Information Technology

Raksha Bhoomi:

• The purpose of Raksha Bhoomi Software is used for maintaining GLR & MLR of Cantonments as well as Defence Estates Circles.
• The development of RB was started in 2006 with the help of NIC. In 2012, DGDE has taken over the Raksha Bhoomi from NIC. Till 2015, a numerous changes have been made in RB as per the requirements of field offices.
• The old Raksha Bhoomi (Raksha Bhoomi 4.0) application is installed and maintained by CEOs/DEOs on their local server.
• It is locally accessible only to the staffs of the field offices which include Cantonment Boards and Defence Estates Circle Offices.

Features:

• The data for all field offices stored at one location centrally.
• CEO/DEO can access their data only through MPLS-VPN.
• PDsDE can access their jurisdictional data.
• It is protected over HTTPS.
• Encroachment Module.
• SMSGateway is also integrated to edit/delete field office authenticated data.
• In-Line Digital Certificate Signature for GLR Extract (Pdf version) is also enabled.
• Audit log is maintained to monitor each and every user request/activity.
• Platform Independent [Linux not necessary in clients].

The Real Time Record Management System (RTRM) is comprehensive software of Defence Estates Department for efficient management of defence land records. The Software includes following modules:

• Master Data (Raksha Bhoomi)
• Old grant
• Online lease renewal / extension
• Indicative Cost of Land
• Lease determination
• Freehold
• Acquisition
• Hiring & Requisition
• Tree Cutting
• Mutation In Revenue Records
• Surplus Land
• Money Receipts
• Encroachment

The system will having 03 levels for entering any data in RTRM i.e. drafting, verification and authentication which increases the authenticity of the data. The dynamic dashboard and search facility will be provided at DGDE and Dtes level for better monitoring of the performance of Cantonment Boards and Defence Estates Offices in various modules of the RTRM.

DGDE or Dtes can take the present status of land records without asking data from the field offices which will save the time and increase the transparency.

Encroachment Portal: DGDE had implemented encroachment module in Defence Estates Department in Feb 2020. This is a monitoring mechanism at Dte. General and Directorate level for better monitoring of action taken by field offices on the encroachment complaints reported on the website. The link is provided on DGDE website i.e. “Report Encroachment”. DGDE, Dtes and all the field offices configured in the encroachment module

Features:-

• Report encroachment: Complainant can report encroachment by filling a form. Once encroachment is reported by complainant, a complaint no. will be generated and an intimation will be sent to the concerned CB/DEO office with acknowledgement to the complainant via email.
• Dashboard:- Dashboard has been provided at DGDE and Dte level to check the status of complaint received, pending and processed by field offices
• Updating Status of encroachment: CEOs/DEOs are required to update the status of an action taken on encroachment and inform the applicant of status on his email.
• Transferring case to the offices: If encroachment reported by complainant is not related to receiver office, the same can be transferred to another officer by mentioning remarks.

Suvidya Portal: Cantonment Boards operate and run various schools across 51 Cantonments in the country to impart quality education and various skills to students of the locality.

To enhance “Ease of living” for the citizens in the Cantonment areas, School Management System has been implemented in 183 Schools under the management of 51 Cantonment Boards in 15 States. The School Management System has been developed by DGDE in-house with the support of external consultants. The Multilingual School Management Module i.e. Suvidya was launched by Hon’ble Raksha Mantri 16^th December 2022.

The following major online facilities are being provided through Suvidya:

• Online Admissions
• Online issuance of Transfer Certificate
• Online Homework and Assignment
• Online Grievance and incident reporting
• Collection of fees
• Online Notifications
• Online Feedback

The School Management System enables parents to apply for school admission online, grievance addressal, real time incident reporting, pay fees in digital mode, etc. This initiative enables “ease of services” to Cantonment residents. Further process of issuing Transfer Certificate is made simpler for the parents. The system is receiving encouraging response from parents, teachers, students and other stakeholders. The multilingual feature of the portal enables all the stakeholders to avail the facility in their regional languages. The system is available in 07 different languages i.e. Hindi, English, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil & Gujarati).

Defence Estates Mapping Portal: Digital outputs i.e. geo-referenced Shape files of entire Defence Land have been uploaded in a Centralised database system named as  Defence Estates Mapping Portal (DEMAP). DEMAP has been integrated with Textual Data. GIS layers of vacant land, lease land, land under occupation of Services, have been created for better visualisation of data.

Defence Estates Hiring and Requisition Software: The Portal is developed for maintaining the case details and calculate the rent of defence land & building of Defence Estates Circles. There are three levels for authentication of records and rents i.e. Drafter, Verifier and Authenticator. The access has also been provided to DGDE and PDDE for viewing Dashboard and Reports.

Geo-tagging of assets of Cantonment Boards: All the Cantonment Boards have completed the task of geo-tagging of their assets by assigning geo-coordinates it.

File Tracking and Dak Management System: In Ministry or Departments under Ministry, different type of Daks/Letters/applications come to the different Sections. These are generally classified as Dak (ordinary), Confidential Dak, File Movement, Secret Dak and VIP References etc. Whenever any Dak/Letter arrives, first it is identified for its type. After identification it is noted in the corresponding register. A serial number is maintained for each type of Dak/Diary which is referred to as Diary Number. For each type, separate sequences of Diary Numbers are maintained. This system of maintaining the daks is referred to as Dak Monitoring System. The information maintained in dak monitoring are dak number, type of dak, dak inward date, letter no, letter date, sender information, subject, to be put on date, remarks etc. In many cases, the Dak is forwarded to some officer or Section and this forwarding occurs many times on a single Dak. These forwarding information is also maintained in the register.

Drawbacks of the Manual System

1. Maintenance of voluminous registers.
2. It becomes a tedious task to find the answer of any query. It takes much time.
3. Searching of Dak is difficult.
4. Compilation of query on a particular condition becomes difficult.

Features of the System

This software has been designed to overcome the disadvantages of the manual system. It has been designed to adopt the workflow of Dak Monitoring in Directorate General Defence Estates. It’s a computerised system for centrally diarising the incoming dak of all the sections in DGDE Office and for monitoring letters and parcels dispatched from Registry section, received from various sections of DGDE. Thus, Dak Monitoring System is developed for end to end dak tracking in the form of dak received every day and its disposal. The salient features are summarised below:

• It is a Platform Independent application.
• It is a Server-Client Structure in which client system requires the web browser to be installed and should be connected with DGDE LAN only.
• It maintains all the information about Dak as it is done in the manual procedure. Repeated dak entries in the system has been eliminated.
• Maintaining volumes of registers can be done away with.
• The system facilitates faster searching based on different parameters in the Dak, in different combinations.
• To Prioritize incoming documents or DAK (mails) and to ensure that they are disposed of within a predefined time limit.
• The system is multi-user and highly user friendly.
• The system generates report in various formats.

Defence Estates Central Repository System: The IT Division (DGDE) has introduced a concept of Defence Estates Central Repository System (DECRES) for uploading the information related to Parliament Questions, Survey Report received from field offices, CAG/PAC reports and other important matters in to a central system. In which, the information along with related the documents can be uploaded, maintained and retrieved from the system easily.  The DECRES application including the following modules:

1. Parliamentary Questions Module
2. Survey Reports Module
3. Power Point Presentation Module
4. Parliamentary Standing Committee Report Module
5. CAG/PAC Report Module

The DGDE   introduced  and successfully  implemented  an accrual based (double entry) accounting system, called ABAS, in an IT environment whereby day-to-day financial transactions  integrated in the system, in all the 62 Cantonment Boards in a definite time frame to ensure greater accuracy, transparency and efficient capital & revenue administration in the Cantonments.  The earlier Cantt Account Rules 1924  were accounting for transactions on the basis of cash receipts and cash payments, ignoring the timing of the event were done. The Revenues  & expenditures – reflected in the period in which actual receipts or payments are made.  Now  the concept of balance sheet ,  capitalization of Assets, and booking of liabilities has been brought in  through CBAR 2020.

The CBAR 2020 which has paved way for implementing the ABAS –  Accrual Based Accounting System w.e.f 1^st Apr 2020 to all the Cantonments across the nation, after it was tested and proven at two pilot location at CB Agra, and CB St Thomas Mount.  There after same was rolled out to all CBs.

The software generates the financial statements for all the CBs.   The Local C&AG’s office conducts the audit.