The Centre
for Computer Applications and Training (CCAT) was established in April
1987 with dual purpose.
-
To provide functional
training to officers of the Government of Maharashtra in areas
related to computers and Management Information Systems (MIS).
-
To develop application
software for use in government departments and offices.
Present
Departmental Structure
The name was
later changed to the Centre for Information Technology (CIT). As
indicated above the CIT is primarily responsible for conducting
training programmes in Information and Communications Technology but
it also has an important role of providing internal Information
Technology support. The centre is managed by
Present
Information Technology Infrastructure
The current
CIT LAN setup consists of 4 Windows NT servers, 100 client PCs. 1
network laser printer and 40 Ink Jet printers. The Internet access is
through ISDN dial up and is shared through LAN. The plan has been
finalized to upgrade the setup with State-of-the-art hardware and work
flow based management systems. Internet access is also being upgraded
for dedicated 24 hours through RF link to STPI.
Mandate,
Growth & Development
As indicated
above, the CIT is primarily responsible for conducting training
programmes on Information and Communications Technology for officers
of the Government of Maharashtra, and for providing internal
information processing support. Along with in-house faculty CIT has
reputed visiting faculty of experts in various areas of IT from
National Informatics Pune, C-DAC, Computer Society of India, leading
academic institutions and IT industry.
With new focus
of YASHADA on development related activities and e-Governance, YASHADA
is joining hands with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) to
build e-Governance Facilitation Centre which would be dedicated
towards initiatives in e-Governance. This centre would be assisting
government departments to create impact of IT in governance,
institutionalize IT in their day-to-day business.
A major
expansion plan is drawn to upgrade CIT in the near future. The plan
includes installing mail server, web server for Yashada.org site,
'Ideas That Work' under good governance and YASHADA Intranet. Some new
softwares would be developed using in-house skills and in association
with National Informatics Centre, Pune.
We also plan
to upgrade our classroom facilities with latest IT and multimedia
equipments.
The studio
quality VDO Conferencing facility through MAHANET is operational from
August 2003. This facilitates point-to-point VDO conferencing with
Mantralaya, Divisional and District head quarters. This facility could
be used to conduct important meetings and interactive session with
faculties and participants. In the near future the facility would be
operational through NICNET also and thus the coverage will be much
more, since NICNET is spread over the entire country. Once connected
to NICNET it would also give point-to-multipoint capability, which
means we can simultaneously conduct sessions with eight places with a
display of four places simultaneously on screen.
Latest
CIT Projects
Payroll and
Revenue Information System (PRIS):
Integrated
Personnel Information System with payroll for all government of
Maharashtra employees built on centralized server architecture is
under development in association with National Informatics Centre,
Pune and
Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra.
Replication
study for Urban Local Bodies:
Evaluation of
impact of Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation e-governance
initiative and its replication to various municipal bodies in
association with Centre for Urban Studies, YASHADA.
CIT : Short Term
Priorities
·
Analyzing and planning various IT
courses
·
Upgrading YASHADA network
infrastructure
·
Installing dedicated Internet facility
·
Installing e-mail server for effective
communications.
·
Developing various applications for
YASHADA administration and various centres.
CIT : Long Term
Priorities
·
Setting up state-of-the-art
e-Governance
facilitation Centre in collaboration with STPI Pune
·
Setting up YASHADA e-Learning centre
and developing training courses for distant learning.
·
Developing softwares in collaboration
with Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra
and National Informatics Centre, Pune, for various government
departments to standardise and eliminate high cost of development.
I
YASHADA
CIT : Major Initiatives
e-Governance
Facilitation Centre
A project in
collaboration with STPI is proposed by YASHADA where an economically
viable technology park project based on IT will betaken up. Various
components of the project would be as follows:
·
The purpose of the Centre would be to
create the desired capacity within each department to work out their
computerization and e-Governance projects, their speedy development
and effective implementation up to the field level.
·
The facilities which to be provided at
the centre, would include:
o
Administrative Block
o
IT Incubation Centre
o
Computer Labs for testing hardware and
softwares
o
Demo Labs for showcasing various
e-Governance projects
o
Auditorium
o
IT Training centre
This
infrastructure should be created by joint venture partners for
imparting training to government officials who are involved in
computerization process in their respective departments. This would
also be setup to give boost to software export by providing software
incubation centre to pioneering software entrepreneurs.
·
The centre would also provide year long
services through the trained government officials within the
respective organizations to maintain their Information Technology
infrastructure.
It would be
clear that what is intended here is to provide 'one stop e-shop' for
various e-Governance and computerization projects of state government.
This centre would co-ordinate all the activities of these projects
with the help of STPI, private partners and YASHADA.
YASHADA's
participation in setting up an e-network to link major institutes in
India
Department of
Personnel and Training, Government of India initiated this and YASHADA
has decided to fully participate in the project. The purpose of this
e-network is sharing of resources among the training institutes and
strengthen the capacity of all training institutes. This would be
based on Knowledge Management & creating Knowledgebase for sharing
knowledge and resources among various institutes. Once in place this
e-network would also enable distance-learning programs, collaborative
activities among institutes and a system for sharing
resources/programs.
