Information Commision goes digital

The picture of a typical Indian government office is quite bleak – thousands of files stacked up everywhere, files moving from one table to next for approval, a clerk taking hours to find one file and if you are unfortunate your file may have gone ‘missing’. But all this can be thing of the past. And the solution is not rocket science. It is very basic computer science!

Until three months back, my office had 9000 files – stacked in various cupboards and shelves. We kept running of cupboards and filing cabinets. Despite having a reasonably efficient staff to locate the files and a well-organised office, on an average it would take five minutes to locate a file. My office receives about 1800 communications a month on an average through post, fax and email. Each of these communications has to be looked into, responded to and then time was spent in putting these pieces of papers and the response, if any, in the correct files. I realized soon that the space available for record keeping as well as efficient record keepers cannot keep up with the escalating numbers of records to be maintained. The Information Commission has decided to digitize all records.

So, my office has adopted a simple yet reliable solution to the problem – we have gone digital! Over the past three months all the 9000 files have been scanned and are now available on the office network for any member of the staff to access. About two weeks back, we stopped receiving paper and started accepting the digital image every day. All new communications come to my office after they have been scanned and it is the soft copy of the communication and the response sent, if any, which is appended with the soft copy of the correct file. For emails, earlier we used to print them and put them in the file. Now we attach the email to the appropriate electronic folder.

A very simple computer program, which is easily duplicable, has been created to manage the work in the office. The program not only makes all files available to every member of the staff at all times, but it also means that any new action taken on the files gets linked to the original file with the click of the mouse. Only letters which have to be sent by the office are printed. Drafts of orders, notices, and other types of communications are reviewed on the computer before printing. I estimate that we would be saving about 20,000 sheets of paper in the next twelve months.

Digital record keeping is definitely the way forward in any office – government or otherwise. The Preamble of the Information Technology Act states that it is an Act to facilitate electronic filing of documents with Government Agencies. Section 4 of the Act provides legal recognition to electronic records; Section 5 provides legal recognition to digital signatures; and Section 7 states that if record is to be retained for a particular period of time it would be deemed to have satisfied that rule if it is available in an electronic format.

While I admit that my office is relatively ‘young’ and most records are less than two years old, I believe that more government offices can move towards making their records electronic. Computer programs can be created and customized to suit the work flow of each office. Not only would record keeping become easier and locating records be a click of a mouse away, incidents of missing records would be minimal. Back-ups of the electronic data can be stored in multiple places, even in a different city, thereby avoiding loss of the records due to fire, floods, etc. If necessary physical records can be kept for a short period of time till it is ascertained that the electronic records are legible and complete.

Any changes made to records could be traced back to the system from which the changes were made. This would promote transparency and accountability in the office and reduce corruption. A lot of corruption takes place by losing records or removing papers or substituting papers. The other way is predating papers. All of this could be caught, once an office goes digital. The computer program can also help to gauge the productivity of the staff as well as it could indicate who is taking how long to complete a particular task. The cost of going digital is a fraction of the cost incurred in record keeping. There would be other small but significant cost savings in the form of less usage of paper, files, printer ink, etc. More importantly, decision making becomes faster as time taken to transfer a file from one table or one office to another for approval/signing would get cut down as everything would be available over the internet or intranet.

My office was able to make the transformation in a very short span of time and with no requirement for any additional budget. Simple changes can make a big difference –all we need to do to make those simple changes is to set our mind to it. If all Government offices go digital, the impact on governance and transparency could be huge. As byproducts we could get a reduction of corruption and paper usage.

shailesh gandhi
June 21, 2010