BIHAR: Bihar strides on IT path

IT is not new to the State. Activities of computerization already started in early 90's. Till date most of the computerization activities are being carried out by National Informatics Center, Ministry of Information Technology, Govt of India. Initially District Informatics Center was established to support activities in districts for monitoring of schemes. In addition various departments at headquarter level have been computerized to support day-to-day decision making process. 

Government has taken all steps to promote IT culture through its e-governance project. Most of the departments are likely to be computerized. Initially public Interface departments such as treasury, commercial taxes, GPF, municipal taxes, land registry, land records etc are being computerized.

State government is also keen to promote IT culture through out State in order to benefit the mass through this technology.

Some of the major computerization activities carried out by the State government with the technical support from National Informatics Center, Bihar State Unit, Patna include:

Transport Computerization

Objective and implementation status Public queue for one time tax payment for vehicles
National Informatics Center, Bihar State Unit has successfully implemented the computerization program of the Transport Department.

The package takes care of Tax Collection, registration, renewal of licences etc. The package has been very popular and proved to be very useful. It has made the entire process of Revenue Collection very fast, easy and convincing to the tax payers.

Statewide district transport computerization

This exercise to computerize the Surface Transport Sector in the state govt is further extended to cover up rest of the districts.

The successful implementation of the transport package and sharp rise in the revenue collection in the selected districts of Bihar has attracted the State Govt to penetrate the computerization plan to other 40 districts in a phase manner. The National Informatics Center Bihar State Unit has submitted a Project Plan for the statewide computerization of all District Transport Offices located at various districts. The plan will be executed very soon with the Govt's approval.

Treasury computerization

Objective and implementation status A view of computerization at treasury District treasuries are computerized in a phase manner. All districts treasuries have been taken in the purview of the computerization program. This is an on-line computerization project to facilitate easy and faster processing of transactions at treasuries.

Statewide district treasury computerization

This could be a major breakthrough as far as National Informatics Center, Bihar State Unit's achievements are concerned. In Bihar, few districts including the Sachivalay Treasury are already computerized. The Govt. has satisfied with the National Informatics Center's Treasury Computerization Program. On request from State Govt. National Informatics Centre, Bihar State Unit submitted the statewide District Treasury Computerization Plan to the State Govt. The Govt. approved the Plan Proposal of worth Rs. 6.22 Crore to computerize 55 district treasuries in (Undivided) Bihar. Most of the treasuries have been computerized and it has been decided to extend the computerization to Sub-Treasury level. The work is in progress.

Finance Computerization

Finance Data Cell at Main Secretariat.A state-of-art computer center has been established in Finance Department to computerize most of the Financial Transactions. This includes computerization of entire Budget formulation process, Financial resource forecasts, Eleventh Finance Commission Reports, Treasury wise expenditure, Loan & Advances etc.

GPF Computerization

Objective and implementation status.The Directorate of GPF, Govt of Bihar deals almost 3,00,000 state govts employees for maintenance of their GPF subscriptions, loans, withdrawals and refunds. National Informatics Center has initiated the computerization program for the Patna District official comprising of 60,000 employees.

The software package successfully designed, developed and implemented in Patna is envisaged to get implemented in the rest of the district in Bihar very soon.

Statewide GPF Computerization

Seeing success of the GPF Directorate computerization, state govt. has shown keen interest in extending the computerization activities to all the districts. National Informatics Center has submitted a proposal plan for statewide GPF computerization.

The work is in progress. Training program's in this connection has been given to all the district officials and many districts have started the computerization work.

Commercial Tax Computerization

Computerization work at Commercial Taxes department.The Finance (Commercial Tax) department play a vital role in the physical arrangement of decentralized Tax Collection through its numerous and widely through out the state. National Informatics Center has developed a comprehensive software to monitor the fund flow, defaulters' list, reminder letters, cases monitoring etc. The state Govt. is working out on an ambitious program to monitor the revenue receipts through network.

Bihar State Electricity Board Computerization

Objective and implementation status.Efficient functioning of the power sector is necessary to sustain the economic growth of any state. In Bihar, Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) is the sole agency for all types of work related to power generation, transmission and its distribution across the state.

Being a capital intensive project, regular and accurate billing and timely collection of revenue is also necessary to keep the cash-flow in correct shape and is the focus of this project. Any type of loss in revenue collection directly translates into shortage of funds for all other ongoing projects or maintenance and modernization of existing infrastructure.

Initially, the job of energy billing was performed by outside agencies for the BSEB. This arrangement eventually proved out to be inadequate since private agencies are unwilling to take up the task in low consumer density areas. It is also difficult for BSEB to monitor the quality aspect of service rendered by them.

These factors led to the conclusion that BSEB now must take up this task upon itself so that consumers receive correct energy bills on time and their problems are also looked into as quickly as possible.