The key objective of e-Governance is to enable West Bengal to transform into a knowledge-driven welfare society with extensive use of IT and ITeS in Governance and in the daily lives of the people of the State.
The Government is committed to build a citizen-centric, inclusive and information-driven welfare Society to make the public services available to all sections of the State in a transparent and efficient manner through e-Governance with use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In this direction, the Government has taken up extensive e-Governance projects and schemes in tune with the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) as well as some State-specific initiatives.
Webel Technology Limited (WTL) is the State Designated Agency (SDA) /State Implementing Authority (SIA) for implementation of Digital India Initiatives (erstwhile National e- Governance Projects (NeGP))
WTL undertakes the complete job of development of a computerized System, right from its inception till the final implementation. WTL perform:
West Bengal State Data Center (WBSDC) has been developed by the State of West Bengal, which is envisioned as the ‘Shared, reliable and secure infrastructure services centre for hosting and managing the e-Governance Applications of State and its constituent departments’ and the same has been developed as a part of Mission Mode Project under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) (presently known as Digital India) and to ensure adherence to common principles and policies towards realization of the vision.
Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of West Bengal (DIT&E, GoWB) is the key and core stakeholder of implementation of various Mission Mode Projects under NeGP and West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Ltd. (WBEIDCL) had been identified as the State Implementing Agency (SIA) towards the support of such implementation. A Composite Team had been formed with the officers from WBEIDCL and National Informatics Center (NIC) for shouldering the responsibility of techno-administrative support of overall SDC operations, management and hosting various departmental applications at SDC.
Now, Webel Technology Limited (WTL), a subsidiary of West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited involves in execution of the work related to e- Governance activities as Nodal Agency, as per decision of the State Government through the change of rules of Business. Webel Technology Limited has now become separate entity under the administrative control of Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal. Accordingly WB State Data Center activities are now being taken care of by Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal with Webel Technology Limited as the Nodal Agency. Webel Technology Limited is authorized as both State Nodal Agency (SNA) and State Implementing Agency (SIA) for all e- Governance related activities in place of M/S West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited. A Composite Team has been formed with the officers from WTL and National Informatics Center (NIC) for shouldering the responsibility of techno-administrative support of overall SDC operations, management and hosting various departmental applications at SDC.
The WBSDC is the key-supporting element of e-Government Initiatives & businesses for delivering services to the citizens with greater reliability, availability and serviceability of the Government Departments. SDC facilitates consolidation of services, applications and infrastructure. SDC provides many functionalities and some of the key functionalities are Central data repository, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Remote Management and Service Integration. As one of the pivotal constituents of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), a series of various Government Departments applications are being hosted at SDC. Since SDC is the one and only repository of data and applications pertaining to the State eGovernance applications, the goal of SDC is to secure the Line Departments data and applications, which is one of the major challenges in these days, and to improve the quality of delivery of services to Business, Government and citizen in particular which can only be delivered through appropriate management of internal operations and back office.
The WBSDC is built upon a floor area of about 400 sq m with a provision for extension of about 120 sq m. The SWAN and WBSDC are based on the latest state-of-art technology with a vigorous architecture having multilevel redundancies, security and scalability with an additional emphasis in three-tier power supply system. The WBSDC complied with a world class Tier II data centre (having redundant capacity components and distribution path serving business continuity) as per TIA 942 standards with a guaranteed service level of 99.749% has a safe, secure, monitored, highly available power and cooling arrangements that is capable of accommodating several racks for network components and servers under centralized and simplified management. WBSDC is on the process of achieving ISO 27001/20000 Standard.
The WBSDC is powered through a separate substation with two different sources of grid power supplies supported with multiple generator sets. A sturdy building management system with fire fighting arrangements, water leak detection system, biometrics for access control, alarms & surveillance, rodent repellent, public address system etc ensures safe and secured operation of WBSDC complying with ISMS standards. The WBSDC is fabricated with a full-bodied network infrastructure complied with both present generation Internet Protocol (IP v4) as well next generation Internet Protocol (IP v6) using Dual-Stack deployment and equipped with multilevel security system including intrusion prevention, demilitarization and two-level firewalling. WBSDC has robust Intranet Backbone coupled with 2 different Upstream Internet Service Providers.
Besides, the Data Centre possesses several servers to cater to shared services over multiple OS platforms with virtualization, viz. Windows, Linux and database management systems such as Oracle, MSSQL etc. The shared services also include power, storage space, local area network, tape library and abundant rack space to accommodate additional servers in the server farm. Facility Management Services (FMS) including routine backup, continuous monitoring of security, servers, network devices, application and database services, immediate resolution of defects and incidents are part and parcel of the 24 x 7 operational infrastructures.
The FMS also includes furnished accommodation for the support personnel to be deployed by the Line Departments for regular support of their infrastructure. Measures are also being taken to create Disaster Recovery Service Centre (DRS) in a different seismic zone and integrate the WBSDC with it in order to maintain absolute business continuity with prevention of any data loss.
Line Departments interested in hosting applications in WBSDC may choose any one of the following hosting models depending on the complexity, criticality and volume of their application: Dedicated, Partially shared, and fully shared hosting models. They need to sign a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Department of Information Technology & Electronics.
Keeping the above in view, it is compulsory for the SDC to adapt to standard practices since its inception which are in vogue in the global scenario. Accordingly, SDC has achieved ISO/IEC 20000:2011 that applies to IT Service Management System for maintaining desired quality of services and ISO/IEC 27001:2005 that applies to security of infrastructure, data and applications of the state. In order to meet the objectives of NeGP keeping the efficient and effective service delivery in mind, SDC is required to collaborate with several stakeholders, particularly the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), the Data Centre Operator, various system integrators of the participating Line Departments and etc. In view of this, it is very pertinent and imperative that the stakeholders do follow certain standards, policies and procedures besides executing certain basic roles and responsibilities in order to avoid confusion in and among the stakeholders.
Since the State Data Centre has already completed 7 years of operation, most of the compute is utilized and would require upgradation. The technology used in the current Data Centre is more than 7 years old and would require refresh to keep up to date for security reasons and as per industry standards.
Currently almost all items of the existing SDC has gone obsolete and was declared out of support by the respective Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and the devices are in very critical condition. In view of the above immediate replacement of the obsolete items is extremely important for smooth operation of WBSDC, part of which have been taken care in the revamping & expansion of State Data Centre which is going on. The Data Centre is currently facing a huge demand from the State User departments for hosting their applications.
In view of the above, it was decided to comprehensively develop an all new Data center in the 2nd Floor of Moni Bhandar Building, Webel Bhavan, Salt Lake, Kolkata. The area of the proposed data center is 5000 Sq.Ft. approximately and it will have an integration with the existing Data Center. The revamping & expansion of SDC is expected to be completed within January'2019.
West Bengal State Wide Area Network is the triple play backbone network for data, voice and video communication throughout the state of West Bengal. Over this network various Intranet and e-Governance activities of the Government of West Bengal are being carried out.
Block EP&GP, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata -700091.
09051041622 / (033)23392303
Block EP&GP, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata -700091.
09851056289 / (033)23392277
West Bengal e-District is a Mission Mode Project with the objective of making the State's services available to the citizens through a computerized system. The services may be availed of through Internet or by visiting any CSC-s (Common Service Center) or a Kiosk. It may not be necessary to visit the Government Offices for submitting the application, knowing the status or receiving certificate / license etc.
Webel Technology Limited (WTL) under the administrative control of Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal is involved in successfully implementation of WB e-District project as well as execution of the work related to all other e- Governance activities as Nodal Agency and authorized as State Implementing Agency (SIA) for Government of West Bengal.
Government of West Bengal has been awarded SKOCH ORDER –OF-MERIT (Gold Medal) for year 2017 and Technology Sabha Awards 2018 of Express Computer for Enterprise Apps Category for West Bengal e-District MMP project
The objective of the project is to provide govt. services online for the citizen (G2C).
Geographical - It covers whole of the state comprising 23 districts and most of the departments.
Functional - out of 195 services 120+ services in production and 75 will be in production in next 1 year.
Current Status - More than 60 Lacs of application submitted.
Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering to recognize the projects that involved analysis and re-design of workflow and which resulted in improvement in outcomes related to efficiency, effectiveness of process, cost, quality, service delivery or a combination of these.
Innovative Use of Technology in e-Governance which resulted in delivering enhanced value to its beneficiaries (Citizens).
Outstanding performance in Citizen-Centric Service Delivery which resulted in delivering enhanced value (qualitative or quantitative or both) to its beneficiaries.
Based on the assessment of CSC scheme, the Government launched the CSC 2.0 scheme in 2015 to expand the outreach of CSCs to all Gram Panchayats across the country.
Under CSC 2.0 scheme, at least one CSC will be set up in each of the 2.5 lakh GPs across the country by 2019. CSCs functioning under the existing scheme will also be strengthened and integrated with additional 1.5 lakh CSCs across the country. CSC 2.0 scheme would consolidate service delivery through a universal technology platform, thereby making e-services, particularly G2C services accessible to citizens anywhere in the country.
In the State of West Bengal, CSC scheme is running with state branding as “TathyaMitra Kendra” under able supervision of West Bengal State Rural Development Agency (WBSRDA) as State Designated Agency (SDA) under Department of Panchayat& Rural Development Department, Government of West Bengal. Snapshot of TathyaMitra Kendra as follows:
TathyaMitrakendras are providing a good number of online services to the citizens of West Bengal and a snapshot in this regard as follows:
State Portal is envisaged to be the single-point web portal of the State government for delivering various Government Services in an electronic mode. The following will be made available to the citizens on the portal:
State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) is an intelligent routing mechanism, which will route a citizen's application for a service from State Portal to the respective Government department(s). The gateway will also route back the acknowledgement/status/any other related information to the citizen from the Government department during the processing cycle of the service. SSDG will also enable sharing and interoperability of data across various Government departments.
The project had received administrative approval of DEITY, GoI on 30.03.2009 Vide No. 3(21)/09-EG-2 with the total project cost of Rs. 1161.50 lakhs. RFP process for selection of implementation agency for the project has been completed and LoI has been issued to selected vendor viz. Hewlett-Packard (HP).
About 23 services from 14 departments have been identified for bringing them under SP-SSDG for electronic delivery to the citizens. Some of the major services are Application for merit cum means scholarships for students, Application for Ex-gratia due to loss of life as a result of natural disasters, Application for Micro credit scheme for Self-help groups, Application for issuance of Minority status certificate, Application for Infrastructural support to Reputed NGOs running educational projects for the development & welfare of minorities and Application for scheme of Infrastructure development for Minority affairs etc
A diagrammatic presentation of SSDG architecture depicting flow of information through various levels is as shown below:
For Ease of Doing Business (EODB) in a state, more than 100 Services were required to develop and out of this 75 services were supposed to integrate for a dynamic Composite Application Form (CAF). To achieve this impossible task within a short time span of 4 Months for Information Technology & Electronics Department used an innovative approach of Database level Integration.
Webel Technology Limited (WTL) under the administrative control of Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal is involved in successfully implementation of EODB Services through innovative approach of Database level Integration and use of Rapid Application Development (RAD) Platform as well as execution of the work related to all other e- Governance activities as Nodal Agency and authorized as State Implementing Agency (SIA) for Government of West Bengal.
Department of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal has been awarded SKOCH ORDER –OF-MERIT SKOCH SMART GVERNANCE AWARD 2017 for innovative approach of DB level integration & use of RAD platform for EODB
This is an important for states to bring investment into states to fuel economic growth and create opportunities.
Investors and businesses may need multiple approvals from multiple departments for starting or operating a business. The online single window will provide the following functionalities:
OSWP | Online single window portal |
ADR | Axpert data router – Windows app that will read encrypted data packets and write into database. |
ADE | Axpert data exchange – Windows app that will exchange encrypted data over HTTPS |
STS | Staging server – A file server in the data center that is hosted in the OSWP data center. |
DApp | Department application. |
OSWP | Online single window portal |
DServer | Department server |
CAF | Common Application Form |
RAD | Rapid application development |
Investors who decided to setup a business unit in West Bengal needed to get many approvals from different departments. This was a difficult task for citizens as they had to physically go to different departments, fill up the relevant application forms, pay the fees and apply for approvals.
Further, the approval process required the citizen to interact with more than one Government officials in each department who were operating as independent silos.
In many cases, an approval from a department would depend on the approval obtained from another department which may again depend on another. This required in-depth knowledge of the all the government procedures to start a business unit.
It was so complex that all needed approvals cannot be obtained from the government without the help of middlemen. This increased the cost & time of getting approvals and also subjected investors to untold hardships. There is no way to verify the authenticity of middlemen who were inevitable in getting approvals which significantly brought down the trust of investors on the government.
The development and implementation of the OSWP that integrates data from 130+ services was innovative and seamless.
First an org structure was defined as given below
The project steering committee consists of project visionaries, stakeholders and senior architects who visualized the solution for the problem faced by investors. They selected a robust Rapid Application Development platform with deep integration capabilities for achieving the goal.
Each project manager was given an independent project organization that consisted of high skilled people with varied specializations.
Analysts understood the requirement and documented them for developers. Developers created the solution on a RAD platform. The analysts created test cases along with the testers to test the product. This was done parallel to the app development to save time. A service along with the backend work flow was hence completed within 10 days and was ready for UAT.
This process was followed by a UAT along with the key users in each department. The changes that are required by the department are documented , made and moved to production server.
Even before the development was started, the development & test environment were setup and made. The progress was tracked by PM based the actual work deployed on the testing server and not just on status updates on excel sheets. This ensured that the project tracking was more real time and accurate.
The deployment and technical architecture are given in the next few sections.
Investors can sign up into this portal and are verified using an OTP that is sent to their email and mobile. Every investor is uniquely identified through their email address and a password. All user information is encrypted and stored in the database.
Each application form that is required to get approval of services provided by departments will be created as forms within the portal.
The forms are created on a Meta driven model. The data descriptors, validation rules and computation rules about every element in the form and the form layout are stored as part of Meta data within the database in an encrypted format.
The solution architecture of the OSWP will be as given below
The OSWP will manage the backend work flow related to departments. The status about the processing of the service will be intimated to the investor based on progress. In case a department has a software application already available, the OSWP portal will be post the service request into the department software application (named as department application in this document).
The CAF is a dynamic aggregation of forms related to getting approvals of multiple services that may be required to setup the desired business. The CAF is generated by dynamically aggregating the meta data of each selected form.
On submit of data in CAF, the data related to each department will be sent to the respective departments and updated into their application.
Subsequent processing for approvals will happen within applications in that department. Periodic status updates will be provided by the respective applications to the online singe window portal (OSWP). The portal will in turn provide the status updates to the investor through emails and the SMS.
Integration requires the creation of a seamless flow of data from the OSWP to a Department and from a Department to the OSWP. The traditional method of writing a bunch of web services on the OSWP side (to be consumed by the Department’s systems) and on the Department’s side (to be consumed by the OSWP system) can always be done but is not recommended under the circumstances where the application architecture does not follow a state of the art SOA. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, writing web services correctly in a short time requires a certain level of skills for developers and vendors which may not be available with SIs/ IT vendors of all Departments and secondly, integration testing of web services typically requires a lot of time because of the time taken in designing and developing the exception handling process. That is why integration through the traditional method of writing web services typically requires 9 to 12 months. Integration was done therefore through the use of the tool Date Exchange (ADE) and Axpert Data Router (ADR) which would achieve integration at the data layer without web services.
For the purposes of integration, the departments are classified as below based on the sophistication of IT systems within a Department and its readiness for integration:
Type A departments - Some departments which already have applications (online systems) and which would be integrated with the OSWP are classified as Type A Departments.
Type B departments - The departments that do not have applications (currently manual) but which need to be integrated with OSWP by providing workflows on the OSWP are classified as Type B Departments.
Type C departments - Departments that offer stand alone online services but are not integrated with OSWP are classified as Type C departments. These backend work flow related to these services will be part of the OSWP and stored in the same database as the OSWP.
The workflow for a Type B Department will be built on OSWP and the services related to that Department will be naturally integrated with OSWP. Since machine to machine integration is relevant only for Type A Departments, only integration with Type A Department is given in the next section.
The OSWP was be implemented on a Rapid Application Development platform.
Used tool is a RAD platform on which apps can be developed in 50% of the time, effort and skill required to build an app using traditional programming languages. Apps are developed on the tool by only defining the data structures, work flow and business rules on the fly using a simple and intuitive IDE. There is no need to write code in business or presentation layer.
Tool's architecture is complete SOA based and works on a Microsoft Dot net framework on a windows server. There is no need to write web services or REST services to create apps. Tool also comes with a data router and exchange apps that enables seamless and secure data exchange with other apps at the database level.
The tool comes with features for on the fly form, report and work flow definition and rendering. There is no need to code any of these. The data of forms are stored in standard RDBMS (Oracle, MYSQL, MS SQL).
The security standards that are followed for any distributed RDBMS based applications can be applied on the tool applications to ensure maximum security of data. A robust access control layer that comes along with the tool ensures maximum safety of data. This gives complete control to the app administrator to restrict access of data for relevant user groups.
OSWP involves creating of new apps and integrating with different kind of apps that run on different platforms on technologies. The rules in the citizen forms in each of the already online services had to be recreated in a short time in the OSWP. This kind of a work involved innovation in every task.
There are 130+ services that need to be integrated into a single platform. There human effort involved in this is high. A robust mix of domain experts, project leads, technical architects, high skilled developers and testers needed to be deployed to make this project a success. So, the team building activity was a challenge as it required specialists with different skills to be assembled under a strong leader. All had to be aligned to the vision within a short time to achieve the goal in a short time.
Nearly 60+ services were already available to citizens online through an application that is developed by different vendors. Each application was developed on different technologies (like IBM stack, Oracle apps, SAP, LAMP stack, dot net stack etc...). Many of these apps did not have the capability to publish API to be consumed by the OSWP. Even if some apps had such a capability it was a time intense task to publish those APIs. Integration with these apps has been achieved in the data layer.
The common application form (CAF) is the heart of this software application. The CAF is a dynamic aggregation of forms related to getting approvals of multiple services that may be required to setup the desired business. The CAF is generated by dynamically aggregating the Meta data of each selected form. On submit of data in CAF, the data related to each department will be sent to the respective departments and updated into their application. This is one of the biggest challenges in this project. All forms in this application had to be generated on the fly based on Meta data. Only then these forms could be aggregated on real time to provide the CAF. This project cannot be done without this capability.
Configurable web services layer integration helps developers to achieve integration with web services without writing code in the middle layer. Only the data marshalling and unmarshalling needs to be handled in the portal side which is done within the database. This speeds up web services level integration at the OSWP side as it does not require extensive coding.
This project could not be completed without the secure data exchange router that was used to integrate apps that could not publish APIs. Apps can talk to each other through APIs. The apps developed in older technologies may not have the capability to publish APIs. The ones that were developed without a proper segregation of, presentation, business and data layer will require deep and elaborate coding to publish APIs.
This has been overcome with an innovative approach to do a data level integration through data exchange components named ADR and ADE. The ADR extracted modified or new data from database and converted them to data packets and stored them in a staging server. The ADE transported these packets to the relevant application though secure HTTPS. The ADR at the receiving end pushed the packets into the database without breaking the application as per the CERT-IN guidelines. This is described in more detail below.
Exceptions are accumulated in OSWP which can be monitored and corrected by a central support team.
The department app is assumed to writing status updates into a table. A trigger will be written in such tables to update the status against CAF No. All status updates will be aggregated into the CAFStatus table.
The above architecture is a safe and secure architecture for the following reasons:
Hence the above architecture conforms to the industry standard security practices to ensure data security and access control. This architecture rules out any danger fromcross site scripting, SQL injection, identity theft, network eavesdropping& unauthorized access.
The following measures are being taken as per the CERT-IN recommendations.
When you create systems that store and retrieve data, it is important to protect the data from unauthorized use, disclosure, modification or destruction. Ensuring that users have the proper authority to see the data, create new data, or update existing data is an important aspect of application development. Do all users need the same level of access to the data and to the functions provided by your applications? Are there subsets of users that need access to privileged functions? Are some data restricted to certain classes of users? The answers to questions like these help provide the basis for the security requirements for your application.
Tool includes a powerful and flexible role-based security model to protect your data according to your application security requirements. There is always a trade-off between security and usability. When a system has no security, then it is open to malicious or un-malicious unauthorized access. When a system is too tightly secured, it might become difficult to use successfully. Before implementing your application security model, it is important to understand the core concepts and features in the Tool's security model. This section provides the data security model and includes the following sections:
Authentication is the process of verifying user credentials for a named user. Authentication makes sure you are who you say you are. Users are typically authenticated with a username and password. Authentication verifies user credentials and associates an application session with the authenticated user. Every request to Tool is issued from an authenticated user. Authentication, by itself, does not grant access or authority to perform specific actions. Authentication by username and password is one of the methods. You might grant access to users who are authenticated through a single sign in (managed by ADS or LDAP). This may also be integrated with Aadhar database to ensure high levels of security.
The passwords that are defined in Tool are encrypted and stored using salted MD5 algorithms. These are secure as the salt key is generated randomly using public & private keys. The system will force users to change their passwords at defined intervals. The system will also force users to provide strong passwords.
Authorization provides the mechanism to control data access, For an authenticated user, authorization determines what you are allowed to do. For example, authorization is what allows the access to menu options, buttons or functions in the application. Using authorization users or group of users may be restricted access to classified data.
Administration is the process of defining, configuring, and managing the security objects, such as users, roles and privileges that implement your security policies. Privileges are is identified by a unique name and assigned access to the elements in the application like menu items, web services, buttons and links through which tasks are done or data is viewed.
The Tool's Server security model is flexible and enables you to set up application security with the level of granularity needed by your security requirements.
Roles are the central point of authorization in the Tool's security model. Privileges, users, responsibilities and permissions all relate to roles.
A set of privileges is assigned to a role. A user may be assigned one or more roles. These can set through an intuitive user interface to the administrator to effectively manage the permissions and authority for users.
When a privilege is assigned to a role, it may be assigned every data element in a form or report. The data element could be an input field, a button or a hyperlink. The privilege may be extended to subsets of data by defining data filters and assigning privileges on the dataset.
The picture below shows the deployment architecture of OSWP in the data center.
Each web server has a fail over server to manage effective DR. This should be configured in Active-Active mode.
One exchange box should be deployed in the OSWP portal to manage exchange of data along with departments that have their own application.
In case of departments that have their own applications and which need data level integration through ADR an exchange box is to be deployed within its firewall.
The picture above depicts the change after implementing the OSWP. As evident from the picture, it brought out the following benefits to the citizens
The potential to replicate to various other state governments are high based on the following
The Lite version of eOffice Product Suite of National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been implemented by NIC in January 2018 in all 50 secretariat departments of Government of West Bengal under the leadership of PAR and eGovernance Department. Necessary training, handholding, deployment, maintenance, upgradation are being done by NIC. More than 1200 master trainers have been trained by NIC during the period Oct’2017 to Dec’2017 and more than 4500 employees have been made onboard by NIC as on 2nd Jan, 2018. As on 29th Jan 2018, more than 15000 eFiles have been created using eOffice.
WTL alongside WBSWAN and WBSDC have been entrusted for establishment of necessary hardware infrastructure and network across the state for implementing eOffice. Necessary cloud infrastructure has been provided by WBSDC for hosting eOffice application of NIC. WBSWAN has spread the WBSWAN network to all the 50 departments for accessing eOffice application. WTL has provided necessary hardware like PC, Scanner, printers etc to all the departments. For day-to-day handholding support, Information Technology & Electronics department entrusted WTL for engaging SSP (Software Support Professional) for all 50 departments. WTL has conducted the examination, interview and other procedures for selection of suitable candidates in association with NIC and SeMT. After training from NIC, SSPs are placed by Information Technology & Electronics department to respective departments. WBSWAN has established a new dedicated 100 Mbps direct connectivity from Nabanna to WBSDC for providing more bandwidth for the offices at Nabanna. WBSWAN has also established/upgraded 45 Mbps WAN connectivity to major office buildings like Bikash Bhavan, New Secretariat Building, etc. SMS gateway has been provided by WTL for alert generation from eOffice. WTL may grant privileges to the senior officers of the governments to access e-office from public network over VPN.
Commercial Taxes (CT) is a Mission Mode Project under Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. The project aims at creation of a national infrastructure for facilitating inter-state trade, ensuring uniformity and standards in Commercial Tax administration and enabling free exchange of information. Technology has emerged as a key element of citizen service delivery and identification of various e-Governance initiatives that can alter the way services are delivered has been the cornerstone of CT-MMP. CT-MMP intends to transform key processes leading to improved service delivery and build capacities among all the stakeholders to enable people delivering the services to perform better.
Directorate of Commercial Taxes, GoWB has implemented the e-governance application for commercial tax related services in West Bengal. Intranet of the CT-MMP application is hosted at SDC. The application is being expensively used by business units in the State for various services including online registration under VAT and CST Acts, demat registration certificate, eFiling of returns, ePayment through Bank portal, demat CST forms, transit declaration and waybill generation, online refund through ECS, eApplication for IPA, eGrievance and eAnti-evasion etc.
Crime and Criminal Tracking & Network System (CCTNS) is a Mission Mode Project conceptualized and sponsored by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) towards enhancing outcomes in Crime Investigation and Criminals Tracking; and in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of police departments in all States. It is proposed to achieve this through the adoption of the principles of e-Governance and creating a nationwide, networked infrastructure for supporting an ICT enabled policing system.
Department of Home, GoWB is implementing the project in the State. The project is envisaged to cover 486 Police Stations & 197 Higher Offices in the State. CCTNS application and server-side infrastructure has already been hosted at SDC. The application is intended to electronically deliver services including complaints, status enquiry, online verification services, details of stolen/recovered vehicles and firearms and missing person report etc.
The National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) is a mission mode project under Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, GOI launched in August 2008, aimed to modernize management of land records, minimize scope of land/property disputes, enhance transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitate moving eventually towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties in the country. The major components of the programme are computerization of all land records including mutations, digitization of maps and integration of textual and spatial data, survey/re-survey and updation of all survey and settlement records including creation of original cadastral records wherever necessary, computerization of registration and its integration with the land records maintenance system, development of core Geospatial Information System (GIS) and capacity building.
Land and Land Reforms (L&LR) department is the nodal department for NLRMP project in the State. Under NLRMP, complete convergence of Registration and Mutation services will take place. For this purpose, connectivity between all Registration and L&LR offices is being established over WBSWAN.
e-Panchayat is a mission mode project being implemented by P&RD Department in the State. Under the project, a Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS) portal has been implemented across the State. A centralized database of rural households is also being maintained and a pension disbursement system is also in place under the project.
Government of West Bengal and DFID in 1999, agreed to collaborate on the development of the "Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor" (KUSP) programme aimed at improving urban planning and governance; access to basic services for the poor and promoting economic growth in the KMA (40 ULBs under KMA). The project is aimed to support for provision of infrastructure in slums, fill critical infrastructure gaps at the town level and in some cases also support infrastructure that serve two or more municipalities. In addition, support for the process of economic visioning and planning involving the formal and informal business sectors and also capacity building of municipalities and State level agencies is also envisaged in the project.
The KUSP application (e-Municipality) being implemented in the ULBs (Urban Local body or Municipality) consists of electronic delivery of various citizen services including e-Payment, Birth and Death certificate, Calculation and payment of property tax, Trade license, Building approvals, Utility bill payments and Grievance handling etc.
AGRISNET is a Mission Mode Project under Department of Agriculture & Co-operation, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI which was launched as a component of a Central Sector Scheme titled, Strengthening / Promoting Agricultural Informatics & Communications. AGRISNET portal shall provide relevant information and services to the farming community and private sector through the use of information and communication technologies, to supplement the existing delivery channels provided for by the department.
The KUSP application (e-Municipality) being implemented in the ULBs (Urban Local body or Municipality) consists of electronic delivery of various citizen services including e-Payment, Birth and Death certificate, Calculation and payment of property tax, Trade license, Building approvals, Utility bill payments and Grievance handling etc.
Department of Agriculture, GoWB has initiated the project in the State with the following service objectives:
Project also consists of development of a Farmers Advisory System and delivery of e-service on Fertiliser Recommendation on parameters like Block, Mouza, Crop and Season against soil test parameters of the locality. The delivery of e-Services will be through Internet access (through www.wbagrisnet.gov.in) as well as through SMS. Other components of the project include:
VAHAN (Vehicle Registration System) is a mission mode project under Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, GOI aimed at creating national register for registered vehicles in the country. The application has been designed and developed by NIC.
The Transport department, GoWB has implemented the VAHAN project with e-services application including online vehicle tax payment by citizens and Vehicle registration (new, transfer of ownership, address change, NOC, duplicate RC etc.). The application has gone live for the citizens and is being used by the department extensively for these services.
Under Land Records I Mission Mode Project, digitization of all land records including plot information and maps was implemented under Bhuchitra application in the State. Bhuchitra application was designed and developed by NIC. Since June, 2010 all service requests are being processed largely electronically though not in end to end online mode. Following services are being provided through the application: