e-office - A National Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan, approved by the Cabinet


    e-Office is one of the Mission Mode Projects (MMP), under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The NeGP as also the e-Office project has been approved by the Cabinet for implementation during the 11th Five Year Plan. The project is aimed at significantly improving the operational efficiency of Central Government Ministries and Departments through improvement in the workflow mechanisms and associated office procedure manuals. The DARPG is the nodal agency for implementing the project. "e-Office" or any less-paper initiative primarily involves workflow automation and knowledge management including document records management, setting and controlling the workflow in the organization, work allocation and tracking, maintaining audit trails, performance benchmarking and generating operational MIS.

    To begin with, the project was launched in 3 pilot sites i.e., DAR&PG, Training Division of DoP&T and e-Governance Division of Department of Information Technology in September 2010.  Further, an   Orientation Workshop of Government of   India Nodal officers was held in New Delhi on June 15, 2011. This was the first workshop of this kind, which was attended by the Nodal Officers of the 18 consenting Departments/Ministries. Implementation in these departments have been planned.

Prior to that a team from DARPG visited these Ministries/ Departments   to do the process study and to gather feedback.

The draft of the CSMeOP(e-Manual) has been completed, which intends to familiarize the users to work in an electronic environment.

Objective

 
(i) Workflow automation: All the activities shall follow well defined workflow processes, most of which are automated and performed by the system through the use of generic customizable electronic file system;

(ii) Automation of Routine Tasks: Routine tasks that do not require any decision by a user,can be automated and performed at regular intervals by the system;

(iii) Quick Access to Information: e-Office would provide a systematic approach to storage, retrieval, communication, integration and publication of information available in different formats such as documents, statistics etc.

(iv) System would be able to handle required volumes and types of files.

Improved Transparency


(v) Physical file would be converted to suitably redesigned e-files;

(vi) Easy tracking of the status and location of a file at any given  point of time will curb delays and facilitate exception reporting; and

(vii) The project would facilitate publication of information through appropriate websites.

Better accountability through monitoring of work and performance management


(viii) Online availability of dashboards; alerts etc, so that the work done at various levels can be monitored and assessed regularly; and

Confidentiality and security


(ix) This is a pre-requisite of electronic handling of files of Government Ministries and Departments and the requisite security will be ensured under  e-Office;

(x) Proper access control would be implemented;

(xi) Highly secure technology would be deployed; and

(xii) Security audit will be mandated.

Modern Office Environment


(xiii) Facelift of traditional offices will be taken up alongside

(xiv) Less paper office

Improved capacity and legal enablement of electronic office


(xv) Capacity of staff to be built to operate in the e-Office environment; and

(xvi) Office procedures and other related guidelines will be modified in conjunction with the implementation of e-Office


Strategy


(a) Define technical standards;

(b) Provide e-Manual (Central Secretariat Manual of e-Office   Procedures);

(c) Create Role Models;

(d) Create a simple system for selection and operation of e-Office environment;

(e) All the above would enable the Department to develop a Standard Roadmap;

(f) Security/confidentiality.

    An amount of Rs.1.81 Crores has been released in the year 2009 to National Informatics Centre (NIC) for implementation of e-Office MMP.

    Further, DAR&PG has also formulated and circulated Change Management and Business Process Reengineering Frameworks to all Central Government Ministries/Departments.