Karnataka to bring in e-cabinet system, hold paperless meetings

Vidhana Soudha

Karnataka is on the brink of revolutionising its cabinet meetings as it adopts an e-cabinet system, marking a significant shift towards a paperless mode of operation.

The Office of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (e-Governance) recently issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the supply of IT hardware essential to the implementation of the e-cabinet system.

The initiative will digitise cabinet notes, minutes, and other documents, eliminating the need to print extensive documents.

Several states, including Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura, have recently implemented e-cabinet systems. In 2014, N Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, conducted the country's first paperless cabinet meeting.

Under this system, departments will submit their agendas online to the cabinet section for consideration. During cabinet meetings, the agenda will be displayed on ministers' laptops, and secretaries will receive alerts when the agenda is discussed. The process aims to reduce the use of paper, with cabinet meetings conducted electronically through the use of tablets by the Chief Minister, ministers, bureaucrats, and cabinet staff.

Officials from the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (e-Governance) confirmed that the state government plans to use a paperless e-Cabinet application.

“To achieve a paperless system, the cabinet section had requested the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to develop an e-Cabinet application similar to the one used by Uttarakhand. As part of the implementation of the e-Cabinet application, DPAR (e-Governance) is responsible for procuring IT hardware items. Many departments have already implemented the e-Office initiative,” said a senior government official.

The entity selected will be responsible for the supply, installation, commissioning, and configuration of Android Smart TVs, laptops (Windows OS), and Windows tablets at various office locations within the Vidhana Soudha (secretariat).

BBMP and police to digitise records

Separately, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bengaluru's civic body, recently issued a Request for Proposal for the scanning and digitisation of property records in registers. The selected entity will scan and digitise property registers (both A and B registers) containing the property tax records of the BBMP in 5,100 handwritten registers, totalling around 35 lakh papers. In October, the Karnataka high court directed the BBMP to digitise all old property records for electronic accessibility.

Meanwhile, the Bengaluru City Police have invited a Request for Proposal for the digitisation, scanning, and metadata entry of documents, along with the installation and maintenance of a record room management system for approximately 13 lakh papers. The selected supplier will be responsible for providing a keyword search option, a non-editable option, secure internal server storage, scanning records in line with the e-office system, and converting scanned records into the PDF format.