Delay in e-office system rollout irks U.P. govt

The Uttar Pradesh government has taken strong exception to the delay in implementation of the e-office system to make the offices of the heads of department and the directorates and the district level offices paperless.

The state government has asked the departments again to ensure that the e-office system is implemented completely, and all the offices attached to the secretariat, along with the district offices, are made paperless in the next two to three months.

The state government had earlier asked these offices to implement the e-office system on July 4, 2023. A timebound programme for implementation and the action to be taken was communicated to the departments to ensure that the e-office system was implemented by December 25, 2023 (Good Governance Day).

As these offices have not done the needful nearly a year after these directives, the state government has given fresh instructions and asked them to take necessary action in the coming weeks.

“Yes, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has given directives that all these offices, which have not been able to implement the e-office system up to now, should do so and go paperless in next three to four months,” said Anil Kumar Sagar, principal secretary, information technology and electronics department.

Sagar said chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra has also issued directives, asking these offices to implement the e-office system.

The chief secretary, in an order issued on June 12, 2024 to all the additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries and secretaries, said some of the offices have not even nominated the designated employees for the purpose.

“Many departments have not completed the implementation of the e-office. Such a situation is not acceptable,” the chief secretary said in his order. He said the new files should be created only as e-files and the use of moving the physical files should be stopped.

The chief secretary said the digitisation and scanning of files should be complete by June 30, 2024 and a report in this regard should be submitted to the nodal organisation -- the Uttar Pradesh Electronic Corporation and the electronics department. There are, however, indications that the implementation of the e-office system completely is going to take time.

“The implementation of e-office will require digital signatures of all the concerned. The process of data mapping may take some time as there is a set procedure to do so,” a senior officer said.