All govt depts to go paperless by year-end via ‘e-office’

CHENNAI: The era of government officials carrying papers and files will soon be over as the State government is in the process of creating ‘paperless’ offices. An ‘e-office’ portal is also in the works. The State is confident of all government offices becoming paperless by the end of the year.

Under the Digital Office Tamil Nadu (DoTN) scheme, the State has introduced e-office, an application that allows automation of routine tasks and processes within government offices. The electronic File Management System (e-File) will help Tamil Nadu create ‘paperless’ offices, allowing speedy disposal of files and help improve governance.

The e-office will be implemented first at the Secretariat and later taken to the other departments, offices in districts across TN. The Information Technology (IT) Department is the nodal agency in implementing the project. “We are planning to cover all the Secretariat departments by the end of June. Then, it will be taken to other districts by July and August. Other departments and HODs will be brought under e-office by the end of this year,” IT Department Secretary Neeraj Mittal, told DT Next.

Meanwhile, a one-day training programme on the e-office portal was given to all the Secretariat staff and officials. An official, on request of anonymity, said that at the end of the training, certificates were also given to them. He added that clerks and lower level staff are the ones who require training in e-office as they type the content and forward it to the higher officials who just need to correct and give approval. “e-office will be helpful during crisis situations such as pandemic and floods when officials need not come to office and can work from remote places. Also, in case of referring to old files, officials need not ask their subordinates to bring the files, rather they themselves can check the files online in the portal,” the official said.

Under the e-office portal system, every staff and official will be given login credentials and after logging in they can type the files and government orders and assign the task of giving approval to specific officials. So far, 43,359 users in 42 departments in Secretariat are using the application.