NIC A&N Islands UT centre was set up in the year 1988 at Secretariat complex Port Blair, with the following objectives:

To provide IT & related services to the A&N administration

To establish communication exchange thro’ NICNET, the nation wide network of NIC across the country

To develop databases required to help to improve the delivery of services and to take decision making faster.

To train the officials in the handling of IT tools to improve their efficiency

To develop websites of all departments of the  Administration to disseminate information to the citizen through Internet.

To establish egovernance in the administration as spelt out in the IT policy.  

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About A&N Islands

The beautiful Union Territory of A&N Islands consisting of 572 islands is located in Bay of Bengal, covering  an area of 8249 sq. kms and at a distance of around 1200 Kms from Calcutta, Chennai and Visakapatnam. There are 2 districts namely Andaman & Nicobar with a population of 3.56 Lakhs living in 38 Islands covering 204 revenue villages.                                                          

NIC Port Blair centre

            A SCPC VSAT with 512kbps bandwidth, has been established at Secretariat Portblair & is functioning satisfactorily  for communication exchange thro’ NICNET. The NIC Portblair centre is having enough computer systems and other resources for use by the administration.

A secretariat LAN thro’ NICNET has been set up with  90 nodes, which is connected to other depts by dial up lines. The  administration is using the NICNET for all the important services such as Internet access, Email, FTP, Video Conferencing etc., to make its functions e-enabled. All major depts are provided email and net connectivity for day to day information exchange among them.

The entire LAN is connected with the Secured Network Infrastructure (SNI) with the firewall, antivirus & patch servers to protect the network from attacks outside.

A 128Kbps speed leased line connectivity has been established between Rajniwas and Secretariat thro’ NICNET for information exchange.

District Centres

            NIC district centres (2) have been established and functioning at the DC offices of Andaman and Nicobar districts to meet the IT requirements of the district administrations.  

NIC Andaman district centre is connected by the 2 mbps Leased line with the NIC PortBlair Centre for NICNET access.

A SCPC DAMA VSAT was established in the NIC district centre at Nicobar and these centres are connected thro’ NICNET for day today communication exchange.

The respective district centres are having sufficient computer systems for use by the officials with manpower posted at these places.  

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DAMA based VSAT based Video Conference facilities have been established in the NIC centres at Port Blair and Nicobar, which are being used periodically by the officials  to interact with other Govt depts  at Delhi and other places outside. Thro’ ISDN lines, VC connectivity was established between Andaman Bhawan, Delhi and Secretariat. Similarly, VC facility was established between the Police station at Diglipur and the SP Andaman office at Port Blair.

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  1) Ration Card Information Monitoring system (RACIS) takes care of the maintenance of ration card & ration shop details and also the issue of ration card and its maintenance such as addition, deletion & modification of names. All important related information are generated thro’ queries and reports.

    2) Certificates Information System in taluk offices takes care of the issue of 8 different certificates such as Senior Citizen, Legal Heirs, Land valuation, Encumbrance Certificate, Electricity/Water connection, Birth & Death, Nativity, Income etc., every day to the public.

    3) Issue of Birth & Death Certificates at Directorate of Health services takes care of the issue of these within a day once the applications are received. This will also be extended to other health centres across the Islands.

    4) Registeration of Land documents is being carried out at the Sub-Registrar Office Port Blair using STAR registeration software developed by NIC Tamil Nadu state Centre.

    5) DWEEP BHOOMI, the Land records Information system was developed & implemented at the pilot teshil Ferrargunj in association with NIC Chennai after fine tuning the TAMIL NILAM software implemented across Tamil Nadu.

    6) WEB SERVICES Information system: NIC has hosted the official Govt website at the addresses namely www.and.nic.in & andaman.nic.in in which all govt related information are published and maintained periodically. The other important web sites hosted are given below:  

agri@and.nic.in	for Agriculture dept
police.and.nic.in	for police dept
labour.and.nic.in	for labour dept
alhw.and.nic.in	for Andaman & Lakshadeep harbour works
aniidco.nic.in	for A&N Industries & Investment Corporation Ltd
cari.and.nic.in	for Centre for Agricultural Research Institute
forest.and.nic.in	for forest dept
tourism.andaman.nic.in	for Tourism dept
kvkcari.and.nic.in	Krishi Vigyan Kendra
csca.and.nic.in	Civil Supplies dept
www.and.nic.in/election	Elections dept
apwd.and.nic.in	Andaman Public Works Dept
jnrm.and.nic.in	Jawaharlal Nehru Rajkeeya Maha Vidyalaya
tgce.and.nic.in	Tagore college of education
dbragpt.and.nic.in	Dr Ambedkar Govt Polytechnic
afl.and.nic.in	Andaman Fisheries Ltd
airport.and.nic.in	Veer Savarkar Airport by INS Utkrosh
tsunami.and.nic.in	Relief & Rehabilitation opns of the admn

The tourism website has bagged a special web site award by means of a trophy selected by the committee constituted for this purpose by the Dept of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Govt of India, New Delhi, during the egovernance conference held in Chandigarh from Oct 24^th to 26^th 2002.

    7) Other significant areas:

1)                   Payroll information system for all depts

2)                   File movement system in the secretariat and other depts

3)                   Public grievances system .

4)                   Personnel Information system

5)                   Air ticket quota allotment at Secretariat

6)                   Ship ticket quota allotment at Secretariat

7)                   Plan Expenditure monitoring for Development Commissioner

8)                   Guest house allotment for tourism dept

9)                   Booking of accommodation at Teal House

10)               Seat allotment for admission of students to professional courses every year.

11)               Budget and Works Monitoring System at APWD

12)               Issue of tribal passes at Car Nicobar

13)               Court Cases Information system at Secretariat

    8) Training Programmes:

            NIC has conducted several training programmes to the officials in various Govt Depts as per the calendar released every year and has trained around 1100 officials so far  to help them to improve their efficiency in the respective areas.

            Participated  in the IT event namely BangaloreIT.com-2003 and also in Island Tourism Festival ITF 2004 to present the IT activities being carried out by NIC in A&N Islands.

    9) Central Projects:

            The following national level projects are being carried out by the NIC A&N Islands UT centre:

              AGMARKNET links all important agriculture produce markets across the country including the one at Port Blair and the State Agriculture Marketing Boards and Directorates. Thro’ this network, market data is collected and updated periodically by the Agriculture Dept, to provide trend analysis in respect of major commodities.

              DACNET  is an e-governance Project of Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, being executed by National Informatics Centre to facilitate Agriculture-on-line. NIC’s focus is on increasing value in the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) and enhancing its relationships with its minimum agenda of e-governance: Integration of Government Functions (G2G), Integrating Agri-Business Partners (B2B), Connecting Farmers (C2C), Empowering Employees, Enhancing Government productivity and value and financial services.

              Immigration Control System (ICS) at Airport and Haddo Sea port has been implemented to maintain information about the arrival and the departure of foreign tourists. Besides regulating their movement, the system also controls the movement of illegal immigrants and provide faster operation with greater accuracy.

               PAO 2000 at Directorate of Accounts & Budget:

                PAO-2000 Software, a tool for effective management of Financial Resources in Pay & Accounts Offices of Govt. of India. has been implemented at DAB. Every day, the vouchers are entered, checked, compiled and updated against the respective head of accounts, to monitor the budget against expenditure. Every month the consolidated data of head wise, is being sent to CAG Delhi.

                7^Th All India Educational Survey

                All India Education Surveys, conducted by the National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) under the Ministry of Human Resources Development(MHRD),GOI, is to collect, compile and disseminate information on the country’s overall progress in the field of education. The software developed by NIC Hqrs  is being used to compile the data and to generate various reports as per the requirements.

                 Agriculture Census

                Agriculture Census forms part of a broader system of collection of Agriculture Statistics. It is a large-scale statistical operation for the collection and derivation of quantitative information about the structure of agriculture in the country. The software developed by NIC Hqrs is being used to compile the complete data collected during the survey and to generate various reports for the Census.

    10) Activities during earthquake & tsunami disaster:

Steps were taken with the help of NIC Hqrs & NIC Chennai, towards the restoration of data & VC connectivity thro’ VSAT at NIC Nicobar District centre, which was affected due to earth quake & tsunami on 26^th Dec 2004.

Satellite phone facilities were provided to the office of the Dy Commissioner Nicobar & the Control Room at Dy commissioner’s office Andaman District, PortBlair for communication exchange.

Helped to establish the data communication facilities with necessary computer systems, in Raj Niwas, for the PM’s Camp office during PM’s visit here on 8^th Jan 2005.

Helped the media, both national & international, towards the transmission of coverage data thro’ NICNET, to the respective places outside, during the PM’s visit and subsequently.

In view of the failure of communication lines, helped the Press Information Bureau, Port Blair office, to set up their media centre, for 2 weeks, in our centre towards the dissemination of information related to earthquake & tsunami and the relief & rehabilitation activities thro’ NICNET.  Secretary (I&B) Mr Navin Chawla visited the media centre and also our centre and appreciated the help provided by NIC in the hour of crisis. He also had VC discussion with DDG NIC Chennai during his visit.

Developed & hosted the web site tsunami.and.nic.in as per the advise of MHA for the A&N Admn, to disseminate the information related to the relief & rehabilitation activities being carried out by the Admn, in the affected areas of A&N Islands. As on 30^th Jan 2005, the site had 2,96,787 hits since its launch on 3^rd Jan 2005.

Helped to organise VC session between Andaman Bhawan Delhi with Secretariat PortBlair to receive Relief materials from Delhi.

Helped to organise another VC session between Secretary (Health) GOI and the Secretary Health & Director (Medical Services) A&N Admn to review the requirements on health related areas.

Restored the conducting of VC sessions thro’ ISDN lines between conference hall of Secretariat & Dy Commissioner’s office Nicobar thro’ NIC district centre , to conduct daily review meetings on relief & rehabilitation matters.

Helped thro’ mail/VC/Satellite phone, to inform the public, on the whereabouts of the people in the affected islands due to earth quake & tsunami.  

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The following important areas have been identified for implementation in a phased manner:

       Setting up of INTRANET to link all depts on a continuous basis.

       Extension of Land records to other teshil levels

       Data bases for all depts to take appropriate decisions

      Implementation of transport Information system

       Implementation of District Court Information system

       Web sites for all depts

       100 % training of the officials in IT Literacy.

        Interconnection of all inhabited Islands along with ISRO VSAT network

         Video Conference at all Islands and teshil Hqrs

         Payment of bills thro’ net and identified counters at public places

         Firmly establish egovernance in the administration

          Make A&N Islands as a fore runner in the usage of IT on par with other states/UT’s in the country.  

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