With the concept of paperless office picking up steam, both government departments and private companies are now reducing or eliminating papers totally and going in for digital forms instead. This not only leads to environment friendly offices but also boosts the productivity and efficiency of employees, while saving money at the same time. Following the same concept of going paperless, Saharsa District Magistrate put in his efforts and made Saharsa Collectorate Bihar’s first E-collectorate.
India Masterminds spoke to Saharsa District Magistrate Anand Sharma, IAS, and learned in detail about the paperless collectorate and its advantages.
FIRST PAPERLESS COLLECTORATE
Saharsa district got the distinction of being the first collectorate to go paperless. This has been possible due to the efforts of the District Magistrate, IAS officer Anand Sharma. After the implementation of the e-office system under the paperless system, all the work related to the collectorate has become online.
OBJECTIVE
There were number of situations that prompted the DM to opt for paperless collectorate. There was need for transparency in file movement and reducing the time taken for its disposal at every level, issue of data security and integrity, manual movement of files and its tracking is time consuming and an unproductive procedure, and lastly, to shed traditional office work culture and ethics.
“Seeing the Covid-19 pandemic situation and to follow the social distancing norms, we were looking forward to converting the collectorate into a paperless collectorate,” said the officer.
PROCESS
This whole process started with workshops and seminars to motivate all stakeholders for the transition that was going to take place. Thereafter, the assessment of infrastructure and training requirements plans were prepared. Training of staff and officers conducted, E-Office ID of staff and officers were created, and mapping was done. Scanning of files of all sections were conducted and mapped and the files migrated to concerned IDs through NIC.
“3 lakhs pages and up to 5000 files were scanned and converted into digital files. And all sections started inter-office movement and processing of files and documents through E-Office process,” DM Sharma said.
ADVANTAGES OF E-OFFICE SYSTEM
E-Office or paperless collectorate is going to be beneficial to the district administration offices in the following ways:
- Enhance transparency – files can be tracked, and their status is known to all at all times
- Increase accountability – the responsibility of quality and speed of decision making is easier to monitor.
- Assure data security and data integrity.
- Promote innovation by releasing staff energy and time from unproductive procedures.
- Transform the government work culture and ethics.
- Promote greater collaboration in the workplace and effective knowledge management.
- Ensure proper following of social distancing norms in Saharsa district administration offices under Covid 19 prevention protocol.
- It will also lower the possibility of leaking any documents or files from the system.
Mr. Anand further added that going paperless is going to save lot of government money, which can be used for implementation of different welfare schemes.
