e-Despatch (www.edodisha.gov.in)

Government letters are regulated through stringent / auditable sets of rules laid down in the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure (CSMoP) and the respective States Record Manual. The process of movement of letters at the recipient offices is also well defined till it is filed.  The credibility of a letter being immense for a single decision-making at the Government authorities, each step right from dispatch to receipt of such a letter is meticulously documented. The chaos is also accentuated by the regular Financial Audits of the dispatch section because of the purchase and usage of Postal Stamps.

e-Despatch is an innovative web based solution which facilitates electronic dispatch and receiving of all Government letters. The e-Despatch application is functioning since 2009. It ensures Government signed letter reaches its recipients in real time basis via email, SMS and e-Space.

The recipient offices download letters through a secured User ID and password to process instructions/notifications. The application is also used as a knowledge management and productivity tool, making sure that all facets of Government business processes are adequately captured within its framework. It enables various report generation which were otherwise, manually updated for audit purpose. e-Despatch builds transparency in government functions opening certain communications between Governments and Citizens, Journalists and academician. 

The Objective of e-Despatch is to ensure instant communication of the Government letters without making any changes to the Government rules as laid down in the Records Manual. This initiative highlights the following:

• Reduces turnaround time from dispatch to delivery.
• Reduces occurrences of Lost/Misplaced/untraceable letters.
• Transparency between citizens and government information.
• Monitors the dispatch of the letter inter and intra organizational departments.
• Rights based on user control, query based search, sort features and web-publishing functions.
• Prioritizes the ‘receive’, ‘forward’, ‘quick’ search letters.
• Smart citizen search option in portal that allows citizens to access letters from various offices.
• Provides organic employee directory for making it easy for citizens to find specific officials.
• Work in offline mode in case internet is not available
• Mobile App for viewing letters

Broad Functional Areas  

e-Despatch is a single gateway to all Government information & services that not only fastens the process but also avoids delay in monitoring letters. It involves 4 simple steps to dispatch a letter e.g., Details of Letter to be entered, Assigning Addressees to the particular letter, Attach/uploading the PDF of the letter, and thenthe Dispatch Letters. The following components of e-Despatch make it unique usable application:

1. e-Despatch Portal module provides a user-friendly platform to dispatch all official correspondences from govt. offices.
2. Office e-Space provides an interface to the users for receiving all respective correspondences through e-Despatch system.
3. e-Space comes with rights based user control, query based search, sort features and web-publishing functions. Letters can be downloaded from e-Space to send immediate response on action to be taken.
4. QuikSpace is a single desktop interface where the eSpace user can easily & quickly find their respective letters for them.
5. Web Portal (Citizen Service) brought transparency in government process and provides necessary information to the citizens.
6. Offline Despatch a Desktop application which provide an interface to the Despatcher to work in Offline mode, basically this system help the offices where the internet connectivity is very poor.
7. Mobile App empower Official receiver and the Public user to view the letters instantly and in easier way.
8. Internal Messaging a messaging tool which helps the Official users to have a very good communication with their sub-ordinate offices and vice versa. Instant messaging, document sharing and making official communication groups among offices are some highlighted future in this tool.

Implementation Status:

• All departments of Government of Odisha are using this application and transaction is in tune of more than 10 lakhs every year. Till Date 1.43 Cr. letters are dispatched through the application.
• Till date, e-Despatch system has been implemented in all Government Departments and 5,618 sub-ordinate offices under different Departments of Govt. of Odisha. Also, it has been implemented at Governor's Secretariat and Odisha Legislative Assembly.

Accolades / Recognitions

The project has bagged a number of national awards, like NASSCOM Social Innovation in 2010 and Skoch Smart Governance Award 2013.