Files may move faster as TN govt to go fully electronic soon

Chennai: After Odisha and Kerala, the Tamil Nadu government is set to go 100%

electronic

in its offices, doing away with manual files.

While the state has issued a

government

order for it, the process will begin from the Secretariat, with all departments becoming ‘e-offices’.

“Offices in the districts and every village will parallely join the electronic stream. Already, all offices in the I-T department and its related offices, including Elcot, have gone electronic,” Santhosh Babu, principal secretary for I-T, told TOI.

A few weeks ago, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had personally advised secretaries of each department to focus on speedy

governance

. With the e-office initiative now set in motion, once implemented, it is not only files that would start moving fast, but also decision making.

The key objective of the initiative is to eliminate the use of paper and to make most of the office

communication

electronic to improve efficiency, consistency and effectiveness of government responses. It also aims to cut turnaround time and meet demands of the citizen charter as well as provide for effective resource management to improve quality of administration, among others.

The idea to make files electronic was mooted back in 2013-14, when it was decided to host the e-office software service in the state data centre (SDC) in the cloud environment. Willing government departments were to make use of the software, enabling officials and staff to handle the files from any location without geographical barriers.

Recalling the initiatives he undertook while heading the Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation, popularly known as Poompuhar, Santhosh Babu said he replaced the system of manual files and communication with electronic systems. “Earlier, a decision for even a simple procurement request from a distant branch office of ours in Kolkata would take 45 days. Once all our offices across the country were connected electronically, the decision-making process came down to just three hours,” said Santhosh Babu, who while heading the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women had made it a

paperless

office way back in 2001.

Through the latest order, the state government has decided to implement the e-office application developed by NIC with immediate effect for processing all files electronically in all government departments/PSUs/boards/agencies under its control. All of them have been directed to take steps to implement the same through Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA), the nodal body for e-governance initiatives.