The Hindu : New Delhi News : JNU goes for `e-governance'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

JNU goes for `e-governance'

By Lakshmi B. Ghosh

NEW DELHI, JUNE 22. The sprawling Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus here is all set for a new date with technology as it gets set to join the list of premier institutes adopting `e-governance' for striking that right balance between educational brilliance and efficiency in administration.

From web-based manning of gates to use of smart cards for entry of students and a digitised library, JNU is all set for a new look that it hopes will be ready for the batch of students joining by the beginning of the 2005 academic session. An ambitious move towards making University education here technology driven, the JNU has already short listed six of the 23 companies that had applied for the University's tender call for an e-governance software, and is hoping to finalise the deal by the end of this month.

"We have selected the six companies on the basis of the presentation given by them in May and will be giving them the specifications of what exactly we want for them to come out with their final representation with the financial aspect. The representation will be presented before the University Committee which will evaluate and decide who gets the order," JNU Registrar, Ramesh Kumar, said.

Part of the University's X Plan proposals, the project is partly funded by the UGC and is aimed at improving the "productivity, adaptability and overall effectiveness of the University", the JNU is looking for a software that is "fully integrated, user-friendly, reliable, rugged, customisable, modular, data-secured, upgradeable and web-based".

"Our attempt would be to get this done as early as possible, so that we can introduce the new system by next year's session at the earliest, although the companies involved have so far said that it might take a little long term," said Mr. Kumar.

Apart from helping in managing data for assessing operational performance, the University authorities believe the technology could be used for planned performance and effective utilisation of resources. While database management will help the University record the data necessary for its short term and long-term operations, the University is looking at five areas to complete its management information system. This would include manpower information management system, student and hostel information management system,

Financial information and management system, physical resources information management system and library information management systems among others.

The development of the library resource material, in fact, is one of the more ambitious projects of the University. With security breaches raising concern on this Campus in the recent past, JNU is now looking at an application that will be ready for a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) providing basic level authentication through digital certificates.

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