Punjab State

A one-day workshop on seamless and secure Single Sign On Platform JanParichay (ONE-STOP AUTHENTICATION SOLUTION) was organized on 29th March, 2023 at MGSIPA Chandigarh by NIC Punjab State Centre Chandigarh in collaboration with DGR Punjab and NIC Delhi JanParichay Team under the chairmanship of Sh. Vivek Verma, DDG, NIC Punjab.

Various State Government dignitaries including Principal Secretary (IT), Director Governance Reforms Punjab, Special Secretary, DGR and other Officers & Officials of State Government/DGR were invited. Sh. Deepak Bansal, SIO NIC Haryana and Sh. Ramesh Gupta, SIO NIC Chandigarh UT were also invited and they participated with their teams. NIC Punjab Officers also attended the event. Sh. Vivek Verma, DDG and SIO Punjab welcomed all the participants and after that Sh. Syed Taha Owais, Senior Director(IT) JanParichay team NICHQ briefed about the objective of the workshop and also gave overview of the JanParichay.

The objective of this workshop was to familiarize everyone with its functionalities and usage with respect to Citizen Centric services. The system which takes care of authentication and identity management and provides G2C services was proposed by MeitY and entrusted NIC, C-DAC and NeGD to build National Single sign on (NSSO) platform under “Meri Pehchan”. Its main aim is to provide convenience to the citizen by eliminating the need of repeatedly prove their identities to access different Citizen Centric Services. JAN PARICHAY was formally launched by Hon’ble PM on July 4, 2022 on the occasion of Digital India Mahotasav for “PechanEk – SewayienAnek” at Ahmedabad.

The Officers of JanParichay Delhi team briefed about features, functionalities, migration strategies and its benefits during this workshop. Some Case Studies were also presented by the team. Citizen who wants to register for some government services can use JANPARICHAY by using their Aadhar Number, PAN, DL or social media accounts. The challenges which are being faced today in providing service delivery along with need of JANPARICHAY was also emphasized upon by the JanParichay Team.

With JanParichay, a citizen can login and access multiple services seamlessly. The JanParichay supports six different languages and is under the process of integrating Geo-fencing too.

Sh. Vivek Verma DDG & SIO in his address emphasized upon the benefits of JanParichay implementation across the state for various citizen services. SIO Haryana and SIO Chandigarh appreciated this initiative taken by NIC Punjab, DGR and NIC Delhi Team and highlighted the need of JanParichay which will help in speedy implementation of the citizen centric application and the application which are running in silos. SIO Haryana emphasized that there is urgent need to integrate JanParichay in IFMS, Land Records, SARAL which are already running in Haryana. Small token of gratitude was also presented to SIO Haryana, SIO Chandigarh UT, NIC Punjab and NIC Delhi JanParichay teams. The event ended with Vote of Thanks given by Sh. Vikram Jeet Grover, ASIO State.

The event was also covered widely by press media.

Technology Sabha Excellence Awards honour Government Departments/Agencies/ Institutions that demonstrate innovative use of a particular technology or a combination of technologies for distinct benefits to the stakeholders.

NIC, Punjab and Excise Department, Punjab bagged coveted Technology Sabha Award 2023 in the Category of Enterprise Applications at Technology Sabha Conference 2023 held in Kochi (Kerala) which was held from 23rd to 25th February 2023 at the Hotel Crowne Plaza, Kochi (Kerala).

eAbkari project is an end-to-end Supply Chain Management System for  Beverage Alcohol, Industrial Alcohol and Medicinal Alcohol.  Presently, more than 50 e-Services are being rendered in workflow-based manner for Grant & Renewal of Licenses, Packaged Liquor Brand Registration, Issuance of NOC/Permit/Passes for Import/Export/Transport of Bulk Spirit & Packaged Liquor, Real-time management of Spirit/Packaged Liquor Inventory and Excise Revenue and Management of Excise Offender Cases, Enforcement Activity.

The project has been seamlessly integrated with a wide array of modern ICT technologies – the web, QR codes, PUSH/PULL SMS, eMail, eReceipt, Geo-Tagging, Sandes Messaging Service and Mobile Apps.

Through successful implementation of eAbkari project in Punjab since 2019, it has been possible to render better EoDB services and plug revenue leakage points. It has also resulted in achieving 100% compliance of BRAP and EoDB.  Most importantly, this project is replicated in 9 other states and due to similarity of the Excise functioning of Haryana State, Excise Department, Haryana has shown interest to implement eAbkari-Punjab.

The team working under Sh. Vivek Verma, DDG and SIO Punjab comprised of Sh. S.S. Duggal, Senior Director, Sh. Anil Dogra, Senior Director and Sh. Devendra Kumar Singh, Scientist C.

The Punjab government led by Chief Minister S. Bhagwant Singh Mann organised 'NRI Punjabian Nal Milni' in the month of December, 2022 at 5 venues across State of Punjab to resolve the grievances and problems of Punjabis residing abroad.

Department of NRI matters, Govt of Punjab approached NIC Punjab for development of software solution, for Online/Walk-in Registration by the NRIs for participation in the event and then to develop an extended module to follow up the status of the application till its disposal, in a very short period. The registration module was developed in 24 hours.

According to the schedule of the state government, five meetings with NRIs were held in different districts starting from Jalandhar on 16th December, SAS Nagar (Mohali) on December 19, Ludhiana on December 23, Moga on December 26 and Amritsar on December 30.  NRIs could also register online through the portal https://eservices.punjab.gov.in/ besides registering themselves at the counters setted up at the venues.

Honourable Minister of NRI Affairs, S. Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal attended all these meetings personally , along with local MLAs and Other Administrator Officers Mr  J Balamurugan, IAS Principal Secretary,  Mr Praveen Kumar Sinha, IPS ADGP (NRI Wing), Ms Gurpreet Kaur Sapra, IAS Commissioner, Jalandhar Division, and Chairperson, NRI Sabha,  Deputy Commissioners, Commissioners/ SSPs of Police met the members of the Punjabi diaspora to initiate the process for resolving their complaints with immediate effect.

A total of 609 applications were received and marked to concerned Officers / Departments for immediate action. At each district, a dedicated nodal officer has been identified under respective Deputy Commissioner to monitor/ review/dispose the applications/grievances. Regular monitoring at State level is also going on.

During the review meeting, Minister lauded the efforts put in by NIC Punjab team at State level and Districts under the leadership of Sh. Vivek Verma, DDG & SIO for providing software and constant support.

Business First (Invest Punjab) Portal of Department of Industries and Commerce, Govt of Punjab has received Digital India Silver Award 2022 conferred by Hon’ble President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu, under Ease of Doing Business category. The portal has been developed and maintained by NIC Punjab since its inception in the year 2015.

The awards ceremony was held in the presence of the Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics & Information Technology, Railways, and Communications, Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Rajesh Gera, Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 7th January 2023.

The award was received by Sh. Sibin C, IAS, Secretary & Director (Industries & Commerce Punjab) and Sh. Vivek Verma SIO Punjab along with Sh. Vishaw Bandu, Deputy Director (Industries and Commerce) and Project Manager Sh. Navinder Sharma, Deputy Director (IT)/ Scientist-C.

Business First is a user-friendly state of art portal to facilitate new and existing investors to obtain Regulatory Clearances & Fiscal Incentives for setting up and running businesses in the State of Punjab. Business First ensures world class facilitation to the investors, right from conceptualization of the project till commencement of commercial operations and thereafter Renewals and Fiscal Incentives. Taking forward the Ease of Doing Business Campaign under Digital India Initiative, Government of Punjab has brought all stakeholder departments and investors on the single platform with role based Smart Dashboards.

Business First (Invest Punjab) portal has become backbone of Ease of Doing Business in Punjab. More than 26 Departments are on board with more than 100 Regulatory Clearances and 36 Fiscal Incentives.  It has played a vital role in upgrading EoDB Ranking of the state and Punjab has achieved “Top Achiever” category in EoDB Ranking. Using Data Analytics and dataset of last 3 years, the team has prepared new Checklist Based Scrutiny Engine in first phase. This has brought standardization and transparency in scrutiny of applications all over the State.