JIP Exclusive 

Taking a step further in eGovernance, under enterprising, innovative  Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh state Cabinet has now gone paperless. eCabinet is now ‘in’ in AP.

Trying to live up to his ‘hi-tech CM’ image, forward-looking Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandarbabu Naidu confidently, stoicallty chaired the first ever ‘eCabinet’ which incidentally initially turned out to be a big headache for some ministers as they were required to operate iPads to access the agenda. (It must be said to Naidu’s credit that the way he boosted their morale, guts, they are now iPad-savvy. They pass orders, do meetings, initiate discussions, exchange notes among  fellow ministers, do inter-ministerial meetings ‘paperless’ )

“It is for the first time in the country that a state cabinet is going in for a paperless eCabinet meeting. It is the continuation of Chandrababu Naidu’s e-Governance concept, which he envisaged as the CM 10 years ago,” said an elated minister. “However, the hitch is that many of us are not able to handle the iPads, and I wish there should be some concession and some of us should be given printed agenda copies,” he added. (Interestingly since then, he has changed his coments. Today he is more adept in eGovernance operations than then. He is now hooked to iPad.)

As the iPads are loaded with an eCabinet app, the ministers have to access the entire agenda of the meeting in electronic form. They will be able to access data only by logging into the app and using a password. Turns out that the features of the app prevent the user from sharing it with anyone, which some ministers say could be another problem, as they might need help.

In a first in governance, wielding iPads in their hands, Naidu and his Council of Ministers successfully conducted meeting of what is being called “eCabinet”, a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country.

eCabinet last fortnight was a regular meeting of the state Cabinet, but the uniqueness this time was that it was paperless, with the government switching over to the electronic format in conducting the proceedings.

The agenda and the minutes of the meeting were all electronically recorded while power-point presentation was made on important subjects for elaborate discussion, sources in the Chief Minister’s Office said.

(Andhra Pradesh government, during  Naidu’s previous stint as Chief Minister between 1995 and 2004, had been a pioneer in launching various eGovernance initiatives.)

Now, during his current tenure, the Chief Minister is making use of the advances in technology like Cloud to further eGovernance and the eCabinet is a “momentous” initiative.

For the eCabinet, a new file-sharing system has been put in place using the FileCloud tool for ministers and top bureaucrats.

After a recent trial run, the new system was  used for the first time and is expected to become a permanent feature of the Cabinet meetings from now on.

(Organised by Lokesh, s/o Naidu, a software professional, part of Naidu’s tech savvy team, said they put all cabinet files on a server at the government secretariat and had provided the ministers with an app to access them. An initiative of the state government’s IT department, the new filesharing system was put in place using the FileCloud tool and has been made available to ministers and top bureaucrats with pre-loaded cabinet files. The agenda and the minutes of the meeting were also electronically recorded and provided to participants.)