Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka

Introduction

The Divisional Secretariats (DS) are the most important administrative units functioning at local level that deliver more than 90 percent of the government services to the citizen. The roots of the Divisional Secretariat system runs back to the British regime or even before. This set up has also been used as the arm for the tax collection as well as maintenance of the law and order in tall Sinhalese kingdoms. After independence, the role of the DS was gradually changed and presently it has become a “one stop shop nature” citizen services center that provides different kind of government services related to birth to death of a citizen.

 Project Development Objective

The main objective of the project is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of the citizen services provided by Divisional Secretariats through ICT enabled system and processors.
 
Stakeholders and Key Partners
1.    Various Groups of General Public
The stakeholder groups include various services recipients of DSs such as Women, Youth, Senior Citizen, Business Community; Self employed, Dissable People, Low income groups etc
2.    Divisional Secretariats
The officials including Divisional Secretary, his Assistants and all employees will interact with the new system for data entry, information retrieval and in decision making process. They will also have a least cost communication system within the offices, with other DSs and with the superior organization.
3.    District Secretariats
The District Secretary and his staff will use the system for information retrieval, monitoring progress and decision making process. They will also have communication link with the DS offices and the relevant Ministries.
4.    Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs
Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs will have a convenient monitory and progress review mechanism, speedy and reliable communication links with all District and Divisional Secretariats – (MoU has been signed between the Secretary of the ministry and ICTA as ministries the owner of the system)
5.    ICTA
ICTA will be the organization that provides funds for the project designing and implementation. The ICTA will have the responsibility of project management and project auditing.
6.    Other Public Organizations
Other Ministries of Central government and Provincial Council, Local Government institution will also be the Stakeholders of the System.
 

Scope of the project and out puts.

 The project will encompass the activities starting from System Study, Business Process Reengineering Study to System implementation. Under the system implementation, the project will deals with activities related to application development, testing, integration, data migration, user training and application and system maintenance up to three years.
The main out puts expected are;
·        Re-engineered business processes of Divisional Secretariats where necessary
·        To develop a comprehensive ICT solution for DSs to carry out the following activities;
a.    House Holders List (including basic Socio-Economic information)
b.    Samurdhi and other social benefits
c.    Flood and draught relief
d.    Issuances of Various Permits (Timber, Sand Mining, Quarrying)
e.    Issuance of Certificates (Income, GS Certificate, Land valuation etc)
f.    Development Projects (Line Ministries, Provincial Council, DCB & Other)
g.   Government Land databse
·        an integrated citizen information system which could also be linked to all citizen services delivered by the DSs
·        Electronic communication system which allows DSs to interact with the following central citizen service providers Issuance of ID cards,  Passports  Birth, marriage and death registration,Motor vehicle revenue licenses, Driving Licenses
·        strengthen the internal and external communication of DS office through e-mail and other means of communication.
·        enhanced physical and human capacity in relation to use of ICT for efficient services at the DS office
 
Key Problems Exist in the System
 Some of the key problems of the current system are listed below

 The organizations which have been created for revenue collection in colonial times are still plagued with bureaucratic controls and cumbersome processes.·       

Lack of readily available, reusable information on citizen is causing delays in citizen service delivery

Lack of information on citizen’s status (i.e. income level, geographical distribution) hampers national as well as regional planning
·        Communication with the central organizations (such as the District Secretariats, Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs, the Treasury) is paper based and by normal mail; Hence the business processes take long to complete.
·        Delays and inefficiencies in providing services are inherent weaknesses of the manual office system.
·        Loss of valuable information is common due to the problems innate to paper based systems i.e. lack of archiving system.
 

Arcitecture Diagram

 

Projec Progress

 Members of PSC of the project

Main Interface of eDS Application