GHMC to go paperless

e-office to be operational in two months

The civic body will be doing away with manual services in various departments. In keeping with the Smart City concept, the civic body is planning to dismiss the use of paper

• 25 departments to become paperless in the next two months
• In the first phase, seven departments will be integrated with the new software
• The software support was developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC)
• So far 1,100 GHMC staff have been trained
• The total cost of the project is Rs 1.5 crore

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is on its way to make all its 25 departments and 29 work-flows paperless. The project looks to eliminate manual file movement in the GHMC.

The project is an initiative towards the Smart City concept envisaged by the State government. The files would be migrated in a phased manner. Few files were integrated on Thursday. In the first phase seven departments, namely revenue, governance, administration, IT, parks, sports and health and sanitation, are being taken up.

Ahmed Babu, Special Commissioner, Systems and Projects, said, "The work is being taken up in a thematic manner. Earlier there were small servers but those have been replaced with state-of-the-art high-end servers. All the departments would become paperless in a couple of months."

The data would be stored at the primary data centre at Centre for Good Governance (CGG) and a secondary data centre at Marri Channa Reddy Human Resource Development Institute (MCRHRD).

Software support was developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The organisation trained the GHMC staff for three days. Ahmed Babu, who has been instrumental in introducing the e-office system in Adilabad district, also trained the officials. When asked if the older staff of the civic body would find it difficult to adapt to the technology, Babu said, "There are 650 data entry operators in the GHMC and a few do not know to operate a computer. Moreover, it is a team-based system and adaptation would not be a problem."

In all 1,100 personnel were trained in three days. Each employee had to undergo training for two hours. On Wednesday, issuing of digital signatures from junior assistant level to Commissioner was completed. 10 mbps connectivity is being given to deputy commissioners and zonal commissioners. The total cost of the project is Rs 1.5 crore.

Speaking about bottlenecks in the integration and migration of files, a senior official said, “Only the town planning department would take some time as there are large maps. Scanning machines too would be provided to all the departments. In the town planning department the work would start with occupancy certificate.”

Mahender, a resident of Balamrai, said, "The scope for corruption would reduce drastically as officials would no longer be able to demand bribes to clear files. The communication with officials too would become easy and files could be tracked by pressing a button."