DHE to go IT savvy

THE DAYS of waiting for weeks, and at times for months at a go, to get a reply to a mail will soon be a thing of the past for the Directorate of Higher Education (DHE). Soon, its regional offices and the governmental colleges located even in far off places in the State will just be a mouse click away for it.

Under an ambitious plan, all of Higher Education Directorate's regional offices and government colleges are going to be computerised enabling them to keep in tough with their headquarters through e-mails.

The initiative is expected to greatly improve interaction between them and usher in an era of better governance. As per a recent Government Order received at the Higher Education Directorate, the 10th Finance Commission has allotted around Rs 8 crore for the modernisation of the Higher Education Directorate, its regional offices as well as the government colleges coming under its purview.

Out of the allotted amount, Rs 10 lakh has been okayed for the computerisation of the directorate, Rs 50-60 lakh for the computerisation of the regional offices and Rs 30 lakh for the maintenance and computerisation of the Public Library.
For the colleges, an amount of Rs 4 crore has been sanctioned for infrastructure strengthening that includes improvement of labs, purchasing of photocopying and fax machines besides computers and networking of the offices.

Sources say that work on the ground is expected to begin as soon as the Union Government gives its green signal to the proposal for utilisation of the funds allotted for the mission.

The Higher Education Directorate at the moment has 120 colleges under its jurisdiction and governs them with the help of its regional offices which are located at Meerut, Agra, Bareilly, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi, Varanasi and Gorakhpur.

At present, all the work is being carried out manually at all locations and with an aim to improve the situation only did the directorate come up with the proposal for their computerisation. Sources said the proposal has already been given a go ahead by the State Government and just the formality of an okay from New Delhi is awaited.