Pensioners Delight
Chauhans journey as an e-governance proponent began when he was asked to computerize the states Finance department treasuries. By 1996, 20 treasuries were fully operational and were able to give accounting information to the Accountant General in time, using computers. Before the Treasury computerization, the state government was under pressure from the RBI for crossing credit limits, as there was no control on cash flow. But once computerization happened, top officials of the government were able to see the financial position every evening, and the decision on payments could be taken without delay with no possibilities of overuling the credit limit of the RBI, thus avoiding the bankruptcy of state.

Once Chauhan had proven his mettle in computerizing complex financial projects, he was entrusted with the responsibility of Budget computerization. The successful implementation of the project enabled error free budget documents with appropriate budget provision in different schemes in an electronic format. These could be easily ported to all the treasuries for bill passing process.

But as someone who believes that the ultimate goal of ICT is to help in avoiding wastage the time of those who come to government offices in search of information, Chauhans dream project was the Integrated Pension Management System (IPMS). The project had the provision of capturing photos and signatures to avoid illegal issuance of payment orders.

However, at the end of the day, it is the satisfaction of knowing that a retired employee does not have to run from pillar to post to get his pension payment orders in time, which drives Chauhan.

Inclusive Governance
Madhuri Sharma, technical director of NIC posted at the Union Ministry of Rural Development has been working toward the upliftment of rural masses along with her senior colleague DC Mishra. According to Madhuri, the three main contributions of e-governance are improving government processes (e-administration); connecting citizens (e-citizens and e-services); and building external interactions (e-society).

Sharmas latest achievement, the national level transaction-based system implemented across the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) districts in the country. NREGAsoft ensures that the information of all the states is in the same format and in local languages. The process flow at all level like gram panchayat/block/districts/state and Ministry of Rural Development has been captured. The local language support is popular among the rural citizens. The project strengthened the NREGA processes on-ground, as it demands the information about all the processes. It is 100% RTI-enabled as it shares all the data and information about NREGS in public domain through the Internet, which is otherwise difficult.

Sharma and Mishra also developed an Intranet site "Daily" (http://164.100.219.3/daily) for the Ministry of Rural Development with an aim to strengthen the ongoing e-governance efforts in the ministry.

SMART Governance
For NK Prasad, Principal Systems Analyst (Scientist-D), NIC, eGovernance should aim at realizing SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent) Government. Having strong grassroot level databases and a strong bottoms-up approach forms the core of this SMART Government. What is also required is an effective mechanism for instant monitoring. For Prasad, eGovernance should also provide a single window for non-stop citizen centric eServices.

All said and done, eGovernance at the national level can only be achieved with each village transformed into a SMART village. In the past Prasad has been involved with the design, development and implementation of an ICT-based solution for the Statewide Land Record Computerization Project in Bihar, called Bhu-Abhilekh. Other projects include the University Computerization Project, SCOPE, for the Veer Kuar Singh University, Ara as well as Schemes monitoring System, SPECTRUM (Special Program Evaluation Customized to TRUe Monitoring).

A key highlight of his career has been the System for Computerized Registration (SCORE) , a project that Prasad has been consistently working on since 2005.

SCORE is an ICT solution incorporating all instruments under acts for property registration in Bihar. It has been designed, developed and implemented by NIC Bihar State Centre, Patna, and all 111 registry offices of the state. The end result: transformation of the 200-year old system of manual property registration to SOHO (Small Office Home Office) with less-paper office.

efficient Policing
Rajinder Vij has been serving as the IG of Bastar for the past 1.5 years. His maiden project, on automated interstate checkposts, was to strengthen the Cyber Crime Department. That is when he decided to go in for the first computerized Finger Printing Bureau. All technical investigations, involving critical documents, FSL, finger prints were assigned to him. With an initial budget of just 30 lakh, the police department at Bastar chose Secure Mantra as their vendor for the project.

According to Vij, India is lagging far behind in the science of forensics. Earlier Chhattisgarh only had a regional laboratory while the central lab was in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. The regional lab conducted only minor tests and the police department relied on the Central lab for major investigations. So, the regional lab in Raipur was upgraded into a central lab with the introduction of the latest international equipment and processes.

With the increasing rate of cyber crime in Chhattisgarh, the Police Department has set up a Cyber Lab at the headquarters to tackle cyber crime cases.

To strengthen the grievance redressal system, self-service kiosks are being installed at the various stations. The Police Department is in the process of implementing the Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) which is projected for completion in the next two years. Once the CIPA is fully functional, it will serve as a centralized integrated platform for the Police Department in Bastar and adjoining districts.

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