Despite Lockdown RailTel completes 2nd phase of NIC e-Office implementation for Indian Railways

RailTel has successfully completed Phase 2 of implementing NIC e-office despite nationwide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, wherein, it has enabled 17,981 users of 25 divisions offices with e-office platform,along with user trainings over video conferences.In two phases, RailTel has enabled 87,629 users across 105 establishments of Indian Railways (Zonal Head Quarters, Divisions, CTI, PUs, Workshops etc.) to handle all their manual file work remotely on digital platform, the statement added.RailTel team completed the majority of the work remotely in coordination with Railway officials over phone and email." Chawla added, "The crucial part of implementation is the training of officials to handle the platform.Training videos were prepared so that users can see them again and again to get a grip on the e-office usage procedure." The statement said that it is a big challenge to transfer the entire manual filing system of Indian Railways on to one digital platform.

RailTel has successfully completed Phase 2 of implementing NIC e-office despite nationwide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, wherein, it has enabled 17,981 users of 25 divisions offices with e-office platform,along with user trainings over video conferences.

RailTel started work of Phase 2 - 46 divisions with 31,637 users - in February with a target of completion by June 30. RailTel has completed the work 55 days before deadline, read a statement.

In two phases, RailTel has enabled 87,629 users across 105 establishments of Indian Railways (Zonal Head Quarters, Divisions, CTI, PUs, Workshops etc.) to handle all their manual file work remotely on digital platform, the statement added.

As many as 1,63,658 e-Files and 5,04,777 e-Receipts have been created, replacing the manual work mode by Railway officials. RailTel has also provided Virtual Private Network connections to Railway officials for enabling them to process the file works remotely. Due to availability of e-office, majority of file work in Railways can continue smoothly without physical presence in offices which is a boon in a time of crisis like this.

"NIC e-Office is a cloud-enabled software developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) that is being deployed/hosted from RailTel Tier III UPTIME USA certified data centres at Secunderabad and Gurgaon. The aim of e-Office implementation is to provide reliable, efficient, and effective way to handle office files and documents. There is absolute transparency as anything once written on the file cannot be changed or undone. There is also a monitoring mechsm to check where the files are held up," the statement read.

Talking about completing the work during lockdown, Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel, said, "It was big challenge for RailTel team to complete the work during the lockdown phase as resource movement was restricted. RailTel team couldn't visit the division offices due to the lockdown and the implementation work needed to be done remotely and it was very time consuming as well. RailTel team completed the majority of the work remotely in coordination with Railway officials over phone and email."

Chawla added, "The crucial part of implementation is the training of officials to handle the platform. Since physical presence of RailTel officials and Railway users were not possible, the entire training was also done remotely using video conferencing and on call support. Training videos were prepared so that users can see them again and again to get a grip on the e-office usage procedure."

The statement said that it is a big challenge to transfer the entire manual filing system of Indian Railways on to one digital platform. However, the bigger challenge is to train the workforce so that they can handle the system efficiently.

"The most difficult part is to condition the users to give up the habit of using manual file system and adapt the new system of paperless working. RailTel team has managed to complete the implementation before the deadline and also managed people by retraining and handholding for roll out," it stated.

Quick disposal of files and systematic, timely monitoring of pending files has been the other immediate advantage of NIC e-Office, the statement said and added that with above advantages, Indian Railways is all set to change the work culture for providing better services to public. e-Office fosters paper-less culture which will not only save operational cost but also reduce the carbon footprint.

( With inputs from ANI )