Punjab State

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.

S. Harpal Singh Cheema, Hon’ble Finance, Planning and  Excise & Taxation Minister Punjab launched three software namely ePension (Pension Management System) under Integrated Human Resource Management System (iHRMS), Audit Management System and eVoucher under Integrated Finance Management System(IFMS) developed by NIC Punjab on 14th December 2022.

All software are developed with a focus to streamline & speed up the processes involved, introducing transparency and strengthening  the financial management of the state besides ensuring proper utilization of the budget.

Giving information regarding the Pension Management Module, the Finance Minister said that the module would prove to be beneficial for the pensioners as its implementation would simplify the process & speed up disposal of pension cases. This is made possible with a facility to apply online and subsequently its backend processing, calculation of Pension & other Pensionary benefits and online forwarding of eSigned pension papers and data to AG Punjab. Uploading of Electronic Pension Pay Order(ePPO) by AG Office in retired employee login in iHRMS will ensure the timely disbursal of pension to the retired employees.  

He said that Audit Management System (AMS) would bring transparency, accuracy, and speed in the work of audits besides fixing responsibility and accountability for settling financial matters according to rules due to regular monitoring of audits. AMS is designed to make all the Audit Processes (like Intimation to DDO/HOD/AD, Memos to DDO, Generation and Approval of Audit of Reports, Reply by DDO and Partial/Full Settlement of Paras by Audit Supervisor/PSF) online. This will not only help in keeping records but also accessing the Audits via parameterized Smart Dashboards.

Sh. Cheema further added that the eVoucher system would prove to be another milestone toward adopting the paperless mode of functioning in government work.

Addressing the gathering the Minister said that all three software are being implemented only after thorough testing. Appreciating the officials of the Finance Department and NIC Punjab, who played an important role in developing these software, the minister urged them to bring more initiatives and convenience in this direction.

Special Secretary (Expenditure) & Director Treasuries, Punjab, Sh. Mohammad Tayab, IAS was also present with his team on the occasion and lauded the roles of NIC and Finance Department in developing and implementing the software. DDG & State Informatics Officer Punjab, Sh. Vivek Verma was also present on the occasion with NIC teams of iHRMS and IFMS Projects.

Punjab Chief Secretary Sh. Vijay Kumar Janjua, IAS launched the portal for online allotment of Punjab government houses located in Chandigarh on Monday dated 12/12/2022. eAwas Housing Allotment & Management System portal has been customised & developed by NIC Punjab.

Chief Secretary further informed that in the first phase, the allotment of 1257 government houses of different categories of Punjab pool located in Chandigarh will be made online, while in the second phase, allotment of government houses of Punjab pool located in different districts of the state will be done.

Sh. Kumar Rahul, IAS, Secretary, General Administration said that information about applying for housing will be available at https://eawas.punjab.gov.in.  The Government officials can apply according to their preference by checking the list of vacant houses on the portal. Sh. Vivek Verma, State Informatics Officer and Deputy Director General NIC informed that the eAWAS application developed by NIC UT Chandigarh has been customised by NIC Punjab as per the requirements of the state. He further informed that for employees this system facilitates applying for a house, vacating a house, generation of seniority lists, bidding for vacant houses, allotment of house and various types of reports and dashboard for all stakeholders. Profile data of employee is auto populated from IHRMS after mobile verification.

eAWAS portal has been integrated with NIC SMS gateway, Sandes (Government Instant Messaging System) for OTP and Sandes Chatbot, TejasVI Data Analytical Tool for Dashboard, Parichay (Single Sign On) and iHRMS(Integrated Human Resource Management System).

Prominent among those who were present on the occasion included Sh. Jagjit Singh, Joint Secretary General Administration, Sh. Vikram Jeet Grover, Additional State Informatics Officer, Sh. Anoop Kumar Jalali, Senior Director (IT) & HOD and Sh. Narinder Singh Director (IT) & Team Lead, NIC.