Nalanda becomes first district in Bihar to go online

Patna, Feb 09 (UNI) Nalanda district in south Bihar today became the first among the state's 38 districts to go online, setting off a new work culture among government employees.

Official sources here said in accordance with the ruling NDA's mission to connect all government offices from the block level with e-governance facilities by this year end, Nalanda became the first district headquarters to achieve the feat.

District Magistrate Annand Kishore pushed the button to connect the collectorate with video-conferencing facilities.

The district would now be connected with the Bihar State Wide Area Networking(BISWAN) at different levels to allow government officials to connect themselves with the Chief Minister's Office, Raj Bhavan and the state secretariat, the sources added.

Going online would help the administration curb corruption at various levels besides bringing transparency in official work, the sources said adding the government was committed to introducing the BISWAN system up to the panchayat level before December 2008.

Video-conferencing facility would also be introduced in every panchayat to connect them with block headquarters, which would be technically known as Common Service Centre(CSC), the sources stated.

By April this year the Commercial Tax department as well as Treasury offices and six other government departments would be onlined, the sources informed and said even the Patna Municipal Corporation(PMC) would be brounght under the total computerisation.

Meanwhile, the PMC had hired a team of technical experts from a leading institute of computer technology here to train up government employees for successful implementation of e-governence in every department.

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