communication in the future will be in electronic mode, complete with digital signatures of officials concerned to lend authenticity.
The initiative is expected to save nearly 70,000 to 100,000 sheets of A4 size, according to T.S. Subramanya, Deputy Director, Mysore Palace Board.
“While the savings by reducing the paper consumption may be considerable, what is more important is minimising the negative environmental impact”, he added.
He told The Hindu that digitising the existing records was part of the larger objective to usher in transparency in the administration and functioning of the century-old structure.
“All the documents and information sought under the Right To Information Act will also be scanned”, according to Mr. Subramanya.
The income and expenditure statements would also be computerised and posted on the web.
The palace board was likely to have an arrangement with the State Bank of Mysore on the online purchasing of entry tickets to the palace, said Mr. Subramanya.
The project had been entrusted to IT entrepreneur Sanjay Ahuja of Software Guru, who said that the data of the last two years had already been digitised.
Work on the remaining three years would be completed in a month, he added.
Special software
Mr. Sanjay said they were installing specifically designed software to manage the transactions at the palace office, which would help in e-tracking the works in progress.
“All file movements, details of transactions, including work entrusted to any agency, name, date, location and maintenance, will be included in the software. A search option will enable the officials to ferret out any information pertaining to administration without any loss of time”, Mr. Sanjay said. On the functioning of the software, Mr. Sanjay noted that colour codes would highlight and alert about a pending file or work being delayed.
The source code would be given to the palace office after the complete development of the software and implementation of the project, and the palace board would have all rights over the software. All the non-sensitive files of the board are being catalogued and indexed to make it RTI compliant, Mr. Sanjay said. A record room was also being established at the Mysore palace office to back up the computerised data and store it in a professional manner, he added.
