The IT revolution in District Bilaspur started with the establishment of District Unit of National Informatics Centre (NIC) in the year 1988 and since then is giving yeoman service to the district administration as well as other departments in the district in spreading ICT. Various softwares developed locally as well as at NIC HP State Centre have been implemented through the NIC District Unit.

Infrastructure

LAN at Bilaspur consist of 4 servers catering to 50 clients. Besides, 15 PC’s has been installed in various branches of DC office. This LAN connects not only the important branches of the District Collectorate but also other Departments like Directorate of Fisheries, Excise & Taxation, SP Office and PWD. All the offices connected through this LAN have also been provided with the Internet Connectivity. NIC’s network known as NICNET presently connects all the district to State capitals to Center through satellite ARAB-SAT.

The District Centre has successfully undertaken milestones projects some of which are briefly mentioned below:

Revenue Department Computerisation : The Revenue Department has a great focus, in regards to it’s computerization, not only from NIC but also from the State Government. HIMBHOOMI - Land Records Computeriszation, HIMRIS - Land Deeds Registration are the major projects being implemented for this department. HIMBHOOMI, which focuses on the operationalisation of the Tehsil / Sub-Tehsil computer centres with the latest updated data of land records of all the villages of the concerned tehsil made available on computers and which is updated immediately whenever any transactions (mutations) take place in the field. This enables any common man to take a copy of the Record Of Rights instantly. The first Tehsil of Bilaspur Sadar was made online on 13th March 2005, when it was formally inaugurated by Honourable Chief Minister Himachal Pradesh Sh Virbhadra Singh.

The next in the anvil is Sub-Tehsil Sri Naina Deviji, which is just on the verge of operationalisation, with it’s major activity for making it online being completed at the district centre. Before the end of 2005, the entire data of Tehsils Jhandutta and Ghumarwin shall also be made online and the respective Tehsil Centers made operational.

E-Governance Centres : In the year 2004, the District Center of NIC and the District Administration, embarked upon an innovative E-Governance Project aimed at providing Citizen Centric Services by the setting up of E-Governance Centers in the DC Office Complex and SDM Office Ghumarwin. The concept of such centers is based on providing improved services to the citizens in a shorter time, but also making them self sustaining by means of the service charge being charged from the general public, who happily like to pay a small amount extra for the better services being delivered to them. These Centres have been established with the following objectives.

·     Transparency in the working of the Government

·    To ensure greater efficiency, objectivity, accountability and speed in providing services and information to the public.

·      To provide cost effective service and quality of the same.

·      To provide single window for all Govt. Services at District Level

·      Responsive Administration.

·      To provide a friendly, speedier and efficient interface.

·      To eliminate the middlemen

In the first phase, SARATHI – Issue of Driving Licenses and VAHAN - Vehicles Registration have been started in the E-governance Centre. Additional activities expected to start shortly in this centre include Arms License (ALIS), Passport Form Collection Counter (WEBPASS), Set-up of E-Kiosks to give a citizen interface to the information.

The E-Governance Centre at DC Office Complex Bilaspur has been running since february 2004.

Video Conferencing : In an attempt to improve efficiency and responsiveness in administration, NIC has established a Video Conferencing facility in the District Collectorate, which is a part of the project of providing such facility in all the 12 districts and 4 remote sub-divisions of the state. The Hon’ble Chief Minister, Sh. Virbhadra Singh dedicated this Video Conferencing facility on 26^th July, 2005. This inaugural VC session lasted for more than 2 hours during which the Hon’ble Chief Minister had a meeting with Deputy Commissioners and other district officers including SPs of all the districts. The conferencing system has multipoint conferencing facility also through which many sites can confer with each other simultaneously in continuous presence mode, while many additional sites can be in receive only mode. VC setups support a speed of 384 kbps besides providing data connectivity. The connectivity is presently through VSATs, but ISDN lines can also be used in case of satellite link failures.

Welfare Department Computerisation: The disbursement of the pension to the pensioners of various categories like Widows, Old Aged Persons, Handicapped and Lepers is a major task for the department, for which a Computerised System has been implemented. The system helps maintain the pensioner details, ledgers, Money Orders generation on pre-printed Money Orders and numerous reports. Another software namely ‘Disability Certificate Information System’ helps the department to issue the certificates to the disabled persons for availing various benefits and concessions from the government.

Payroll Processing : The standard state level software used for the paybill generation has been implemented in around 70 offices covering about 7000 employees. Bilaspur was the pilot district for the implementation of this software in all the Senior Secondary and High Schools of the district, and the same has been achieved successfully.

Apart from above, some other ICT Applications which are in active use include: Co-operative Statistics Computerisation, DISNIC Taxation, Passenger Goods Tax Software, Education MIS, District Court (DCIS) and All India Education Survey 7 (AIES)

District Website : NIC District Centre has developed the official website of District Bilaspur. The website http://hpbilaspur.nic.in was inaugurated by the then Hon’ble Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. This Website provides comprehensive information on History, Facts at a Glance, Tourism, Access, Maps, Administration, IT in District, Citizen Services, Martyrs and Gallantry Award Winners, Photo Gallery etc. related to District Bilaspur.

ROAD AHEAD (FUTURE STRATEGY) :

1.    Making all Tehsil and Sub-Tehsil Centres operational and online for issuance of    ROR (Record Of Rights) copies by the end of 2005.

2.    Implementation of Land Deeds in all Tehsil / Sub-Tehsil Centres

3.    Operationalisation of E-Governance Centre at SDM Office Ghumarwin.

4.    Implementation of E-Parman softwares in all Tehsil / Sub-Tehsil Centres.

5.    Implementation of WEBPASS (Passport Collection) in District E-Governance Centre.

6.    Installation of Kiosk with display of active data from various applications.

7.    Expansion of DC Office LAN.

8.    Web-enabled REFNIC Implementation.