E-Suvidha revolution 
The Information Technology initiatives have resulted in the setting up of Community Information Centres in 29 of 40 development blocks.

Subhasis. K. Chanda

THEIR parents, their grandpa and grandma used to tread on the terrain miles after miles time and again to throng the sub-divisional offices for pursuing the officials and clerks to get citizenship certificates. Whether it is for nationality certificate or certificate of scheduled tribe or scheduled caste credential, they used to receive the desired document after queuing up at the SDO office day after day. Thanks to the triumph of Information Technology that the days of lackadaisical approach has come to an end at this remote, disadvantaged hillock, Longtharai Valley of Tripura, a hilly State situated at the edge of the North- Eastern region.

Unika Chakma and Uttam Chakma of Chhamanu, Dhalai district, were very happy after getting a ST certificate and citizenship certificate in a few minutes by the grace of a magical facility. Pranesh Debnath, Ujjal Sen and Rebati Das living at the suburban areas of Sadar sub-division too expressed happy experiences after receiving either birth certificate or permanent residence certificate at their convenience recently. The number of such people who seem to be proud enough to get the much needed government records and certificates by the grace of hassle free electronic services, popularly called e-Suvidha, is growing day by day in this remote corner of the country. Gone are the days that hundreds of people crowd the Block and SDM Offices all day long only to come again on the second or next day, for getting a certificate. Now after submission of an application form they  know when it will be awarded and before coming to office they can know the status of his or her application by a mouse click. Maybe a late comer in the IT – enabled services in comparison to other parts of the country, Tripura has gone ahead in e-governance and IT – enabled services for the overall development of the socio-economic fabric of her people. The State is making strides in the National e-governance domain. Most of the State government departments are implementing  the centrally sponsored programmes under the National e-governance programme. All major departments like Land records and settlement, panchayat, rural development, transport, power, sales tax and healthcare have developed citizen centric applications.

The Information Technology initiatives of the State Government and National Informatic Centre (NIC) partnership have resulted in the setting up of Community Information Centres (CIC), spreading over 29 of  40 development blocks of the State and providing e-Suvidha to the mostly backward and disadvantaged areas of the State. The CICs ensure local people easy access to the basic computer, Internet services and its applications such as e-mail and training to the rural people. Off course, by means of CICs various government departments have initiated to offer online citizen centric services, including information about public services and access to government departments.

Under its current e-Suvidha project, that is now available in all Sub-divisional Offices (SDO) including CICs and government, non-government kiosks facilities for acknowledgement of application for citizenship certificate, permanent residence certificate etc, knowing land records etc are available. The State government also proposes to provide the facilities for depositing electricity bills, land holding certificate, house tax, water tax, trade tax, telephone bills etc. and issuing birth and death certificate at the e-Suvidha centres at SDM offices. Presently 22 types of citizen centric services are in operation and many more are in the pipeline as the citizens’ requirements are growing exponentially day by day. NIC –Tripura has developed and implemented e-Suvidha software for Service Facilitation Centre at SDM offices where common people regularly visit to get various kinds of certificates. With this facility being in operation common people from different corners of the State are able to get certification of birth and death, citizenship certificate and simultaneously retrieve information on the status either visiting SDM office or CIC at block offices.

The Government of India considered IT as an effective  tool to overcome the geographical isolation caused by communication bottleneck of the North Eastern States. That has brought out the action plan for the establishment of IT facilities to link these eight sister States and facilitate information flow with the rest of the country.

In  April 2000, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in conjunction with the National Informatic Centre (NIC) introduced a project to establish Community Information Centre (CIC) in 29 blocks across these states in the first phase. As part of this project, presently CICs have been set up in all 487 blocks of these eight states. While other North Eastern States are on the process of materialisation of e-Suvidha, NIC’s Tripura division has successfully launched this IT enabled services covering 22 types of citizen centric certificates in all 14 SDM Offices including 29 CICs  which is the first of its kind in the region. Through the block level CICs services like training to the local youths and Internet access are provided. Local people from anywhere of the State are able to have appointment booking for medical care at Agartala Government Medical College and Hospital (AGMC) and tele consulting facility. NIC has also extended its networking up to the block level through these CICs.

NIC Tripura has given birth to many IT-enabled applications for citizen centric services like touch screen Kiosk Interface for Agartala Municipal Council and transport department, Agartala Government Medical College and Hospital. Development of software for village level resource database for grassroots people, records of right for land owners, hospital management system, passport cases monitoring system, character verification cases monitoring system in case of a person selected for government job etc have added new dimension.

A web based application software developed by NIC, Tripura for monitoring of Swarnajayanti Gram Swarogar Yojana (SGSYY) of Rural Development department is performing well which can be operated through all CICs. It has also achieved success in pay bill package development that is presently being used by most of the state departments. NIC Tripura has been entrusted with the implementation of the e-governance action plan for the State. For this purpose the Union Government has provided Rs. 1.25 crores. This apart, with the commissioning of the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), an element of core infrastructure for supporting e-governance initiatives under the National e-Governance Action Plan (NEGAP), the State is witnessing an IT revolution for social development down to the Panchayat level.

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