Digital initiatives of the government have greatly helped people to get services without any hindrances, thus empowering the citizens. As part of this initiative, most of the government services have been now made online thus providing corruption-free governance besides empowering citizens to report any wrongdoings in the departments. Jammu and Kashmir Government, in this regard, seems to have taken lead and launched several digital initiatives, which are greatly helping people to get timely services. For example, rolling out of e-office in all the administrative departments and offices of Heads of Departments has resulted in speedy disposal of official business, making real-time file tracking possible thereby enhancing accountability for avoiding any undue delay in the disposal of cases. The electronic Vigilance Clearance System (VCS) for issuance of e-vigilance clearances through online mode has simplified the process of seeking NoC and enables employees to track the status of their vigilance clearance for any follow-up.
Similarly, the online portal for e-filing of property returns (PRS-Portal) facilitates access and monitoring of the property details of all the employees, especially while processing vigilance clearance in their favour. Mobile Application ‘Satark Nagrik’ and the Departmental Vigilance Officers Portal of J&K Anti-Corruption Bureau are facilitating a seamless flow of information about corruption and enable citizens to submit their grievances with ease and mobility. Any citizen having an android based device can download the application from the playstore app. Likewise, in order to further boost transparency in public dealings of the Revenue Department, a mechanism of issuing passbooks to people containing information on all their legal land possessions has evolved.
The administration has also successfully implemented innovative initiatives for financial discipline which inter alia include BEAMS, online submission of bills through J&K PaySys, mandatory administrative approvals, technical sanctions and e-tendering, digital payments, GFR, GeM and related measures which have greatly helped the financial systems in J&K to be at par with any other developing financial system in the country. The Centralised Personnel Information System has been designed to capture employee profiles as well as office profiles in the CPIS database of all the departments, spread over the entire Jammu & Kashmir. The implementation of CPIS is a flagship e-Governance initiative of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. It gives thought-provoking ideas to everybody, on how to manage personnel information systems in the organization. It also gives clear-cut information about an institution or an office, how many posts are created and how much staff is deployed. The CPIS can give information about the excess or shortage of manpower in a particular office with a click of the mouse. The system automates the existing system to the best of its utility and reduces the time-consuming process of compiling information, data, etc which are required very often in the manual to a maximum degree. It also minimizes the errors of labour-intensive and time-consuming processes.
These digital initiatives have not only ensured transparency but also helped people to get timely services from the government. However, technical glitches are a threat to this initiative of the government and sometimes we see that people face hardships because of these technical failures and internet disruption as no offline medium is available as an alternative. For example, parents and students had to suffer a lot as the government portal for submitting an online application for the issuance of income certificates remained non-functional because of technical reasons. The students who were eligible for the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme and required income certificates for submitting applications were seen running from pillar to post for getting the certificate. As the portal for submitting the online application was down and there is no provision for the issuance of the offline certificate, the students and their parents were made to suffer for several days till the portal was made functional again.
Since such technical glitches cannot be ruled out permanently, the government should ensure that besides providing online services, the offline provision should not be completely eliminated.
Author is an Environmental Science Lecturer at Govt Higher Secondary School Khellani Doda. Feedback at mo*******@***il.com
Digital and Offline Services Should Run Parallel
