Technical glitch puts e-office in ‘stand-still’ mode

Jammu, Feb 7: Government functioning has been severely affected across J&K with a technical glitch putting the e-office to ‘stand-still’ mode since February 2.

Though efforts were on to resolve the issue and bring back the services to normal mode success eluded even on Wednesday and hence the working in the entire government set-up, shifted to e-office mode, and remained affected with no processing of e-files.

“Tomorrow is a holiday. It is hoped that the system will be back to normal by Friday,” a senior official, preferring anonymity, said.

Commissioner Secretary Information Technology Department Prerna Puri, when contacted by the Greater Kashmir to get an updated status on this issue, said that she was in a meeting and would respond later.

All attempts to contact her thereafter eluded success. Officials, however, stated that she had chaired a meeting on Tuesday as well in this connection.

Some reports suggested that the government had ordered an inquiry to probe into the circumstances which led to this technical glitch- so far the longest after J&K went fully digital. However, officially this input vis-à-vis the institution of inquiry could not be corroborated with an official confirmation. J&K had shifted to e-office in 2021.

Earlier on January 17, 2023, a day after J&K had gone fully digital, the Union Territory (UT) administration had constituted a six-member Coordination Cell for monitoring the progress on implementation of online services in various districts.

All administrative departments, Heads of Departments, Deputy Commissioners, and Managing Directors of all PSUs and Corporations too were asked to constitute similar cells.

As per its terms of reference, the Cell was asked to submit a progress report of all online services being provided in the districts of the Union Territory to the office of the Chief Secretary daily.

All administrative departments, Heads of Departments, Deputy Commissioners, and Managing Directors of all PSUs and Corporations were also directed to monitor the progress of online services being provided by their departments and offices and ensure that all the services in their respective departments and jurisdictions were provided through online mode only.

After switching over to the e-office, the J&K administration issued strict instructions to all the officials not to entertain any physical files.