The present paper-based documentation has made storage and perusal of government files cumbersome, which in turn delays citizen-centric services and overburdens critical departments, said officials.
“Our documents the first step in enabling an e-governance revolution in the state. The time wasted by citizens in waiting for a simple document directly impacts productivity and also overburdens certain critical departments,” said a senior official.
In order to implement e-citizen services, all the office records have to be in digital format because information stored away in paper documents is difficult to access, and cannot be automatic decision in computer systems.
Recently urged the legislative assembly speaker Ramesh Tawadkar to all assembly records so that they’re saved for posterity. Similar efforts are also being made by the revenue department and the directorate of archives and archaeology.
There is looking for technology partners to government documents, maps, records, bulletins, brochures, books, audio archives and video footage by scanning.
Documents will be stored on microfilm, or as microfiche documents on a system. The image is then subjected to a process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert it into a text file that can be searched and edited using computers.
“Digital documents, safe from disasters, faster to access, and can be made available across the state within a second,” said the official.
The documents will be stored on the cloud and with a version control system put in place to keep track of users and attempts to tamper with the documents. One of the objectives of the exercise, said officials, is to control or restrict access to important documents.
As part of its digital push, the Delhi government is lakhs of old records, some of them 55-years-old. Records from 11 districts come to this room, are scanned and turned into PDF files, and the records are sent back.
Apart from lakhs of old documents, the government is adding more services online, doing away with the requirement of notary certificate for many online services, and has also enabled uploading documents directly from an online platform to store documents, without physical verification.
“Our main idea is to make as many services as possible faceless and thus also cut out middlemen and bribes,” District Magistrate (headquarters).
Currently, if someone applies for a caste certificate at the sub divisional office, for instance, the request is sent to the district headquarters, where the details of the applicant’s family with old records. If the records match, the headquarters intimates the sub-divisional office, only after which the certificate.
But this process takes time. Once legacy documents are same can be done at the sub divisional office very quickly.
“Old documents are a little difficult to handle. Some have frayed edges or pages are we have to tape them before scanning. So far we have scanned 4.5 images and about 2.5 lakh more are left,” said Shashikant Mishra, who works for India, a company to which the government has outsourced.
Also, while applying for services, instead of uploading scanned documents, now there is a provision ‘issued documents’ category.
There is no need for physical verification of these documents, which will make the process easier.
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