State Secretariat set to go green by year-end

All government offices to switch to e-Office

July 29, 2021 01:13 am | Updated 01:13 am IST - CHENNAI

Officials will be trained in paperless administration.

Officials will be trained in paperless administration.

In what will be a milestone in Tamil Nadu’s e-Governance programme, the Secretariat will go green through paperless administration by the end of 2021.

Besides, a time-bound plan will start early next year to get all Departments and 38 Collectorates to switch to the e-Office platform.

Adhering to the safety protocol during the COVID-19 pandemic, officials of the Department of Information Technology have identified two nodal officers in each Department. They are being trained at the Anna Institute of Management by experts of the National Informatics Centre, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency.

A team of police officers, who implemented a similar project at the police headquarters, are also among the resource persons training the nodal officers. Batches of 25 nodal officers are being trained during the weekends. They will, in turn, explain the salient features of e-Office to their colleagues and train them in paperless administration.

Key role

The nodal officers will play a key role in the smooth transition to the e-Office platform, sources at the Secretariat told The Hindu on Wednesday.

e-Office is an application for conducting office procedures electronically. It will facilitate the Electronic File Management System for speedy disposal of files. The workflow management helps in creation, movement, monitoring and approval of files electronically, resulting in better utilisation of manpower, avoiding delays, leading to better governance. Though the application is owned by the National Informatics Centre, the State government will host the server. The sources said that more than 1,500 computers were being procured for the project, along with scanners and printers. After e-Office is made functional by December-end, the team will shift focus to other Departments functioning from Ezhilagam, Kuralagam and other buildings, besides the Collectorates.

Huge volumes of physical files stored in the Secretariat’s strong rooms are being digitized. Every employee will be given an official email id ending @ tn.gov.in to access the system. No access will be granted for login with Gmail and Yahoo. Transfer of files from private email services will also be prohibited to secure the system, the sources said.

Officials were repeatedly urged through circulars not to use private email services for official communication.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.