Government's e-office plan may not be a reality before 2025

NEW DELHI: Imagine a government office without the trademark steel almirahs, where files move securely online, with officials through the ranks appending their digital signatures rather than scribbling notes on reams of paper and any unauthorised leak can be swiftly traced back as every access leaves a telltale fingerprint.

Such a scenario can come true at the Centre only by 2025, or even later, unless the Narendra Modi government, which is grappling with the biggest corporate espionage scandal that has exposed thousands of its secret documents to business houses, fast-tracks the ambitious e-Office plan that is struggling to make its way through bureaucratic resistance.

"Paperless office systems are easier to secure than traditional filing cabinets and can track individual accesses to each document. Space constraints, inadequate physical security and manual handling of records affect security and confidentiality of documents," says the brief of the e-Office project that was circulated by the Department of Administrative Reforms ( DARPG) in 2011. A senior bureaucrat with the department said this project is now "more relevant than ever" given the revelations from the corporate espionage scandal.

"Bureaucrats still prefer physical movement of paper files. That contributes to leakages. We need to adopt the new technology to our advantage," the official said, requesting not to be named. The department is struggling to meet the 2017-end deadline to convert all central government offices to e-offices. As per DARPG's Strategic Plan (2011-2016), the target has been to implement e-office in 29 ministries and departments, and make efforts to cover all ministries by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan – which is end of 2017.

"Going by the present speed, a completely e-office government is not expected to be achieved by 2025 or even later," a government official said. A questionnaire sent to DARPG on Monday remained unanswered till late Thursday evening. DARPG itself has not converted completely to the e-office mechanism. The plan was to digitise all old paper documents through heavy-duty scanners and make them accessible online. The Centre does have a template in the form of Prime Minister Modi's home state of Gujarat where Modi as the chief minister pushed and implemented the DigiGOV project in the Gujarat secretariat in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services.