Success Stories in Maharashtra

e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MESSAGE

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Prithiviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Government of Maharasthra

aharashtra as a state believes in sharing its resource for the benefit of the country. We have always been open to sharing source codes of application with other states that are willing to develop applications similar to ours.

For instance, we developed an application called SADM (Software for Assessment of Disability, Maharashtra). The Government of India had taken it as a model project and we offered to share the code with any other state in the country, so that they do not have to start from the scratch. Rather, they could just customize it depending on their needs.

We also created an Android-based audit and survey application, and we are open to sharing it if required.

In case of UID we have had states like Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Goa approaching us to understand what we have done and how they can replicate the same in their states.

We encourage sharing of resources with departments not only within the state, but also outside it. The ultimate goal is to help larger number of citizens benefit from IT and experience good governance.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MESSAGE

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Ajit Pawar Deputy Chief Minister, Government of Maharasthra

aharashtra has been at the forefront on eGovernance initiatives and has seen tremendous success with its e-Governance programs in the state. We almost completely automated several state departments and many others are in the process. For instance, Maharashtra State is currently number one in generation of Aadhar numbers and we have been extend the benfits of UID to citizens through several UID linked programs.

Our aim is to ensure that every citizen in the state can have seamless, easy, quick but cost-effective access to all citizen centric government services and all our e-Governance initiatives are a step in this direction. However, we also believe in sharing our experiences with other states so that the benefits that we are offering to our state citizens can be also extended to citizens across the country.

Therefore, for instance, while we have achieved great success with the UID project in the state, other states like Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Goa are are look what we have done and how they can replicate the same in their states.

We have even offered to share codes for some of our applications with other states so that they can build applications for their own states by customizing the code and not having to start from scratch.

The e-Governance intiatives in Maharashtra are aimed at bringing in transparency, efficiency and ease of access to government services and the ultimate objective is to extend benefits to maximum number of citizens in the state.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MESSAGE

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Fouzia Khan Minister of State, Government of Maharasthra

aharashtra has led the way in the country when it comes to several e-governance initiatives. However, we must continue to work towards our goals and focus on areas that deserve our attention.

One of the challenges before us is to decipher how to make more and more citizen centric services available. For this, we are working on CSCs (Common Services Centres), which are being used for delivering electronic services.

Another focus area is localization of content. We are making efforts to get content available in Marathi. The emphasis is on making all our portals compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, making sure that the differently-abled population is covered under the e-governance umbrella.

We realize that mobile is the new big thing. Over the last couple of months we have launched four mobile applications.

Going forward, one new mobile-based government application will be launched every month.

Training for capacity building is one of the primary focus areas for Maharashtra. There are about 140 training institutes in the state, and we are looking at IT infrastructure upgrade of all these institutes.

We will continue to strive for a more inclusive and wider sphere of e-governance services in Maharashtra.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MESSAGE

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J.S. Saharia, IAS, Chief Secretary, Government of Maharasthra

he purpose behind all IT initiatives under e-governance should be a singular one—to make citizens' lives simpler. E-governance should bring in efficiency, transparency and simplification to processes, so that all the projects that are taken up are evaluated on these three fundamentals.

Maharashtra has been one of the first states to adopt e-governance in a big way. Our e-Governance initiatives focus on citizen centricity and ensure that citizens can access government services easily and in a timely and cost-effective manner. We have great success stories to talk about. Looking at some of the studies, conducted by the Government of India, exploring 'e-readiness' of states over the last 5-6 years, Maharashtra has been a leader.

To cite but just one example, for the UID project, Maharashtra is currently the number one state in generation of Aadhaar numbers. We were also the first one to implement the state resident data hub to start projects linking UID and various beneficiaries. One such UID linked reform is the financial inclusion for citizens through Direct Benefit Transfer, which facilitates payment for various schemes into the UID linked bank account of the beneficiary.

These steps, we believe, will take us closer to implementing direct payments and bring in financial inclusion.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MESSAGE

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Rajesh Aggarwal, IAS, Principal Secretary (IT), Government of Maharasthra

am glad to say that from the perspective of various departments, we are ahead of most other states in embracing IT. For one, Maharashtra is the first state to have its own functional government cloud. The cloud ensures that we can deploy applications very quickly and at a much lesser cost.

The Sales Tax department of Maharashtra is completely automated. All the payments that come in, and all the registrations and refunds that happen, are completely electronic. Other departments like Transport have also undertaken heavy computerization in terms of vehicle registration and issuing of driving licenses. Land records in Maharashtra are also being digitized.

What is more, the Home department has started multiple projects like CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems), AFIS (Automated Finger Print Identification System), IVFRTS (Immigration Visa and Foreigner Registration and Tracking system), Jail & Court Video Conferencing System, PMS (Prison Management System) etc. to take e-Governance to the next level.

Treasury in the state is another example of high degree of automation. Almost 95% of all payments being made are either through bank transfers or through the RTGS system (real time gross settlement). There are hardly any payments that are made through cheques. We are trying to evolve to a paperless systems—the project has already started off in Mantralaya and will be gradually rolled out across the state.

We are well on our way of realising the vision of e-governance in Maharashtra.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

FOREWORD Towards good governance

I

t is heartening to see that the Indian government is putting much needed emphasis on the common citizen and is taking up earnest measures to make life easy for him. The various initiatives and applications that are being rolled out as a part of the National e-Governance Plan or NeGP reinforce the belief that the objective is to make common services much more accessible, transparent and cost-effective for the citizen of the country.

This handbook throws light on how Maharashtra has made a good headway with e-Governance initiatives within the state and leveraged IT to make its State departments a lot more efficient and cohesive, the benefits of which can be enjoyed not only by the people that make up these departments, but also by the people of the State.

One on hand, initiatives such as UID-linked programmes, common service centres or CSCs and the various steps taken to continuously improve these services are aimed at easing the pain for a citizen looking to

SUDHIR CHOWDHARY, Features Editor, Financial Express

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access government services that he is entitled to. On the other, the State government has also taken an inward-looking approach and taken up various initiatives to automate its departmental processes, and do away the archaic and the often inefficient way of doing things.

However, it has not stopped there. It has also made great use of IT and the mobile revolution in the State to monitor these services through surveys and auditing tools and made steady improvements to their delivery to the people.

The fact that Maharashtra is leading in terms of Aadhaar enrollments is a testament of how successful it has been so far, in reaching out to the common citizen with its services, and the citizen too has enthusiastically responded to these efforts. Be it a government cloud offering everything as a service to various departments, or UID-linked benefits being offered to citizens in various quarters such as utility services or education, the State government is showing the way forward to using IT to establish efficient and citizen-centric governance.

e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

CONTENT MESSAGE Pg 3-8 Driving innovation through UID Pg 12-19 Improving quality of service Pg 20-26 Streamlining Tax Collection Pg 28-30 MahaGov Cloud Pg 31-35 Maharashtra’s State Data Center Pg 36-39 Increasing process efficiency Pg 40-43 Towards Simpler Processes Pg 44-47 State-of-the-art border check posts Pg 48-51 Scholarships go digital Pg 52-56 Taking successful stride: IGR Pg 57-62 Finances handled more efficiently Pg 63-66 Taking the mobile route to services Pg 67-74 Strengthening the land records system Pg 75-82 Pg 12

Pg 20

Pg 52

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Pg 68

e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Editor Sanjay Gupta* Delhi Heena Jhingan, Pupul Dutta, KTP Radhika Mumbai Jasmine Desai, Harshal Kallyanpur Bengaluru Pankaj Maru DESIGN National Art Director Bivash Barua Deputy Art Director Surajit Patro Chief Designer Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rushikesh Konka Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil MARKETING General Manager Dr. Raghu Pillai Deputy General Manager Harit Mohanty Deputy General Manager Prabhas Jha

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

DRIVING INNOVATION THROUGH UID From being the first state to have own AUA-ASA network for Live Authentication with UIDAI server to launching UID Linked Direct Cash Transfer in Wardha District, Maharashtra is leading the path to innovation through UID

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

S

eptember 2010 saw the Government of Maharashtra starting the Aadhaar (UID) enrollment program with a view to provide every resident of the state, a unique identification number linked to their demographic and biometric information, which they can use to identify themselves anywhere in India, and access a host of benefits and services.

Aadhaar has the potential to bring in socioeconomic transformation by bringing Government benefits to people who have been left out due to lack of identity or address

proof. It would usher in a new revolution of financial inclusion by helping the Government enure that Government benefits reach the right beneficiary directly into their bank accounts. It would remove duplicate, bogus beneficiaries from the system, thus helping Government to channelize its funds for the benefit of right beneficiary.

With this aim in mind, the Aadhaar program was started in the State on September 29, 2010, and since then the State Government has maintained a leadership position in the program.

UID enrolment commenced in Maharashtra in September 2010, with the inauguration of the program at Tembli village in Nandurbar district by Hon. Prime Minister and Hon. Chairperson, UPA.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

In Wardha district, where the UID Linked DBT for LPG consumers scheme was introduced from June 1, 2013, UID has been seeded for 85.5% of the LPG consumers and bank accounts have been seeded for 76.73% of the consumers, which is one of the highest in the country.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY The focus of the project was quick and quality enrollment and this was achieved though i nearly 4000 operational kits, the highest number of UID enrollment kits working in any state. The State Government has also purchased an additional 2000 kits which are being pressed into service.

To enhance the speed of enrollment, the State Government adopted the following the strategies: ◗ Simplification of the enrollment process by doing away with KYR+ data and Registrar packets ◗ Allowing multiple agencies (like Public Sector Banks etc.) to conduct enrollment in the State along with the State Govt. ◗ Removing the clause of appointment of Government verifiers and allowing the enrollment agencies to appoint verifiers ◗ Allowing all agencies empaneled by UIDAI

to work at L1 rates in the State, thus simplifying the process of appointment of agencies ◗ Allowing the Dist. Collectors to appoint local agencies ◗ Allowing enrollment in housing societies in a controlled fashion ◗ Starting mega enrollment centers, with more than 10 kits at one single place to facilitate enrollment ◗ Regular IEC (publicity) to enhance enrollment ◗ Identifying pockets / villages with less than 25% enrollment and focusing on enrollment in those villages The State Government has taken an inclusive approach to the enrollment, thus ensuring even the differently abled sections get enrolled. Special camps have been held for the differently abled, leprosy patients.

Similarly camps have been held for transgenders, cancer patients etc. Mobile van has been introduced to cater to the needs of the differently abled in Mumbai.

The focus has also been on quality of enrolment, and an Android based tablet application (the first State Government to have introduced an Android based application for survey) has been launched for regular audits of the enrollment centers. This has enabled the State Government to objectively

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

more than 8.2 crore residents in the State enrolled, and UID has been generated for more than 7.7 crore residents. The State Government is well poised to reach out to maximum residents by March 2014.

Apart from enrollment, innovation led social inclusion has been a key objective of this initiative. To foster innovation and technology led project implementation, a UID Innovation Lab has been setup by the State Government in Mumbai, the first such instance by any State Government. The UID Innovation Center today consists of the following: ◗ A State Resident Data Hub (SRDH): A repository of UID data of residents of the State along with their demographics and photograph. Maharashtra was the first State to establish SRDH ◗ USRDH: Usable and updated SRDH with clean resident data. This is a SAS based application wherein data anomalies have been cleaned and is ready for seeding with

monitor the quality of work, and ensure quality of enrolment along with speed.

UID enrollment commenced in Maharashtra in September 2010, with the inauguration of the program at Tembli village in Nandurbar district by Hon. Prime Minister and Hon. Chairperson, UPA. The first UID was given to Mrs. Ranjana Sonwane in Tembhali Village in Nandurbar District in 2010.

The enrollment has been done in 2 phases: ◗ Phase I – September 2010 till February 2012 ◗ Phase II – May 2012 – continuous The Phase II of the enrolment was launched by Hon. Chief Minister of Maharashtra in Pune in May 2012 as seen in the photograph below: RIDING ON THE SUCCESS Today the enrollment program has had

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

Self Seeding, Android based Tablet application for Quality check and audit of enrollment centers to ensure quality in enrollment, various UID linked applications and smart forms, etc. All of these have helped in de-duplication of databases and financial inclusion.

To bring in UID linked reforms, multiple critical applications have been developed using UID. Some of the notable ones are: ◗ UID linked eScholarship application for scholarships to students ◗ UID linked SADM application for issuance of disability certificate electronically ◗ UID linked issuance of certificates through all CSCs in the State (Smart forms have been introduced which can pull the resident demographic data and photograph based on the UID number entered in the system) ◗ UID linked Salary system for Govt. employees Realizing the transformational potential of the UID program, the State Government has envisaged UID enabled innovations and reforms in the State, including the use of BC model working as a Micro ATM bank branch to carry out financial transactions and make banking/financial inclusion more

various dept. data. Maharashtra was the first State to implement the same. ◗ GIS: GIS based application to cover UID enrolment across the State, and which gives insights on areas left out etc. ◗ BI: Business Intelligence tools are used for analysis of UID data and identifying trends in it ◗ De-duplication and Seeding: This is the most critical activity carried out in the UID Innovation Center, which involves de-duplication of various databases using UID data and seeding of UID number in various databases. Databases like Scholarships, Pensions, PDS, NREGA etc.

The State Government has also introduced various innovations like seeding of UID linked Bank Accounts with Re 1 to ensure the correctness of the Bank Account and mapping at NPCI etc., which have been accepted by UIDAI as a best practice.

As part of the Innovation Lab, the State Government has implemented State Resident Data Hub (a repository of UID data of residents of the State along with their photo and demographic data), Updated and Usable SRDH (a SAS based data cleaning and update initiative), SMS and Web based

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

The key outcomes achieved is given below UID ENROLLMENT:

UID LINKED APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES:

More than 8.2 Cr. residents enrolled for UID, which is the highest in the country

Government of Maharashtra was the first State to implement State Resident Data Hub (SRDH), which is a repository of UID data of residents along with their demographic data and photograph.

More than 7.7 Cr UID generated for the State (Highest in the country)

Govt. of Maharashtra further extended the concept of SRDH and implemented an updated and usable SRDH (USRDH), which had cleaner and updated data. This concept of USRDH has been accepted by Govt. of India as a best practice to be adopted in other states

Govt. of Maharashtra working as a Registrar for UIDAI has generated the max. number of UID by any Registrar in the country

The concept of Self Seeding was introduced

by Maharashtra

Nearly 4000 machines are in operation, which is the highest in the country

UID linked SADM application for issuance of disability certificate made Live. The application has now been taken up by Govt. of India as a best practice and would be replicated in other states Maharashtra is the first state to launch UID linked eKYC services UID linked applications for e-Scholarships have been introduced First State to have own AUA-ASA network for Live Authentication with UIDAI server First State to launch UID Linked Direct Cash Transfer in Wardha District

accessible, which would be a high volume and low cost approach. UID enabled reforms also include linking of UID with various department data, de-duplication of databases and removal of ghost beneficiaries and addition of genuine beneficiaries.

UID Linked DBT for LPG consumers shall be rolled out in 33 districts by 1st Jan

2014. Presently it is operational in 13 districts. In Wardha district, where the scheme was introduced from June 1, 2013, UID has been seeded for 85.5% of the LPG consumers and bank accounts have been seeded for 76.63% of the consumers, which is one of the highest in the country. Nearly Rs. 17 crore has been paid as permanent

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

advance and subsidy in the State for LPG consumers as part of DBT. The focus on DBT and FI has resulted in guidelines and Govt. Resolutions for the following: ◗ Linking Aadhaar optionally with various schemes to facilitate better service delivery ◗ Facilitating Aadhaar Based Payment for various schemes as part of DBT ◗ Opening of Aadhaar enabled Bank Accounts for people not having a Bank Account ◗ Placing Business Correspondents in unbanked villages The project has seen senior management involvement and support. A Project Oversight Committee has been formed under the Chairmanship of Hon. Chief Minister, which reviews and monitors the project on a quarterly basis. Similarly, a Project Apex Committee under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary reviews, monitors and guides the project on a monthly basis.

The Directorate of IT is the Nodal Dept.

for the project, with the Secretary IT taking a lead role in driving the project and reviewing and monitoring it on a daily basis. Complete Buy-In and Support from the senior management and leadership of the State Govt. has helped in driving this project.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS AND LEARNINGS FROM THE PROJECT The project also came with its share of highlights and learnings. A few are listed below to help discern what could be the best practices that could be followed by other states implementing the Aadhaar program: ◗ Focus on UID enrollment is essential for driving UID led innovations ◗ Setting up a dedicated Innovation Center driving technology enablement is the key to success ◗ The project should have a passionate leadership to drive (in case of Maharashtra, Secretary IT has been at the helm of the project for more than 2 years, which has helped in implementation) the program

Reference: https://portal.uidai.gov.in

As of date, Maharashtra is ahead of all other states in terms of number of Aadhar enrollments with over 77,715,707 aadhar enrollments

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

Top: Rajesh Aggarwal receiving the National Award in UID Innovation from Hon. Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh on the second anniversary of the UID program

Dr. Santosh Bhogle receiving the National Award for rolling out maximum UID Enrolment centers in 2011 from Nandan Nilekeni, Hon. Chairperson UIDAI ◗ Responsibilities should be delegated to Dist. Collectors, Municipal Commissioners to some extent to ensure that the large pool of stakeholders are involved in the project ◗ UID linked applications and usage of UID for de-duplication and removal of bogus

beneficiary should be taken up in a systematic manner ◗ Financial Inclusion, including positioning BCs across the state should also be a thrust area ◗ Regular review and monitoring at the highest level is also essential

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

IMPROVING QUALITY OF SERVICE The Maharashtra State Government conducted a survey to guage the performance of the Service Center Agencies (SCA) running Common Service Centers (CSCs) and applied the learnings to improve the quality of CSCs in the state

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

W

ith a view to ensure that government, private and social sector services are available to all its citizens near their residences, the Maharashtra state government has established around 31,340 Citizen Service Centers (CSCs) across 35 districts in the state. These centers are called Maha eSeva Kendras which provide both Government to Citizens (G2C) and Business to Citizens (B2C) services. These centers are operated by residents of villages called as Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) and managed by Service Center Agencies (SCAs).

The project was started under the aegis of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), funded by Government of India as one of its Mission Mode Projects for delivery of government, private & social sector services (G2C/B2C services) to the citizen at a location near his/her residence.

Maharashtra today is in the number one position with the maximum number of CSCs than any other state in India. Among these, 8,329 CSCs have been established by SCA-CMS-Spanco-BASIX-Mahaonline for a six revenue division of Maharashtra such that for every 6 villages, there is one CSC starting from 2009. 22,578 SANGRAMCSCs have been established by the Rural Development Department at the Panchayat level, also included in the CSC scheme on Dec 2012. 350 SETU centers present at each block level, are also integrated into the CSC scheme since April 2012. The Warda district Gramdoot 83 center has also been given the status of a CSC on August 2013. Every year more than 2 crore citizens are getting

benefitted from the CSCs of Maharashtra.

MEASURING QUALITY OF SERVICE To gauge the performance of SCAs across the state, the state government carried out a Third Party Audit (TPA) – the biggest and most comprehensive exercise ever conducted in the country. The main objective of the survey was to check the quality of service being provided to the citizens by the VLEs and identify the areas where it can be improved.

As a part of this initiative, members of the State eGovernance Mission Team (SeMT) visited more than 300 CSCs across the state – in what could be described as the largest survey of CSCs conducted in the country. In order to streamline the survey, a mobile app was developed and was used by the consultants to capture and upload the data.

The survery captured responses to 85 questions covering three key areas namely, Village Level Entrepreneur, CSC Infrastructure & Citizen Services. A 5 step

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

As a part of this initiative, members of the State eGovernance Mission Team (SeMT) visited more than 300 CSCs across the state – in what could be described as the largest survey of CSCs conducted in the country. evaluation process was undertaken to assess the performance of the CSCs. In addition, visits were made to the SCA headquarters to check for the conformance to the clauses as defined in the Master Services Agreement (MSA) and Request for Proposal (RFP). The SCAs were evaluated across 45 parameters covered across Technical, Operational & Financial areas.

A mobile app was developed by Government of Maharashtra and installed on tablet devices that were handed over to 35 teams across the state. The tablet device was used to capture data and upload it to the server. The mobile app enabled the SeMT team to capture data in real time and complete the survey of the 300 plus centers in a very short span of time.

The key objective of the project was to check the performance of the SCAs across

the technical, operational and financial aspects of the CSC. It also looked at checking the quality of service being provided to the citizens by the VLEs. PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA Technical assessment included finding answers to questions such as: whether connectivity has been established at CSCs and how has the last mile connectivity been achieved? Other questions included: Is data center and Disaster Recovery (DR) site present? How are server backups taken?; Is a portal for enabling access to non-government services (B2C) operational? Is the SCA ISO certified?; Are training manuals and user guides made available to the CSC operators?

Operational performance assessments included questions such as: What has been the contribution of the SCA in G2C and B2C transactions? Whether UID centers and Business Correspondents (BCs) active? Are SLAs for performance evaluation of CSCs being tracked? Is a performance report submitted to SETU Maharashtra? Is a wallet recharge mechanism being used by the VLEs to recharge wallets? Are complaints of citizens being tracked properly? Other questions included: Is a centralized MIS report available to track transaction

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

volumes, disputed transaction etc.?

Have all statutory clearances been obtained for providing services (G2C, B2C, B2B) at the CSCs? Has adequate training been provided by the SCAs to the VLEs before they start operating the CSC centers? What is the schedule of refresher courses to be provided to the VLEs?

day in a CSC; Amravati and Aurangabad have the highest (around 60 walk-ins). Six printouts are required for a G2C case to be processed; highest in Nagpur division with an average of eight. On an average it took seven days (end to end) to issue a G2C certificate; Amravati, Nashik & Nagpur division highest with close to nine days.

The survey also indicated that 72% centers being operated by individuals on whose name CSC is registered. VLEs have encountered performance issues in Mahaonline portal and support from Government administrators was a key concern.

On the other hand, 44% VLEs prominently display service list with fees

FINDINGS The results obtained from the surveys have thrown light on the quality of service being provided to the citizens and also the challenges being faced by the VLEs while delivering the services. The key findings of the survey were as follows: There are on an average 38 walk-ins per

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

which brings in transparency and 50% CSCs have overall good ambience with close to 31% of CSCs having an area between 150-200 sq. ft. 45% of citizens availing services at these CSCs have monthly income of less than Rs. 3000 amd 38% of citizens availing services have education level up to “10+2”. 64% of the citizens availed CSC services at least once in 6 months.

However, in some cases citizens, have to travel as much 3-6 kms to reach a CSC center; the highest bring in Amravati, close to 6 kms. A citizen has required anywhere between one to three trips to avail a service and the average charges paid by citizens to avail a service is Rs. 47. Pune division recorded the highest average of Rs. 65.

Furthermore, citizens on an average spend Rs. 20 on travel to avail CSC services; with those in Amravati and Pune spending the most.

78% citizens did find the working hours of CSCs to be convenient. 81% described the CSC staff to be courteous in majority of the cases and respond to queries in a timely manner. 80% of the citizens were satisfied by the overall quality of service provided by CSCs. Another key finding was that word of mouth information through “Neighbours/Relatives” was the main source of awareness about CSC services and promotion through newspapers and television was low. Overall 31% of the VLEs

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

Government of Maharashtra in its continuous effort in bringing a citizen friendly experience for applying the various G2C services to the citizens, has taken the landmark decision to waive off the submission of the Affidavits required along with the application forms for most of the services offered through the CSCs are “Very Satisfied” with the CSC business & majority would like their family members to continue with operation of CSCs.

a. IT infrastructure requirement b. Size and citizen facilities at the centers 4. Gap filling at the commercially non-viable regions and blind pockets (technology and power issues) will be done at government expenses.

5. VLEs with less than 100 transactions (cumulative of Apr, May and June 2013) under Spanco and CMS will be given an opportunity to improve their performance during the period September 1, 2013 – December 31, 2013. A minimum of 100 transactions should be executed in this time period (minimum 50 G2C).

If the target is not achieved they will automatically be removed from the VLE network with effect from January1, 2014.

6. Based on Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with CSC SPV, UID and B2C services will be provided by CSCs The Government of Maharashtra has initiated eDistrict project implementation in the State of Maharashtra. eDistrict is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) under the aegis of DeiTY, Government of India and aims to provide support to “District Administration” to deliver Citizen Centric Services (G2C services) to the citizens in more transparent, objective and user friendly manner.

CORRECTIVE ACTIONS Based on the findings of the SCA Performance Assessment & CSC survey, the following decisions have been taken by the Rajya Setu Samiti: 1. Contracts for CMS and Spanco have been extended for the next two years from September 1, 2013, based on the performance scores. Contract for Basix is valid for the next three years 2. Contract with Reliance has not been renewed and Mahaonline has been mandated to spearhead the initiatives 3. New contract would have additional clauses to ensure better operations for the success of the project:

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

STANDARDIZATION OF SERVICES 67 services from 10 categories like Certificates and licenses, Right to Information, Public Distribution System, Pensions, Utilities, Land Revenue Dues and Recoveries, Electoral, Revenue Court etc. are covered under the eDistrict project. Of these, 35 services have been selected for priority implementation during the first phase of the state wide roll out. The Business Process Re-engineering of these services have been completed.

Standardization and regulation of application forms and output formats, timelines and fees for processing of the services have been covered under the same. Some of the salient features of the standardised forms that are designed to be used in the CSCs are — ◗ Standardized input forms across all services, comprising of – applicant details, service specific details, self declaration and a list of documents to be attached ◗ Applicant details so collected to aid in creation and maintaining citizen profile at CSCs to increase citizen convenience ◗ Digitally signed output certificates and licenses ◗ Output forms to have 2D barcode for authentication and verification of document offline ◗ Feature for authentication of issued documents through SMS and though MahaOnline portal The Directorate of Information Technology is working closely with other departments whose services are delivered though eDistrict project for preparing and issuing necessary administrative approvals in the form of Government resolutions and Government orders for the adoption of the standardization being implemented as part

of the project. A GR for the waiver of affidavits for services delivered through eDistrict has already been issued. ii. Affidavit GR Today, an affidavit forms an integral part of the citizen’s application to avail G2C services. An affidavit is a sworn statement voluntarily made by an applicant under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. It is a declaration from the applicant along with his photograph and signature that the information provided is true as per his knowledge. Moreover, the applicant is liable for punishment as per sections of Indian Penal code, if the information provided is found to be false. The affidavits are signed by the authorized signatories as a proof of validity and are affixed with a court fee stamp of INR5 or INR10 or INR20 etc.

However, getting an affidavit is in itself an incommodious process. It requires extra effort, time and money from an applicant. No doubt, affidavits unnecessarily create slag in the system and increases the processing time of the service delivery.

Government of Maharashtra in its continuous effort in bringing a citizen friendly experience for applying the various G2C services to the citizens, has taken the landmark decision to waive off the submission of the Affidavits required along with the application forms for most of the services offered through the CSCs. The below have been decided: Application form itself as an Affidavit: It is decided that the affidavits shall be done away and instead applicant shall be asked to file self declaration along with the application form.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

STREAMLINING TAX COLLECTION Accenture is helping the Maharashtra Sales Tax Department simplify processes, improve efficiency and increase transparency in order to achieve higher revenue collection

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

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he Maharashtra Sales Tax Department (MSTD) is one of India’s major revenue collection bodies, accounting for approximately 60 percent revenue of one of India’s largest states. MSTD employs 10,000 people in 49 offices, serving 725,000 dealers and 1,500,000 business taxpayers.

With a mandate to simplify tax laws, rates and business processes, the department is working towards standardizing its systems, improving compliance rate and tax administration, and maximizing tax collection.

Tax payment compliance is an area of concern for the department, which is why MSTD has been exploring options to refine its existing model. The department was also preparing to use RFID technology to set up border checkpoints to restrict interstate movement of goods from and into Maharashtra and ensure stricter adherence to tax laws and minimize fraud.

With 100 percent e-returns, MSTD has been at the forefront of IT innovation. It is no surprise then that Accenture has been its preferred partner for the first time to take its IT system to the next level.

systems to facilitate robust decision making.

Under the new functional model, MSTD’s staff was organized according to functions such as e-registration, accounting, audit, enforcement of collections and dispute resolution. This comprehensive reorganization of the department also created challenges.

THE PATH TO EFFICIENCY Tax departments are constrained by limited resources and must work within moderate budgets to achieve efficiencies.

They need to make effective use of technology to streamline compliance processes. Fortunately, big data and automation is available to detect and prevent fraud.

Accenture has earlier worked with other state governments on similar projects.

Leveraging the experience and capabilities of its resources, Accenture conducted an in-depth analysis of the department’s processes and recommended appropriate changes.

As a leader in e-governance, Accenture applied key learnings in solution optimization, market trends and application benchmarking to help the client change its processes and technology, and improve operational efficiencies.

Accenture’s team also devised and implemented strategies based on the new functional structure and processes by identifying and coordinating system integrators, and automating these functions.

In addition, it assessed and provided recommendations for upgrading the department’s legacy IT infrastructure and

FACING A ROADBLOCK At MSTD, each sales tax administration unit had a different core function and required staff with specific skills. For effective delivery, MSTD faced the challenge of reorganizing its teams by functional expertise, moving away from a geography-based structure. Also, the growing business activities in the state made it necessary to provide automated solutions to department staff. It was imperative to automate workflow and adopt smarter

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The new system will improve access to information and generate greater taxpayer awareness.

Mr. Nilaya Varma Accenture

consolidated fragmented processes.

Accenture’s cutting-edge strategies have helped MSTD make the sales tax processes more secure and error-free for the dealers, regularize payment of taxes and streamline tax collection.

The new system will improve access to information and generate greater taxpayer awareness. With simpler procedures and better technology, the department will find it easier to maintain control and vigil on tax evasion. It will also help the client reduce administrative overheads, as automated systems have reduced work time and costs associated with manual compliance.

The enhanced business processes have created multiple channels for service delivery, facilitating prompt action that will lead to improved services and interactive communication, and help MSTD add value and improve its bottom line.

As part of its ongoing work for MSTD, Accenture will identify a service provider to upgrade the department’s technology infrastructure, increase efficiency and update records so that historical data is easier to identify and access.

This new partnership will help MSTD reach the next level of automation by 2015.

Under the engagement, Accenture will provide consulting services for innovative

initiatives such as dealer ledgers and a dealer information system (DIS) that will allow dealers to directly amend and update their business information online.

RIDING ON THE SUCCESS Accenture will help MSTD improve its service delivery to dealers by providing anytime, anywhere and secured access to services, and achieve greater transparency in operations by eliminating bottlenecks. An efficient and automated monitoring and control mechanism has provided the client a consistent platform to curb dealer malpractices.

The new system will reduce service turnaround time because of minimal physical interaction within the department, improve service delivery channels, and conduct smooth and secure e-payments and e-refunds of sales tax. MSTD will benefit from enhanced revenue collection through system-aided decision-making in core tax processes, greater laboration with other government departments and reduced administrative overheads. Meanwhile, taxpayers will benefit through reduced transaction costs and easier interactions with the department. Public perception of tax payment processes will also improve, which is likely to go a long way in creating a positive reputation for MSTD.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MahaGov CLOUD Hosted at the state data center, the MahaGov cloud is based on virtualization technology from VMware. The cloud has helped government departments reduce project startup costs from Rs 20 crore to just Rs 5 crore

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t was around November 2011 that the DIT, Government of Maharashtra looked at adopting the cloud approach for its then ongoing state data center (SDC) project. The objective was to reduce the cost of IT while increasing the flexibility and efficiency of the data center, such that it would allow the State Departments to kickstart projects quickly and in a scalable manner.

With this in mind, a Proof of Concept (PoC) was initiated for creating cloud environments with both VMware and Microsoft's virtualization technologies. As the state government has a lot of applications and wanted to avoid dependency on a particular technology it chose to deploy both VMware and Microsoft's virtualization platforms.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

government is offering infrastructure-as-aservice (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to its various departments.

Departments such as Public Health, Mhada, DIT, Charity Commissioner, Textile, Law and Judiciary, Water Supply and Sanitation, IGRO, Food and Drugs, School Education, Social Justice, Relief & Rehabilitation, Forest, Tribal, Bombay High Court, Rojgarwahini, UID, Solapur University, Sales Tax and Cidco are currently using the cloud to host their applications and web portals.

The deployment has helped the Government of Maharashtra lower the cost of hosting, improve the management of the state datacenter infrastructure, and drastically reduce the time required to provision infrastructure for various state departments. This has encouraged state departments to host their mission critical applications on the MahaGov Cloud, making it the only government cloud in India with end-to-end IPv6 that is running a production environment with a high volume of servers and applications.

For instance, the template image and replication features provided by the platform have considerably reduced the time taken to provision server resources, so much so that it took only three months to deploy the 350 VMs. Furthermore, the state government has been able to keep its storage requirements in

However, most of the critical applications are currently hosted on the private cloud infrastructure based on VMware’s virtualization platform. Close to 400 Virtual Machines have been deployed on the VMware-based infrastructure. The Government of Maharashtra has deployed VMware's vSphere and VMware vCloud Director to virtualize the state datacenter, which hosts the MahaGov Cloud.

VMware was chosen after an extensive evaluation conducted by the Government of Maharashtra. Shri. Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary IT for the Government of Maharashtra, said, “The Government of Maharashtra is committed to making e-governance a success in the state. We were confident that virtualization and cloud computing would play a critical role in enabling our vision for e-governance in the state of Maharashtra and have partnered with VMware, the industry leader, to help us on our cloud journey and fulfill this vision.”

“State departments hosting their applications on the MahaGov Cloud will allow for better management of the state’s IT infrastructure, while also bringing about transparency, efficiencies and lowering costs,” he added.

MOVING TO THE CLOUD Through the MahaGov cloud, the state

The DIT has published a rate card for the cloud services that any government department or public sector undertaking can avail at a nominal cost. The rate card helps limit indiscriminate use of the cloud resources and has also helped set an upper limit for prices of standard services.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

“State departments hosting their applications on the MahaGov Cloud will allow for better management of the state’s IT infrastructure, while also bringing about transparency, efficiencies and lowering costs.”

Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, IAS, Principal Secretary (IT), Government of Maharashtra

check due to thin provisioning. On the other hand, features like live migration have allowed the IT team to manage planned maintenance without any server or application downtime.

can be provisioned for as low as Rs4000 a month. DIT has been encouraging all state departments to proactively opt for MahaGov cloud services for their IT requirements because it not only means lesser investment but also the time to start a project is accelerated. By hosting their infrastructure on the MahaGov cloud, the departments have been able to reduce project start up costs from Rs20 crore to Rs 5 crore.

The fact that a number of departments have moved to the cloud proves that it has been well received by the State Government.

This has prompted the SDC to go beyond IaaS and PaaS and offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), BI-as-a-Service (BiaaS), GIS-as-a-Service (GiaaS), API-as-a-Service (APIaaS) and Survey-as-a-Service (SyaaS) to further encourage the various state departments to adopt cloud on a larger scale.

For instance, the GIS as a service enables state departments to take advantage of GIS and in future, it will also integrate data from smart meters in households across Maharashtra combined with UID data of that household. GIS would then become a common platform for delivering services across several schemes and programs that would benefit the citizen.

PAY-PER-USE The Directorate of Information Technology (DIT) conducted a number of user awareness programmes and has laid down guidelines for state departments to confidently host their applications on the MahaGov Cloud. It has also published a rate card for these cloud services that any government department or public sector undertaking can avail at a nominal cost.

Based on the initial capital and maintenance costs, the DIT created a billing and metering mechanism.A few departments were given dummy bills so that they have an idea of how much of resources are being provisioned and consumed by them. The rate card also helps limit indiscriminate use of the cloud resources and has helped set an upper limit for prices of standard services.

DEPLOYMENT BENEFITS The flexible provisioning features and the pay-as-you-go model of the MahaGov Cloud have yielded several benefits to the government. Virtual machines for departments

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MAHARASHTRA’S STATE DATA CENTER Over 150 applications in production are hosted in the SDC running on a cloud infrastructure based on both VMware and Microsoft HyperV technologies

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

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he Maharashtra State Government has setup a fully functional Tier 2 State Data Center (SDC). It is also the first SDC in the country to host a fully operational Government Cloud.

Housing a server farm spread across 1450 sq. ft., the SDC has a 39 rack server capacity and offers storage capacities of upto 186 TB. Over 150 applications in production are hosted in the SDC running on a cloud infrastructure based on both VMware and Microsoft HyperV technologies. The data center is a Tier 2 data center as per the TIA-942 standard and is also IPv6 ready.

The SDC offers three types of services to the State departments. Departments can either choose a cloud service, or opt for managed hosting or co-location service.

As a cloud service, the department will be provided a virtual instance wherein it can host the application or websites along with the data and the necessary infrastructure including bandwidth. The cloud service includes infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

With managed hosting, dedicated servers are provided to the department to host their applications or web portals along with the required bandwidth. Under the co-location service, the department brings all the applications or website and the supporting hardware required which is then hosted and managed at the SDC. As the State Government was looking at setting up the SDC it decided to adopt virtualization to ensure efficient utilization of the IT infrastructure in the SDC. The aim was to reduce the IT cost while increasing its efficiency and flexibility. A Proof of Concept (PoC) was initiated in November 2011 to setup a cloud infrastructure based on both VMware and Microsoft's Hyper-V environments. It was followed by the fully operational cloud going live in July 2012.

The Microsoft Hyper-V environment consists of 25 virtual machines running on six physical servers hosting seven production applications. The VMware cloud has over 400 virtual machines spread across 34 physical servers hosting over 150 production applications.

As a part of the BCP / DR, Government of Maharashtra has created a facility at BSNL IDC fort as an extension to Maharashtra SDC for storing the critical data and also providing co-location services to the user departments

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

Following are some of the services that the MahaGov Cloud offers: Infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), BI-as-a-Service (BiaaS), GIS-as-a-Service (GiaaS), API-as-a-Service (APIaaS) and Survey-as-a-Service (SyaaS).

Adopting the cloud approach has helped the State government ensure lower costs and greater agility for the IT infrastructure in the SDC. Furthermore, it has enabled universal resource access for the various state departments; the onus of the updates lies with the SDC and has enabled better collaboration among the department using the cloud infrastructure.

Furthermore, the Maharashtra SDC is a member of APNIC and is the only SDC in the country to have its own pool of APNIC/IRINN IPv4 & IPv6 addresses. With the world running out of IPv4 addresses, there was a mandate from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) for enabling

IPv6 addresses. To ensure that it adheres to this mandate, the Maharashtra SDC has successfully deployed end-to-end IPv6 along with IPv4 becoming the first in India to enable IPv6 at the SDC. As a part of the BCP / DR, Government of Maharashtra has created a facility at BSNL IDC fort as an extension to Maharashtra SDC for storing the critical data and also providing co-location services to the user departments.

BSNL has recently launched it’s cloud services within India at few of their locations.

To take the maximum advantage of the Cloud technology, Maharashtra SDC has hosted few websites on the BSNL Cloud. This has resulted into successful usage of Hybrid Cloud at Maharashtra SDC. In order to pursue more advanced technology, presently, Maharashtra SDC is testing the feasibility of Cloud burst wherein in case of capacity exhaustion for a particular application/web at the SDC shall automatically switch to BSNL cloud.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

INCREASING PROCESS EFFICIENCY Automating its tender and works management processes with the implementation of an effective IT solution helped MIDC improve its responsiveness to its customers, ability to monitor various aspects of its services and create more accountability and transparency in its operations.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

T

he Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (M.I.D.C) was established under The Maharashtra Industrial Act as a separate corporation on August 1, 1962, to promote and assist in rapid and orderly growth and development of industries in the State of Maharashtra.

MIDC has been declared as an agent of the State Government for carrying out the activities within the framework of the MID Act and the MID Rules. These activities can be divided under three broad categories: acquisition and disposal of land, provision of infrastructure facilities and providing services.

vide efficient service to the current and future investors, employees and other government agencies by implementing IT systems to enhance the effectiveness of MIDC’s processes. The project was awarded to SoftTech, which implemented PWIMS, its proven Public Works Information Management System for the corporation.

SoftTech customised the e-governance solution for MIDC for these functions: SOR management, Estimation management, Approval or Sanctions, e-Tendering, Store management, Billing management, MIS and maintenance. The scope of work included designing, developing and implementing the Works Management System for various functions, rolling out of applications across all the offices of MIDC, post-implementation support and change management.

The Works Management System is integrated seamlessly into the Finance, Inventory and Purchase modules of Microsoft Dynamics software. It is also integrated into the MIDC portal for providing a dashboard that acts as an interface between the internal engineering staff and

FACING A ROADBLOCK However, of late, MIDC was facing several issues and challenges in how its various departments functioned. The challenges pertained to several activities: the process of estimating the cost of core engineering projects; Administrative and Technical sanction of estimates; Zone-wise maintenance of Schedule of Rates (SOR); Maintenance of measurement book; and Approval of billing, among others.

The processes were complex and time-consuming. Besides, the tendering process lacked transparency. The corporation was in need of a decision support system that could not only integrate and simplify its processes but also provide for the necessary alerts and reports covering all areas of operation.

THE PATH TO EFFICIENCY The objective of the project was to pro-

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

MIDC officials all across the state can access the system through the portal and use it for decision-making.

The dashboard also presents information graphically for easy comprehension. external bidders and suppliers. MIDC officials all across the state can access the system through the portal and use it for decision-making. The dashboard also presents information graphically for easy comprehension.

ed in MIDC Mumbai head office and rolled out in 466 locations across Maharashtra.

PWIMS has significantly enhanced MIDC’s responsiveness to its customers, its ability to monitor various aspects of its services and has created significant accountability and transparency in its operations.

Currently 4,000 users are working through the system.

RIDING ON THE SUCCESS This project is successfully implement-

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

TOWARDS SIMPLER PROCESSES The Pune Muncipal Corporation automated its building plan proposal approval processes through the AutoDCR® solution

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

E

stablished in 1950, the Pune Muncipal Corporation today manages a city spread across 243.84 Sq.Km housing a population of over 31 lakh. It was becoming increasingly important for the corporation to fulfil its obligations with greater accountability and sensitivity. Therefore, a few years back, it began looking at a change management process that would allow it to constantly reinvent itself by building awareness, understanding, trust and a common purpose throughout the organisation.

A major part of this change management was the flow of proposal files that needed to be re-designed to reduce time required for approval and easy tracking of proposals.

However, there were several issues and challenges that the PMC would need to overcome. For instance, the nature of land records was complex and had many rules that were inter-related to each other.

Furthmore, the authorities engaged in this process were interpreting the rules as they understood them, thus creating a lot of subjectivity in the interpretation.

The process by itself was time consuming as it involved multiple hand offs and the revenue target achievement for ULBs remained elusive due to procedural delays.

Malpractices were unavoidable due to lack of standardization and there were no standard processes for determining the efficiency of

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

The AutoDCR® solution reads the drawings submitted by architects in CAD formats and maps them automatically to development control rules to find variance if any. The system has an in-built work flow and document scrutiny system for controlling the time period for approval and can send alerts. the staff.

To overcome these challenges, the corporation decided to go in for a Building Plan Approval System for the building plan department. It considered implementing AutoDCR® so that the department could easily scrutinise the submitted drawings, incorporate all the necessary information, track the submissions, and give its approval in a quick and smooth manner.

The department hired SoftTech to implement the AutoDCR® solution, which reads the CAD drawings submitted by architects, and formats and maps them automatically to the corresponding rules that need to be followed. If there is any variance from the rules, the solution points them out. The system has an in-built work flow and document scrutiny system for controlling the time period for approval and can send alerts.

Post the deployment, the process responsiveness has increased. For instance,

the proposals are acknowledged and site visit dates and further approval schedule is given to the architects on the spot. An SMS is also sent to the architect and the concerned inspectors. Quality of service has improved due to effective data management, timely delivery and standardization of procedures.

Architects need not keep on moving from desk to desk to understand the status of the file. If there is any site visit cancellation they are informed through SMS. The system has added a certain level of uniformity and standardization to the process. For instance, all the officials and stakeholders now follow a pre-defined set of rules and regulations laid down by the authorities (keeping the class of council in consideration), thus making the approval procedure uniform and easily understandable.

Furthermore, the system has added a certain level of transparency. The building plan approval procedure defined through

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra D-1. Benefits to the society and PMC: Time required for sanctioning of Building proposal: Paper-based system 45-50 days AutoDCR® system - 21 days Revenue Generation: Year 2002 – 26 Cr. Year 2006 – 218 Cr. Workforce efficiency: Paper-based system – 60 % AutoDCR® system – 95 % Sanctioned Proposals: Before AutoDCR® – 2500 After AutoDCR® – 4500

AutoDCR® is highly process oriented and the progress of the file movement can be seen by department officials, architects and citizens at any point of time. Approved plans will available on the citizens console for public access bringing in total transparency in the system. Increased visibility into the system is helping senior officials take the right decision at the right time.

At any point in time, the stakeholders can view details such as the reasons in the delay of a proposal, the person(s) responsible for the delay, etc. Early alerts via SMS or Web interface are sent to the higher officers on undue delays.

The system also enables good governance by identifying whether the building plans conform to environment friendly norms. The

approving authorities need to ensure proper margins, proper ventilation and proper sanitation provisions. There should also be adequate safety measures, proper sizing of rooms, etc. All this is controlled through Development Control Rules. Checking these plans manually for all these provisions is a tedious task which becomes simple by adopting this system. It also offers regular MIS reports for evaluation of workforce efficiency.

The deployment of AutoDCR® has indeed led to simplified, smooth processes. Complex bylaws are scrutinised automatically by AutoDCR®, thus avoiding the variance that results from different opinions and interpretations. All building records are properly digitised and archived for easy access and retrieval at any later date.

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

STATE-OF-THE-ART BORDER CHECK POSTS Using a combination of high-tech solutions such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-Readers, License Plate Recognition System (LPR), automatic vehicle identification, electronic weigh scales & Video Management Surveillance system, HCL Infosystems has ensured that vehicles passing through Maharashtra are cleared in less than 75 seconds

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

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aharashtra Border Check Post Network Limited (MBCPNL), promoted by a consortium led by Sadbhav Engineering Limited, is in the business of development of infrastructure facilities such as canals, roads and bridges. Recently, the company was awarded the concession by the Government of Maharashtra to construct, operate and maintain all its 22 border check posts on the state and national highways. The Government of Maharashtra also appointed Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd (MSRDC) as the project execution agency to oversee this project.

MBCPNL shortlisted HCL Infosystems to meet the objectives of the project. After a careful study of the state government's requirements, HCL offered a portfolio of solutions.

FOR A SMOOTH FLOW More than 63 lakh goods and passenger vehicles cross the state of Maharashtra annually. Following the guidelines of the Ministry of Transport in Highways, to ensure a smooth flow of traffic on all the roads with minimum blockage, the state government wanted to equip the BCPs (Border Check Posts) with modern basic amenities on a Build, Operate and Transfer model. The project undertaken by MBCPNL entailed thorough monitoring of all vehicles, navigating visitors smoothly and efficiently, reducing clearance time for commercial vehicles and assisting the Sales Tax and Excise Department in collecting revenue at BCPs. To fulfill the vision of the state government, MBCPNL needed an IT partner who would provide turnkey IT solutions in design, supply, installation, automation, integration and subsequent maintenance of the IT infrastructure at the BCPs for the next 10 years.

BORDER CHECK POST APPLICATION As part of the project, HCL developed a BCP application, which included: ◗ Design, development, testing and implementation of application software ◗ Data structure, database design and interface gateway design ◗ Web-based waybill application for traders, transporters, and citizens for information and waybill data submission ◗ Data interface for transferring vehicular data to the relevant departments ◗ Integration of application with electronic/nonelectronic devices like radio frequency detectors (RFID readers), Automatic Vehicle Classification Counting (AVCC) device, lane controller, electronic weigh bridge, printers, cameras, barcode printer, boom barrier, license plate reader (LPR), token display system, etc.

The BCP application had functionalities like RFID issuance, departmental data

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

The project entailed thorough monitoring of all vehicles, navigating visitors smoothly and efficiently, and reducing clearance time for commercial vehicles. verification, temporary permit issuance, transit pass issuance, asset management, warehouse management, parking management, helpdesk, etc.

vehicles and vehicle information is captured in the system. This vehicle data is read by RFID readers when the vehicle passes through the lane. Vehicle Weight, LPR data, surveillance video etc. are made available to the Department of Transport, Sales Tax and Excise Department for their usage. The same data was simultaneously made available online at the central controlling facility located in Mumbai through a VSAT link.

In addition, the project included the installation of a state-of-the-art electronic payment and accounting system; a document management system for storing, sharing, scanning, and version control of various departmental documents; and a solution for MIS and report generation.

INFRASTRUCTURE AT BCPS The supply, installation and commissioning of infrastructure at BCPs and data center included the following components: ◗ IT Hardware - desktops, server, storage, backup devices, printers, scanners, computer peripherals, UPS, access control devices and handheld devices ◗ Enterprise management and other utility software for video monitoring and backup management ◗ Segregation of traffic on the basis of weight, and weigh bridges on each lane for an accurate weight check ◗ Dedicated area with x-ray scanners for containerized goods ◗ Office productivity suite on select desktops ◗ Security solutions to protect the applications and data integrity ◗ Anti-virus solutions

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS All the three government departments— Department of Transport, Department of Excise, and Department of Sales Tax—work independently. Implementing the processes of all the three departments in a single BCP application with a simplified user interface was the major challenge of the project, as the information pertaining to each department's processes was gathered independently and then collated in the BCP application. To overcome this challenge, a centralised database containing vehicle data was designed, which was shared and made accessible to all the three departments for various BCP activities.

To over come the challenge of reducing vehicle clearance time to less than

DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE SETUP This included large display panels for video viewing, precision air conditioners, UPS, access control system, fire management system, and network operation management.

RFID READERS AND TAG RFID Tags are issued to all commercial

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra

them with the BCP application to capture vehicle data. The application also ensured that without human intervention, the vehicle owners get receipts for all transactions/payments made by them at the BCP. This made the process more transparent and citizen-centric.

75 seconds, BCP booths were designed in such a way that the clearance process could be completed in one stop-and-go. For this, the offences and standard parameters as per the Motor Vehicles Act were predefined for the system to automatically detect the offences and issue the flags accordingly. This process has remarkably reduced the duration for a vehicle to be stationed in the lane.

To ensure hassle-free filing of waybill by transporters, traders, and dealers, the BCP application developed by HCL also included the provision for online waybill application submission.

Another challenge was to ensure issuance of RFID tags to all commercial vehicles and to capture vehicle information like registration, PUC, Tax, Permit, Insurance, and Fitness. For this, more than 8 RFID issuance centres at various locations in Maharashtra (where the commercial vehicle traffic flow is high) have been provided by the government to HCL for issuing RFID tags. The RFID issuance application is designed to store the captured data in offline as well as online databases for making the issuance process faster and independent of connectivity.

For minimum human intervention, HCL used many world-class equipment like RFID readers, LPR, AVCC, automated barriers, and electronic weigh scales, and integrated

KEY BENEFITS ◗ Increased annual revenue collection by

Rs10,000 crores ◗ Faster and extremely convenient vehicle clearance time at the check posts (average vehicle clearance time reduced to less than 75 seconds) due to increased number of lanes, RFID tag usage to capture vehicle information, and electronic processing of documents. Going further, the same RFID tags can be used for automated toll payment at any toll booth in India ◗ All the 22 check posts to be connected through MPLS/VSAT links to the central control room in the MSRDC Bandra complex. Presently, ten BCPs have been connected through MPLS/VSAT links. ◗ This project has helped the Department of Transport prevent hawala transactions by confirming the physical transit of goods. It has also improved the efficiency of all the three departments, the Department of Transport, the Department of Excise, and the Department of Sales Tax.

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SCHOLARSHIPS GO DIGITAL The Department of Social Justice & Special Assistance, Maharashtra works towards bringing the socially and economically backward citizens on the mainstream development track. It aims to protect them from social injustice, and provides various development schemes for the beneficiaries, both for the individual and the community

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H

owever, there was a time when it was facing a major issue with its system of disbursing funds for post matriculate scholarships for students belonging to the SC, OBC, VJ/NT and SBC class of society.

The system which was manual, created a lot of delays, not only in the disbursal but also the receipt of the same. There was dependency on the colleges for the data by the department.

Additionally, there were many instances of human errors which neither helped identify the 'correct' eligible candidate(s) nor helped in the 'right amount' reaching the student on time. Monitoring and tracking was another challenge since the

information required was not available in a timely manner.

As a solution to these problems, the department looked at automating the process and the idea of e-scholarship was conceptualized.

DIGITIZING SCHOLARSHIPS To automate its scholarship fund process, the Department selected Mastek to implement the solution for the state.

Mastek developed and implemented the 'e-Scholarship' solution which automates the scholarship application process, the sanction and disbursal procedures across the 35 districts under the seven divisional

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“The e-scholarship solution brings operational efficiency in identifying the eligible students faster and disbursing the scholarship fee into their bank accounts directly in a timely and transparent manner. Mastek team has designed, developed and delivered the solution on time and within budget.”

Shri Shivajirao Moghe Hon. Minister, Ministry of Social Justice, Government of Maharashtra

officers in the State.

In this new automated system, the students are provided a zero-balance account in a nationalised bank where their maintenance allowance is credited directly. The student will also receive an SMS alert from the system informing in future, informing him about the allowance being credited.

The solution features a user-interface which is available in both English and Marathi languages. Apart from enabling granting procedures, it also automates scholarship suspension, renewal and cancellation processes.

Additionally, the system also includes an MIS that provides the department with data to monitor and analyse the scholarship distribution and disbursement. The department officials have also been provided the necessary training for using the system. Online help is available for colleges and students.

the department; they will not have to depend on colleges anymore.

Approximately Rs. 1800 crore was disbursed as maintenance amount through Scholarships & Freeships to nearly 14 lakh students in FY 2012-13.

Furthmore, the automation has made the application process more transparent and quick. Both the colleges and the department, are seeing an increase in operational efficiency due to reduction in their paper-work. The department will now be able to identify eligible students faster and disburse the grants into their bank accounts directly, in a timely and transparent manner.

The system will also reduce the chances of error in scholarships claims and decision making will be faster due to the availability of the accurate and timely information.

Post the eScholarship implementation, the Savitribai Phule Scholarship Scheme (pre matric scholarship for girls from standard 5 to 10), Rajarshri Shahu Maharaj Scheme (For standard 11 and 12 students with more than 75% marks in standard 10) and Sainiki School Scholarship (for standard 5 to 10) have been also implemented in the system.

REAPING THE BENEFITS OF AUTOMATION Post implementation, nearly 17 lakh students from over 13,000 colleges in the state, will now receive their funding directly in their bank account via wire transfer from

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TAKING SUCCESSFUL STRIDE: IGR Department is a multi-functional entity catering to various needs of citizens. Here is an overview of IGR and technology that keeps it ticking 24/7.

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T

he Department of Registration and Stamps has a vast expanse in the state of Maharashtra. It is the second highest revenue earning department for the Government of Maharashtra. The department started its humble journey in the domain of e Governance by opting to serve its stakeholders in the best possible way. The advent of the new user-friendly technology and policy reforms by the government clubbed with problems faced using the manual mode, gave way to the first computerized application called as SARITA (Stamp And Registration Information Technology Application) in the state of state of Maharashtra in 2002. After this there was no looking back for the

Department and it steadily rolled out e-governance projects for almost all of its services.

The department performs following functions: ◗ Registration of deeds, ◗ Revenue Collection, ◗ Valuation of properties, ◗ Preservation of documents, and ◗ Search for transactions.

The Acts administered by department for rendering above services are as mentioned below: ◗ The Registration Act, 1908, ◗ The Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 (earlier known as “The Bombay Stamp Act”), and ◗ The Special Marriage Act, 1954

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◗ iSARITA (Computerised Registration)

◗ There have been innumerable benefits of

The Department of Registration & Stamps also looks after Registration & Preservation of documents and Recovery of stamp duty.

SARITA was further upgraded to iSARITA (Integrated SARITA) which is a web-based application accessible in private network of Department, integrated with various other peripheral applications to provide customer a complete solution. iSARITA is integrated with GRAS/ e-Stamping for real-time verification and locking of payment, with PDE to pull online data entry, with e-ASR for real-time property valuation and with e-Search to provide data for real-time property transactions search. iSARITA has reduced the average time of registration to less than 10 minutes from earlier 20 minutes.

Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand have already started discussions with NIC, Pune for replication of this project. ◗ Benefits of iSARITA to Department and Citizen

iSarita.

Registration has become faster. The quality in Registration service has improved. Before final submission to database server, citizen can verify the copy of document by the thumbnail provided.

Soft copy of registered document is provided to citizens. There is real time Centralised Monitoring of system is available to IGR & DIGs. It is environment friendly with duplex printing. 550 lac pages are saved annually. There is no threat of data security as data is distributed in multiple locations DC, DR & NDR. Document copies are stored in encrypted format. Current system works in MPLS VPN Network, thus ensuring access to authorized users only.

Whether citizen is buying a property or bank is mortgaging a property, a history transaction search report on that property is an essential pre-requisite. Before e-Search, in manual mode, obtaining a search report was tedious. Citizen had to

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visit Sub- Registrar Office, make a written request and pay prescribed fee for such report by challan. Then, citizen had to physically search all previous registered documents related to that property. In view of the above problems faced by citizens, department launched e-Search portal for online search of property transactions.

Using e-Search application, anyone can (i) search transactions Property Details wise (ii) search transactions Document Number wise and (iii) Download scanned copy of documents.

People can make use of this instant real-time search facility (on e-Search) to prevent frauds of multiple transactions in a short period of time. It is advised that people should check e-Search at the moment in which they are executing/registering the document. e-Search has already benefited more than 6.7 lakh citizens since 1 Feb 2013. e-Search has around 70-100 people are online on the portal. Department has also initiated the process of digitising all the past documents.

its area. Citizen who has already bought the property can calculate Stamp Duty before going for Registration, based on the property valuation done with the help of e-ASR . Stamp Duty is payable on the market value of property or consideration value whichever is higher. e-ASR is available both in English as well as in Marathi Language. e-ASR has already benefited more than 7.9 lakh citizens since it’s inception.

E-PAYMENT (ONLINE PAYMENT OF STAMP DUTY & REGISTRATION FEES) https://gras.mahakosh.gov.in (GRAS website) The registration of document is accompanied with payment of Stamp Duty and Registration Fees. These payments can be made through Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS) using one of the two options – (i) Online Payment through Internet Banking & Debit Cards, and (ii) Over The Counter (OTC) Payment at designated Bank Branches. Citizen have to visit GRAS website , Select Mode (Online/OTC) of Payment, enter details and generate e-Challan. If online payment option is chosen, payment has to be done electronically. If OTC payment option is chosen, e-challan has to be printed and taken to designated bank branches for making payment. This challan has to be attached on the first page of the document.

E-ASR (ONLINE ANNUAL STATEMENT OF RATES) http://igrmaharashtra.gov.in e-ASR (electronic Annual Statement of Rates) can be used by the citizens to check property unit rates online. By entering property details like district, village, survey/Gat No, etc, citizens can get the unit rate (rate per hectare or square metre) for that property. Using unit rate, citizen can do valuation themselves. e-ASR benefits both type of citizens, who intends to buy and who has already bought property.

Citizen who is planning to buy property can have an idea about the prevailing rates in

E-SBTR Today, existing popular modes of Stamp Duty payment are Stamp Paper, Franking, e-Challan etc and of Registration Fee are DD or Cash. Handling DD & Cash involves high administrative costs. Stamp Paper & Franking have their own limitations of

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security and duplication. Putting together the best features of e-Payment, an innovative method of revenue collection e-SBTR was invented. e-SBTR is an Electronic –Secured Bank and Treasury Receipt, issued by the Officer of the participating bank, on special Government stationery, on payment of Stamp- duty in Virtual Treasury.

1.

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PUBLIC DATA ENTRY (PDE, EXPEDITE REGISTRATION BY ENTERING DATA ONLINE) https://pdeigr.maharashtra.gov.in/ PDE empowers citizen to enter their registration related data on their own, into the government database directly. Now, citizen can do data entry of document online prior visiting to Sub-Registrar’s Office. After verification, printout has to be taken, signed and carried to the SRO with document at the time of Registration. By using the PDE code given on the printout, entered data is directly imported to the registration application, iSARITA.

SARITA - Awarded as the Best Revenue System by CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards, 2002 SARITA - Awarded first prize in Rajeev Gandhi Prashaskiya Gatimanta (Pragati) Abhiyaan Award by Government of Maharashtra Gold Icon Award in the 'Exemplary e-Governance initiative' category for SARITA at the 7th national e-Governance Conference in Nov'03 iSARITA project has won Gold award in prestigious Maharashtra e-Governance Awards 2013 in category 'e-Governance Excellence Awards'.

E-STEPIN (ONLINE TIMESLOT BOOKING) http://igrmaharashtra.gov.in Booking a time slot with Sub-Registrar is now possible. A major time saver for citizens, this application gives the flexibility to select any Sub Registrar Office and time slot for registration of documents as per

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e-Governance Success Stories in Maharashtra their choice. Timeslot can be booked 30 days in advance, till the previous day of intended timeslot. As of now, first one & half hour is reserved for cases of e-payment (e-Challan, e-SBTR) and next one & half hour slot can be used for booking slots for cases of all kinds of payment. Maximum 2 bookings are allowed daily for an individual. One time rebooking is also possible if earlier booked slot has not been utilized. It can be done only after the public data entry code has been generated . A token is generated after booking. Daily around 150 registrants are taking services of e-StepIn.

related data online, prior visiting to bank or Sub-Registrar Office. Through e-filing, Mortgagee on behalf of mortgagor, file the notice of intimation of mortgage by providing following details: ◗ Mortgagee Details ◗ Mortgagor Details ◗ Property Details ◗ Payment Details etc User Manual is present in the help section of the e-Filing application which is accessible after user login. This application has two modules viz. ‘Admin (Banks)’ and ‘Document Submission’. e-Filing will also reduce crowd at SROs giving more time to Sub Registrars to concentrate on core activities of Registration.

E-FILING (ONLINE FILING OF NOTICE OF INTIMATION) https://efilingigr.maharashtra.gov.in Under the amended Section 89 (B) of Registration Act 1908, the mortgagors are now required to file the notice of intimation of equitable mortgage/mortgage by deposit of title deeds. For this, an online facility has been provided by the Department of Registration and Stamps wherein the mortgagee can file this notice from his office on behalf of mortgagor without mortgagor requiring to visit Sub-Registrar Office.

Similar to PDE of iSARITA, PDE of e-filing has also been developed. Using this, citizen will be able to enter their mortgage

ROLE OF OTHER AGENCIES National Informatics Centre (NIC), Pune is System Integrator at Central level and Software Consultant for all the projects of the Department. State Data Centre, Mumbai is primary Data Centre for the department where all applications are hosted. Disaster Recovery has been planned with one of the data centres in Mumbai as near DR and one of the data centre in Pune as DR site.

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FINANCES HANDLED MORE EFFICIENTLY Automating its processes has allowed the Treasury Department to improve its efficiency and reduce the average bill processing time from a little over four days to three days

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T

reasuryNet is a flagship application for the Directorate of Accounts and Treasuries, Government of Maharashtra and was designed and developed by NIC, Pune. The rule-based and role-based system, which is capable of integrating with other applications, works on a local server situated at every district treasury.

The direct users of this system include the Drawing & Disbursement Officers, Personal Ledger Account (PLA) Administrator, Receipt Collecting Officers and Controlling Officers in all Government offices and also the Accountant General’s Office, Government Employees and Pensioners across Maharashtra.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The system can also be accessed by indirect users which include vendors of the State of Maharashtra, common citizens, finance department and all other administrative departments. The front-end for the system is designed in PHP while the back-end is a DB2 9.7 based database.

It uses Apache Web Server and runs on Linux OS. The solution is web-based and all of these servers are connected to the central server through MPLS connectivity.

The system features 22 modules, including the Scroll Module, which helps the department receive bills in Treasury; the Audit Module, which allows the user to verify or audit and pass claims presented to Treasury; the Cheque/EFT Module, which allows making payments through cheques or electronic transfers; and the

Delivery Module, which is designed to deliver cheque/electronic payment advice.

The Compilation Payment module helps the user create an account of payment made through Treasury. The compilation Receipt module on the other hand, lets the user create an account of receipt, received by the Treasury. The PLA module helps authorize PLA payments and prepare an account there of while the Stamp Module enables the user to control Stamp Sell and prepare its account.

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The application is designed to simplify the treasury processes and minimize data entry at different stages in treasury and can therefore, nearly eliminate data entry at AG Office for preparation of State Accounts, further preventing fraudulent claims from being accepted in Treasury.

Treasury in Counter section, the Scroll Operator receives the bill using the bar code reader and gives a Paper Token. The Scroll Supervisor on the other hand, then generates a Bill Transmit Register and forwards the bill to the Audit Section.

In the Audit Section, the Audit Operator receives the bill on the system and audits it. The Audit Supervisor then verifies the bill after which the Audit ATO approves it and sends it to the Cheque Section for payment.

At the Cheque Section the Cheque ATO receives the bill, generates a voucher number and sends it for payment. The Cheque Operator then prepares cheques on the system, fills in the necessary details of EFT. After verification of these details by the Cheque Supervisor, the payment is approved by the Cheque ATO, who generates a mandate for EFT/NEFT. The cheque/EFT advice is finally delivered to DDO through delivery counter and the EFT/NEFT mandate is sent to the bank in electronic format.

The Sub Treasury account can be merged with the Treasury's account using the Sub Treasury Incorporation module.

The Treasury Officer Module allows the users to manage bill flow and other by the Treasury Officer. It also lets them view various MIS reports and perform administrative activity. Finally, the DBA Module helps manage Treasury Net System in Treasury.

TreasuryNet includes approximately 250 functions and the system includes various workflows for these systems. A few major workflows are as follows: ◗ Bill Scroll ◗ Bill Audit ◗ Bill Payment by cheque/EFT/NEFT/CMP ◗ Receipt of Challan, eChallan, dummy Challans ◗ Token / paper token ◗ Bank voucher vNil Bill process ◗ Transfer Entry ◗ Reconciliation of Cheque/EFT/NEFT/CMP ◗ PLA Audit / Payment / Reconciliation ◗ Departmental Cheque encashment ◗ Sub-Treasury Incoporation

IMPROVING THE DEPARTMENTAL PROCESSES This system is designed with a Business Process Reengineering objective which would help the Department

Through these modules and workflows, the Drawing and Disbursement Officer prepares the Bill and Authorization Slip, which he then submits to Treasury. At the

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minimize bill processing time as well as increase quality of audit to ensure correct and timely payment to the beneficiaries.

It is designed to simplify the treasury process and minimize data entry at different stages in the treasury. Doing so can nearly eliminate data entry at AG Office for preparation of State Accounts, and prevent fraudulent claims from being accepted in Treasury.

The system can help compile treasury accounts accurately for submission to AG in a timely manner and on receiving electronic data, the payment compilation task is completely automated.

The system introduces improvements such as online auditing for common matter, Paper token (Unique Bill Identification Number) instead of metallic tokens and electronic payment instead of cheque payment.

SIGNS OF SUCCESS Since the system was deployed, it has increased the efficiency and productivity of the Treasury Department. The average bill processing time in treasuries has gone down from a little over four days in June 2012 to around three days in FY 2012-13. It has resulted in better cash flow management and budgetary control and reduced possibility of leakages and irregularities.

DDOs can now view their monthly expenditure statement of past bills, current bill status on Koshwahini portal. The system accepts bill data electronically for bills received from DDO and also can make electronic payments. It today handles transactions of 17,000 DDOs, Self DDOs, RCOs and PLA Administrators and data can be exchanged electronically between other stake holders (AG/Departments). It also offers complete transparency to users.

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TAKING THE MOBILE ROUTE TO SERVICES How the Maharashtra State Government has successfully leveraged the mobile revolution in the country to enable its departments to provide better services to the citizens

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T

he Maharasthra State government in its endeavor to ensure that all citizens have quick and speedy access to information has extended a lot of its services over the mobile platform. Some of these services are either newly developed or extensions of services currently available through a web portal. These include: GOVERNMENT RESOLUTION (GR) APP For the Government of Maharashtra, ensuring timely dissemination of the right information to the citizens of the state is of paramount importance. It was primarily using the Maharashtra State portal www.maharashtra.gov.in to provide the relevant information such as Goverment Resolutions (GR). Every department in the State of Maharashtra, creates a number of Government Resolutions (GR) and

publishes on this website.

However, a lot of citizens today access information on their mobile devices, and therefore the Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), Government of Maharashtra decided to take one step further and made the all GRs available on the mobile platform. The DIT created the official mobile application for GR on the

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The Mahanews portal is source of information for newspapers, electronic media and citizens too, and therefore has become very popular among media professionals for getting updated news on the State Government.

The portal sees around 5000 daily visitors Android platform.

The app is designed to be easy to use, and the interface is bi-lingual – currently supporting English and Marathi. It connects to the Maharashtra State portal to search and retrieve all GRs. Users can search for any GR by giving department name, title/keywords, date-range or the Unique Code of GR etc. in search fields. They can also save downloaded GRs as PDF files.

A smart notification feature alerts users of any new resolutions released since their last login.

This Mobile App is available for Android based mobile phones on Google Play store.

Any citizen can download and use this app, free-of-cost on any android based mobile device. To download this app, the citizen can visit the Maharashtra government website at www.maharashtra.gov.in, or the Google Play store. This app requires a working internet connection (2G or 3G).

The app has already seen a good response and is quite popular among citizens. It has been downloaded by around 50,000 users in just one month. The mobile app is now being ported to other mobile operating system platforms, for Apple iPad as well as Windows 8 tablets. These versions also will be released soon.

MAHANEWS MOBILE APPLICATION To provide real-time updates and news about the day to day functioning of Government, Government Resolutions, Hon. CM, DCM and other minister’s program etc. the State Government has created an official news portal called Mahanews which not only offers news stories, but also features video clips and job opportunities for job aspirants.

The portal is source of information for newspapers, electronic media and citizens too, and therefore has become very popular among media professionals for getting updated news on the State Government.

The portal sees around 5000 daily visitors and to provide further easier and real-time access, the DIT has also created a mobile app. The Mahanews App (beta version) is now live on the Google Play Store.

The app syncs news from the website in

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real time and displays the latest news articles with photographs. It displays news articles from the ‘Main News’ section of the portal and also recruitment related news from the ‘Find Jobs’ section on the news portal.

The final version will allow users to select any district within the state to view news about that particular district. It will also have the facility to show most recent news, currently trending news, and allow users to bookmark or save news articles on mobile device.

Furthemore, it will also feature user feedback on news and allow them to share news over social networking website such as Facebook, Twitter and Google plus.

reporting system to provide regular and standardized reports and MIS to Senior Officials. The system would also report any damages to the school building that require repairs. The Zilla Parishad was looking to create an application to keep a track of the funding provided to the school, along with the monthly expenses occurred in the school and simultaneous reporting of the opening and closing balance.

False reporting from the on-field Kendra Pramukh is a major concern for the BEOs. The Zilla Parishad wanted a system that that is integrated and proxy-free, while simultaneously ensuring that the visits are effective and all the necessary data such as teachers or principal attendance, student attendance, mid-day meal menu, mid-day meal attendance etc. is captured. The ZP administration decided to get MIS reporting done on-site which would give real time data back to the management.

Therefore, VISHWAS (Visiting

VISHWAS MOBILE APPLICATION The Zilla Parishad of Nagpur wanted to ensure timely and effective monitoring and auditing of schools by on-field employees. It therefore was looking to develop an online

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Information on Schools Handled with Attendance System) a unique mobile application, was developed by the Zilla Parishad, Nagpur to improve the performance of on-field employees of the education department of the Zilla Parishad and collect real time information on School activity through them.

The mobile app serves as target management and data verification system, which monitors and verifies the targets assigned to on-field employees using GPS-enabled Android phones. The app is used by all field employees of Nagpur Zilla Parishad.

Post deployment, details of 1400 schools was sent using the application and more than 1800 reports were produced on schools in 13 talukas. The Kendra Pramukh has been able to verify meal attendance for over 1200 schools. 1600 school toilets were

maintained clean due to monitoring through VISHWAS. A highlight has been the marked improvement in the academic skills of 38 percent students due to regular teaching from the subject teacher.

At the other end, it has reduced false reporting of MIS data too. 158 show cause notices were issued by the education department on the basis of data and reports produced by VISHWAS. 12 Kendra Pramukhs were caught sending incorrect information from incorrect locations. 180 teachers were given first verbal warning for not providing daily notes. 1200 exams were conducted by the Kendra Pramukh in the visited schools.

AUDIT & SURVEY MOBILE APPLICATION The different departments in the State Government need to regularly survey and inspect a variety of public services being

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As the mobile survey app is customizable, the cost of maintaining it is very low and it not just acts as a survey tool, but also as a data gathering tool. It has evolved from a project to a product that can be extended not only to across departments, but also across other states. provided the government or the third party entities. A mobile survey app created by the State Government in June 2012 that allows them to collect this data on a tablet device.

A highlight of the project is that the app was rolled out in just 45 days and has been operational since.

The survey app can be customized to create a form consisting of pertinent questions and the same will be downloaded on tablet. The user can fill the eForm and upload the data to server. The data can be text, numbers, GPS tagged photo, selection list etc.

However, the app deployment came with its own set of challenges. There was no standardization of Location (Dist/Taluka/VTC) and DIT had to create the data for 45,000 locations. To force the authenticity of the survey location, GPS was built in to record latitude and longitude of the location. However, long use of GPS was causing battery drain and affected the number of surveys. As a solution, smart GPS use was implemented within the app.

Sometimes, the surveys would be conducted in remote locations that had limited connectivity. Therefore, the ability to create offline surveys was added. To ensure the security of the gathered data, it is stored in government data centers

(DMZ data centers).

The app design is very flexible allowing any kind of a survey to be created and made available in just two days. Furthermore, the app can support many departments and can be extended to support other states.

The GPS tagging feature ensures authenticity of survey performed on right place.

The app has helped maintain the quality of UID enrolment service when the survey app was used to have check on them. As the app is customizable, the cost of maintaining it is very low and it not just acts as a survey tool but also as a data gathering tool. It has evolved from a project to a product that can be extended not only to across departments, but also across other states.

FOREST OFFENCE MANAGEMENT The State of Maharashtra covers a geographical area of 3,07,713 sq km, 61,939 sq km of which is occupied by forest area.

The State's forest cover is estimated to be over 20 per cent. The dense forest area spans across parts of the Western Ghats, Amravati and Nagpur region.

A forest area as large as this makes it difficult to monitor forestry and other related operations in the State.

Furthermore, considering that the forest

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reaches to farthest of locations in the state, it was very important to have system in place that could monitor field activities in real time or near real time.

But, due to lack of adequate information and a good communication infrastructure, it was challenging to manage and get reports of the day to day activities of Forest Offence and Plantations for monitoring and decision making. The inherent delays hampered the decision process required at a particular time.

Key challenges included efficient capturing of data at source of origin, recording field information with proper evidences such as Geo tagged images, GPS coordinates and boundaries. Another challenge would be to ensure a system that can scale to encompass information from all key stakeholders. Further, such a large geographical area would require a robust MIS leveraging Mobile and GIS Technologies. The system would also need to include business intelligence tools to assist in planning and decision making.

should execute its technology initiatives in a phased manner wherein all the key functions pertaining to Forest Offences would be accessible through web-based applications. These applications would allow each user to log into the departmental portal and enter his data. The field force on the other hand, would be equipped with smart phone and use a mobile app to push the field information securely into the MFD application systems.

This would enable every employee to remain in constant touch with the latest happenings in the department. It would not only enhance efficiency but also bring in transparency, responsibility and accountability into the process.

The solution proposed was a Forest Offence Management System that would leverage GIS and Mobile technology. The smart phone app would be used by over 7000 field users while the web-based system would be used by over 500 forest officials.

HOW IT WORKS The Preliminary Offence Report (POR) System for Forest Offence Management is the first initiative in the sequence of activities for Forest Offence Management.

POR is essentially analogous to the FIR that is recorded by Police in case of any offence is reported .The system would allow filing a POR directly from the field location using a smart phone with the POR mobile application installed.

The POR app replaces the current practice of recording it manually on POR diaries. It records the GPS locations and Geo tagged images which can act as evidence. The application helps building a

THE SOLUTION Therefore, it was decided that the forest management activities would be automated and the staff and officials would be provided the necessary technology to track and report the details from the field.

The Maharashtra Forest Department started by looking at automating the Forest Offences Activities part for effective monitoring. It was proposed to develop work flow-based applications to serve the business purpose and operations related to Offence Management. The department decided to execute its technology initiatives.

Hence it is proposed that the MFD

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The POR app replaces the current practice of recording it manually on POR diaries. It records the GPS locations and Geo tagged images which can act as evidence.

The application helps building a database of different forest offences and offenders. database of different forest offences and offenders. It also outlines sensitive areas on digital maps. While on one hand it standardizes the practice of recording PORs, on the other it provides near real time reporting of the incidence.

To register an offence, the complete details of case have to be fed into the mobile application along with GPS location and Geo tagged images. The case would then be uploaded into the Web Application hosted at the State Data Center (SDC) over the GPRS/3G/WiFi network.

The uploaded cases are then accessed by the Range Office through the web-based Forest Offence Management System which synchronizes with the web application. The case details are reviewed and necessary action is initiated immediately.

Furthermore, the details on the action taken and the status of the case progress can be entered into the Forest Offence Management System by the respective authorities. All monitoring reports can be filtered based on the cases registered based on the type of offense, investigation status, compounding status, seized material; losses etc. and be produced by the system through a query. The data captured can then be integrated with spatial data going further.

The mobile app captures the following data from the POR form during the during the registration of an offence: ◗ Preliminary Case Report – Contains data related to offence locations, POR issuing authority, related forest areas (Compt, beat etc) and date of offence. ◗ Violation of Act & Rules with section / sub section under the case is registered. ◗ Offenders & witness. ◗ Loss / damage of forest produce, material or wildlife. ◗ Stump details in case of illicit felling. ◗ Geo tagged Photographs related to offence. ◗ Geo-Boundaries and GPS coordinates of the site The mobile app offers several benefits.

The app is designed to be user intuitive and offers combo boxes and validations at most places to eliminate manual errors and eases data entry. Furthermore, data can be captured even in offline mode when the mobile connectivity is not available. The app syncs the data with the web component once the connectivity is available. As the information is geo tagged, it helps create an information system that can be viewed directly on GIS Maps.

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STRENGTHENING THE LAND RECORDS SYSTEM Through eMahabhoomi, the Government of Maharashtra land records department looks to modernize the management of land records in order to bring greater efficiency and enhanced transparency into the system

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he Department of Land Resources (DoLR) was looking at modernizing the management of land records to bring in greater efficiency and enhanced transparency into the system. To achieve this, the department initiated an integrated programme, the National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP). As part of this initiative, ‘eMahabhoomi’, a comprehensive land records modernization and management programme is being implemented in Maharashtra.

The programme aims to modernize Management of land records, minimize scope of land/property disputes, enhance transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitate moving eventually towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties in the country. All the applications under this project are developed and maintained with the help of NIC.

The online MIS generated through this application helps the department officials understand the overall status of this project like number of survey cases catered to, number of pending cases , revenue earned etc. On an average, the application handles more than 1.75 lacs measurement requests per year. The overwhelming success of the eMojani project has also been showcased in various case studies.

In future, citizens will be provided more utilities through this web application, where they can track the status of their application, calculate the survey fees, and make an e-payment (through integration with another application, GRAS). Many of these utilities have already been made available to the citizens. The eMojani project has been operational in the entire state since 1st Jan 2012. e-Mutation: Online mutation The e-Mutation application ensures that as soon as the registration document is created, indicating the change in ownership of a piece of land, the process of mutation is initiated. The entire process starts at the Sub-Registrar’s Office (SRO), where citizens get their documents registered. The mutation process for non-registered document is initiated at the level of Talathis and does not involve the Sub-Registrar’s office.

Once this is done, the registration details are uploaded to the State Data Center (SDC) from the SRO office.

Department officials at the Tehsildar office view these mutation requests and a

DIFFERENT COMPONENTS OF EMAHABHOOMI eMojani : Management of measurement cases The ‘eMojani’ application helps department officials manage survey requests in a more efficient and effective manner. To the citizens, it provides vital information like date of survey, time of survey, name of surveyor, value of survey fee etc. as soon as he/she applies to the department. This application also helps department officials generate challans of measurement cases and tracks the survey fees collection.

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Almost 50-60% of data for eChawadi is derived from Form No.7/12 data created through the eMutation application. This Government-to-Government (G2G) service will help department officials in maintaining village records in an efficient and easily retrievable manner BSNL’s VPNoBB/MPLS connectivity. eMutation was launched on 10 April, 2013 during Survey Day by the Hon. Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

In future, real-time mutation will become possible through information sharing between registration and land record departments. Information being shared with the registration department will also help in the registration process.

Also, with laptops available to them, talathis will be able to initiate the mutation process at the village level itself.

mutation number is automatically given by the application. A digitally signed notice No. IX is generated in the Tehsil office, which is then sent to the SRO immediately for serving to all the interested parties.

At the same time, an SMS is sent to the concerned talathi (village accountant) and a 15-day notice period is given to the citizens to raise objections if any. In case no objection is received in the prescribed time period, the mutation is certified and the Record of Rights (RoR) is automatically updated. Along with this, the application also has the provision to initiate mutation arising due to non-registered documents.

Such mutations are done at village level by talathis, using their laptops. The talathi initiates the mutation which goes to the Circle officer for certification. Only after the certification, by the Circle Officer the name in the Record of Rights is changed.

As a part of this initiative, a pilot project was initiated in Mulshi and Haveli talukas of Pune district. After the pilot’s success, the application was rolled out in five more talukas. The work of state-wide implementation has already started. All the related offices (more than 1100) at taluka and district levels have already been provided with IT Infrastructure like computers, printers, scanners, UPS etc. All the core offices are being provided with

eChawadi: Computerization of village records At the village level, various land related forms (Forms No. 1 to 21) are classified under 5 categories namely — Land Revenue, Record of Rights, Settlement related, General administration and Miscellaneous, and are maintained by the talathi. All forms are maintained currently in physical format by talathis.

It was found that maintaining all these forms is a cumbersome activity and talathis have to spend a lot of time in updating each of these forms. Department officials also end up spending a lot of time to calculate the revenue to be recovered from the citizens with this process.

Considering the importance of these forms

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and various problems faced by revenue officials, the state decided to automate the proceess and digitize these forms which led to development of the “eChawadi” application. eChawadi is a web-based application which will benefit almost 12,600 talathis.

Hosted on the State data centre, the application will be accessible by talathis on their laptops (through data cards). A large percentage of Talathis have already bought laptops and data cards. The project is already rolled out and execution is in full swing. All the forms are interlinked to each other and any change will lead to concurrent changes in related forms.

Almost 50-60% of data for this

application is derived from Form No.7/12 data created through the eMutation application. This G2G service will help department officials in maintaining village records in an efficient and easily retrievable manner.

The application has been tested in one village in every district of Maharashtra and is ready for implementation in the entire state from 01 February, 2014 onwards. It is in its early stage of state-wide implementation; numerous talathis and more than 8,500 Circle officers have bought laptops and data cards to use the application. Also, parallel activities are being carried out to convert data in the physical format into digital format.

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Under the eRecords project, all textual records will be scanned and preserved at the taluka as well as the state level.

On an average, 10 lakh documents in each taluka are to be scanned. The total volume for the entire state is about 26 crore documents completed and pilot projects have completed in Mulshi and Haveli talukas in Pune district. Approximately 40 lakh documents have already been scanned and indexed till now. The eRecords project will be rolled out in this year i.e.

FY 2013-14.

eChawadi was launched on 10 April, 2013 during the Survey Day by Hon.Chief Minister of Maharashtra. eRecords: Scanning of old records The Land Records Department as a custodian of all land records, maintains a huge volume of textual records related to land. These records are old mutations and include old RoR, old Khata Register, Tippan, Akarband, Akarphod patrak, Gunakar book, KJP, consolidation scheme, etc. from the year 1880 onwards. Over a period of time, these records have deteriorated due to various environmental conditions and also due to their continuous use by department officials. Also, there is huge demand for such records at taluka offices.

Therefore, these records need to be preserved by converting them into digital form. This will help the department officials in drastically reducing the citizen service time and help them to improve the service quality. Under the eRecords project, all textual records will be scanned and preserved at the taluka as well as the state level. On an average, 10 lakh documents in each taluka are to be scanned. The total volume for the entire state is about 26 crore documents.

The development of the Document Search and Retrieval application is already

eMaps: Digitization of maps The Land Records Department is the custodian of valuable spatial records i.e. the cadastral maps. Maharashtra possesses a unique combination of cadastral map sheets which range from year 1880 to till date. There are numerous types of cadastral map sheets like tippans, phalni sheets, pot phalni sheets, gat book, village map sheets, Land Acquisition Measurement Sheets, Non Agricultural measurement sheets etc. These cadastral maps are of different sizes ranging from A4 to A0.

To preserve and archive these map sheets, the State has decided to digitize them. These digitized maps will also be used for re-survey and by department officials in their daily operations under the eMaps project. The pilot project was started in the Mulshi Taluka in September 2012. The pilot project is completed and state-wide digitization will be rolled out across the entire state in the financial year 2014-15.

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eResurvey: Resurvey with modern technology Resurveys are important to update records accurately and ensure conclusive titling of land. Since 1930, many sub-divisions have taken place leading to a mismatch between Record of Rights (maintained by revenue department) and Land Records data (maintained by Land Records department) and ground reality.

There is a huge need to make these records accurate and match with each other. If the data is based on actual field information, the differing records can be reconciled. The accurate data can then be shared with the citizens for their benefit. To achieve the objective, the state is actively considering undertaking the huge task of resurveying the entire state of Maharashtra.

Under this project called “eResurvey”,

the entire state will be surveyed again using modern survey technologies. This will provide citizens updated and current details of their land parcels. Considering the huge scale of operation, it was decided to conduct the resurvey as a pilot in12 villages of Mulshi taluka, in the Pune district, before rolling it out in the entire state. The 12 villages selected provides all types of terrains that can be encountered during state-wide survey. The pilot project is currently going on and is providing valuable knowledge to the department for undertaking state-wide rollout.

The pilot project is being carried out by two methods i.e. (1) high resolution satellite imagery with ETS/GPS and (2) pure ETS/GPS. A detailed analytical comparison of the output derived from both the methods is done by the department to

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eMahabhoomi through its various projects like eChawadi, eMojani, eMutation, eRecords, eMaps, eResurvey and eBhulekh will revolutionize the way land records are handled and managed in the state Shri. Chandrakant Dalvi, IAS, Settlement Commissioner & Director of Land Records (M.S.), Pune

understand the true merits and demerits of these methods.Ground Control Network (GCN) is also being established in the pilot area in consultation with Survey of India.

This network will be part of the network for the entire state. The GCN data will form the basis for carrying out detailed survey in the intended survey area.

other textual records for their land parcels.

The application will also provide spatial records like tippans, phalni sheets, village maps etc along with RoR. All relevant historical data of a land parcel will be available through this application. eBhulekh application will be ready in this financial year.

eBhulekh : GIS interface for public eBhulekh is one of the most unique applications developed by the NIC under the guidance of the Settlement Commissioner & Director of Land Records (Maharashtra State) Pune, for providing all land records data since 1880 through one application. It combines the power of technology and domain knowledge of department officials to create a holistic land records data dissemination application for citizens. It will allow citizens to trace history of their land parcel (textual as well as spatial data) and view all such records.

It will also help other government departments to access land records data for official purposes. eBhulekh will provide citizens with all old and current land records like Form No. 7/12, Form no 8A, Mutation Register and

TRAINING AND CAPACITY BUILDING For the success of all the above eMahabhoomi initiatives, relevant training has to be provided and capacity building has to be done for all department officials on a mass scale. In order to achieve this, it has been decided that the Land Records Training Academy situated in Aurangabad be strengthened in terms of its facilities.

The academy has been provided with state-of-the-art facilities and technological instruments to make it a premier land records training academy in the country.

Given that as many as 32,000 government employees are required to be trained, a second academy is proposed at Mulshi taluka in Pune District where all the pilot projects are being carried out.

A comprehensive training programme on eChawadi and eMutation has been done at the Land Records Training Academy in

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Aurangabad since March 2013 to train master trainers, who in turn, would train revenue department officials at taluka and district levels.Training material has also been provided to these master trainers for assistance in training.

Speaking about the project, Shri.

Chandrakant Dalvi, IAS, Settlement Commissioner & Director of Land Records (M.S.), Pune, said, “The Land Records Department has played a key role in generating revenue for the country from the British Era. With the advent of 21st century, the importance and value of land has increased manifold and so has the requirement to handle sensitive and critical land records data in an efficient and professional manner. Information Technology can play a key role in assisting the department to modernize and manage the land records. Through eMahabhoomi, Land Records Department of Maharashtra intends to create an integrated land records modernization and management system for the state.

components of eMahabhoomi is done.

Different level of committees have also been formed like Project Implementation Committee under the Chairmanship of Hon. Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) and State Level Monitoring and Review Committee under the chairmanship of Hon. Chief Secretary also monitors the project at strategic level and provide their valuable guidance to the department.

Department has also formed a society named Mahabhoomi which is primarily a Programme Management Unit which provides the department timely and valuable inputs towards the implementation of the programme. Hon. Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) is the chairman of the society and Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records is the CEO of the office of the society.

Along with the legacy methods, department has also appointed Project Management Consultants to assist department in monitoring the progress of the project along with other stakeholders like National Informatics Center (NIC).

There are also other key stakeholders like MRSAC, revenue department officials who are also engaged time and again to review the project from stakeholders point of view. “eMahabhoomi through its various projects like eChawadi, eMojani, eMutation, eRecords, eMaps, eResurvey and eBhulekh will revolutionize the way land records are handled and managed in the state. Each application with its unique utility and feature will create value for the citizens and department officials. A mega programme of this scale takes time to deliver its real benefits, but the benefits for the citizens and department officials are already visible. The journey has begun and exciting time awaits.”

MONITORING AND REVIEW An important aspect of effective and successful implementation of MMPs of big scale is monitoring and review. Department has always considered this aspect very important and worked towards monitoring through manners. One of the legacy methods of monitoring and review is the monthly meeting of all Deputy Directors and Superintendent of Land Records on all aspects of department along with NLRMP. In the last couple of years, along with these review mechanisms, monthly meeting with all Collectors under the chairmanship of Hon. Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) also takes place where review of all

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