E-Paper
Physical files cause concern as U.P. sectt wants to go fully online
The state government apparently wants to carry out all the secretariat work online. So chief secretary Durga Shanka Mishra has issued orders asking departments to give specific reason for presenting a physical file or else the same would be returned to the respective departments and the authorities concerned would be held responsible for the delay.
Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh secretariat has been using e-office to go completely online. A large chunk of the state secretariat’s work is now being carried out on the e-office, yet the use of physical files by certain departments or their sections is causing serious concerns in the corridors of power here.
The state government apparently wants to carry out all the secretariat work online. So chief secretary Durga Shanka Mishra has issued orders asking departments to give specific reason for presenting a physical file or else the same would be returned to the respective departments and the authorities concerned would be held responsible for the delay.
“It has been observed that some departments are not effectively following orders (about e-office) and carry out their work on physical files. You are therefore requested to pay personal attention to ensure that all the work is carried out on e-office,” said the chief secretary in an order sent to all additional chief secretaries/principal secretaries/secretaries here on Wednesday.
As the cases relating to financial sanctions, inquiries and court cases etc. sometime require reference to large physical documents, the chief secretary has pointed out that specific reason be noted for presenting any physical file. “If there is a need to present physical file in any case, the same may be submitted mandatorily giving specific reason for doing so or else my office will return such files and additional chief secretary/principal secretary or secretary of department will be held responsible for any delay in such matters,” said Mishra.
The Uttar Pradesh secretariat had officially launched e-office for its functioning in 2017. It issued orders on August 8, 2020 and September 1, 2020 to carry out all office work on e-office. It also issued orders to carry out interdepartmental work on e-office with immediate effect on October 13, 2020 and a large chunk of secretariat work is being carried out on e-office only.
A senior officer of the secretariat administration department (SAD) said most of the work in secretariat was being carried out online. He said 91 out of 93 departments were using the e-office. The protocol and vigilance departments were out of the purview of the e-office. He said the 93 departments had 465 sections while only 25 to 30 sections needed to present a physical file. “We are making efforts to ensure that all the departments and sections use the e-office system now,” he said.
Asked about the backup for the e-office files the officer said the National Informatics Centre was responsible for providing the same. He said a state data centre had been set up in the state capital while the NIC had another data centre in New Delhi and all the e-office files had a double backup.
About e-office, the NIC on its website has noted “e-office aims to support governance by ushering in more effective and transparent inter and Intra-government processes. The vision of e-office is to achieve a simplified, responsive, effective and transparent working of all government offices. The open architecture on which e-office has been built, makes it a reusable framework and a standard reusable product amenable to replication across the governments, at the central, state and district levels. The product brings together independent functions and systems under a single framework.”
