OPERATING GUIDELINES

for
SUGAM
(Integrated Community Service Center)
CENTERS

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY, HIMACHAL PRADESH
 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Background

Integrated Community Service Centre (SUGAM) will provide one-stop

shop information resource and service centre for the common man. By and
large the concept of e-Sewa in Andhra Pradesh is being taken a step
further by adding more services and by providing services at a Centre
closest to the place of residence of a citizen. The unique feature of this
Project is that the submission of documents and collection of required
certificates/ licences etc. can be done even at a place other than the one
where sanction is to be done (except where physical presence is necessary
as per law). In the first phase, only over-the-counter services shall be provided
while a web based roll specific software for receiving documents at lower
levels of administrative hierarchy (and sending scanned copy of the same
electronically for immediate commencement of processing) under
development. Some services including status of all applications and
information pertaining to all departments (schemes etc.) will also be available
through a web portal, touch screen kiosks and even mobile phone.

The Integrated Community Service Centre (SUGAM) will also act as a tool
for development. It aims to empower the masses by providing access to
community-based information and communication resources and ICT-based
applications - particularly in the field of health, education, agriculture/ natural
resources and rural enterprise development.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Objectives

 Improvement in the quality of services by re-engineering the

administrative processes (and not merely computerisation of existing
processes) in the IT enabled applications.
 To ensure greater transparency, efficiency, objectivity,
accountability and speed by ensuring delivery on the same day or a
definite date.
 Better dissemination of information through web portal and online
status of applications submitted online or through post or by hand.
 Advice to the farmers and villagers regarding their problems, new
technologies etc. from a group of experts in the fields of agriculture,
horticulture, animal husbandry, health, fisheries etc.
 Updated and latest information regarding public distribution system, list
of beneficiaries under different programmes, information regarding
government grants given to PRIs and urban local bodies.
 To provide Internet / E-mail and word processing facilities.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Administrative Guidelines

Display Board

The SUGAM Centre should be located in a building/site which is

easily accessible to the citizens. Display boards indicating the location should be
fixed at prominent place in the complex. A back-lit display board having SUGAM
standard logo and name of the location should be fixed outside the centre.

Working Hours

SUGAM Centres should be run from 09:30 AM to 5:30 PM on

all working days. At least two counters should be kept open from 5:30 PM to 8
PM at locations with relatively more population on working days and on holidays
for providing services like bill payments, web based information/services etc.
Working hours and lunch break should be clearly indicated and displayed
prominently.

Number of Centres

Each District / Sub-division / Tehsil / Sub-tehsil / Block

headquarters shall have at least one Sugam Centre. Big towns like Shimla, Mandi
and Kangra may need to have more than one such centre to provide easy
accessibility to citizens.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Sugam Manager

A SUGAM Manager (officer / official incharge of all operations

in SUGAM Centre) is to be designated for each centre. However, the Deputy
Commissioner may decide to have one officer who will act as coordinator for all
Sugam centres at a place. For instance, NT, LRC appointed by the Deputy
Commissioner, Shimla may act as coordinator for all Sugam Centres to be opened
in Shimla town. Besides this, a helper should be made available in the Sugam
Centre so that all the documents can be carried by him and citizen does not
have to go back and forth to get his / her job done.

User Charges

Quite a few departments like Transport, Social Justice &

Empowerment, Health, Revenue etc. have already decided the User Charges
by way of a notification, letter or by incorporation of the same in the relevant
application software. In some other cases, almost uniform charges are already in
vogue throughout the State. Some charges for information based, IT enabled
services have also been approved. Therefore, charges as per Annexure-I to this
letter may continue to be followed at all Sugam Centres till the time the same are
modified by the State Government. It may be noted that in some cases like
BSNL bills, extra user charges are not to be charged and these (Rs. 5/- per
bill) are to be collected from BSNL on a monthly basis. Similar is the case
with HPSEB. On the other hand, extra User Charges are to be levied in most
other cases. Wherever extra charges are levied, the same can be retained by
the Sugam Centres, subject to sharing of the same with the State Government
/ any other organisation as per the decision of the Finance Department (25%

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

share to the State Government as of now). It is clarified that User Charges

should cover all allied expenses related to provision of services. For instance, in
case of Vahan, file cover should be provided at the Sugam Centre without
charging any extra amount. In order to have a brand image and to ensure
convenience of citizens, a common format for cash receipts has been devised
(as per Annexure-II) for all services being provided under SUGAM.

Cash Deposit

An arrangement should be made for depositing cash everyday in the

bank account of concerned departments / organizations e.g. HPSEB, BSNL, and
HRTC etc. Cash collections of a particular day must be deposited latest by the
next working day. SUGAM Manager will ensure this timely submission of cash.

Delivery Strategy

The basic feature of SUGAM is submission of documents and

collection of required certificates/licences/delivery of services at a central
location transcending the departmental barriers. However, individual
departments may continue to provide individual services through their offices. For
the purpose of providing multiple services under a single roof, officers for
signing final document need to be identified and authorized in keeping with
the norms prescribed by the concerned Department. For instance, in case of
senior citizen / physically challenged identity cards, an official not below the rank
of Naib Tehsildar is to be designated as per a circular from Social Justice &
Empowerment Department.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

The Architecture and Workflow of Sugam Services is attached as

Annexure-III. Similarly in case of GRAM SUGAM (3361 Citizen Service
Centres to be set up at the village level) documents/applications are to be
submitted at the village level centre (CSC) and from there these will be
transmitted electronically as well as physically by CSC operator to SUGAM
centre for further processing. Final output will be delivered electronically using
digital signatures/bar coding or physically by post or through the GRAM SUGAM
centre. However, as stated above, web based application for decentralised
collection of documents and delivery of services is being finalised and the
details of the same shall be conveyed separately.

Monthly Reports & Supporting Documents

A monthly (or any other prescribed periodicity) report of

documents issued/services rendered on behalf of every department needs to
be sent as a soft copy as well as in signed & printed form to the concerned
head of the office at the district level. Original / scanned copies of supporting
documents may be retained for subsequent verification.

Timely Delivery of Services

It is important that citizens are given services expeditiously and as

far as possible on the same day. Wherever feasible, link officers have to be
designated for delivery of services in the event of officer in charge being on
tour or on short duration leave. For instance, District Shimla has issued a
circular in this regard with respect to e-Praman application where ADM, ADC,
DRO and Tehsildar Recovery have been made authorised signatories. In fact,
adherence to prescribed time schedule needs to be ensured. For this purpose,

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

maximum wait time for delivery of each service needs to be prescribed (e.g. 45
minutes for HIMRIS) subject to the availability of the sanctioning authority. Such
an exercise is being carried out at the State level in conjunction with the line
departments and outer time limits shall be conveyed shortly for each of the
services. Time limits fixed at the district level should be in conformity with the
upper threshold fixed at the State level.

Technical Manpower

The NIC has deployed District Informatics Officer / District Informatics

Assistant at every district headquarters. In quite a few districts, some more IT
professionals have been appointed under the Land Records, Treasuries and other
similar projects or directly under the District e-Governance Societies. Vide letter
No. DIT-F (5)14/2006-8591-8602 dated 28th July, 2007, it has also been decided
that one IT Facilitator can be appointed in every district headquarter. This pool of
technical professionals should also be used in trouble free operation of these
Sugam Centres. Besides this, M/s. Hewlett Packard India Limited is
deploying 83 technical professionals throughout the state at District, Sub-
division and Tehsil / Sub-Tehsil levels for operating and maintaining
HIMSWAN. Once the HIMSWAN gets fully operational, network maintenance
related work will reduce considerably. The services of these professionals can also
used for hand holding and technical help during their free time from the primary
task of network maintenance in keeping with the Agreement signed with M/s.
Hewlett Packard India Limited. Similarly, technical professionals deployed by the
other departments also can be used as per requirement.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Direct Processing of Applications

No purpose whatsoever is served by marking down application by

the approving or intermediate authority to the Dealing Assistant (before the
application is processed) as it has to go in any case to the approving authority for
final approval. Such a practice results in an applicant waiting first in front of the
room of the approving authority and then going to the Community Services
Centres. Therefore, as an essential process reengineering for these Sugam
Centres, marking of application should be stopped and processing should
start directly from the counter level by using appropriate software.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Technical Guidelines

Sugam MIS Application

1. A LAN-based Sugam MIS Application is being provided to each

Sugam Centre, which may be used to generate various Sugam MIS reports
accessible over the Internet (with various privileges at different levels) in a
secure manner through a central database.

2. The Sugam Manager would take operator-wise and service wise daily
cash report at end of working day of the amount collected by each operator
using Sugam MIS application and collect the amount as per this report, from
them. Sugam Manager would be responsible for depositing the amount
collected at Sugam Centre in the corresponding departmental bank accounts
latest by the next working day.

3. The Department of IT will provide the username and password for Sugam
Manager (SM) of each Sugam Centre. The Sugam Manager should change
the password initially provided immediately after first use for security
reasons.

4. SM would create username and password for each operator of the

Sugam Centre using Sugam MIS application which will authorise him to
provide various services. Some specific credentials (username and passwords)
will also be provided for operation of various LAN based applications like
HIMBHOOMI, HIMRIS, e-Praman, Vahan, Sarthi etc.

5. Operators may be directed to change passwords provided to them.

Operators would operate each application for delivery of service using the
credentials provided and accept cash as per the requirement of the service to be

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

provided. The Sugam application will automatically update the data of cash
received at each counter service wise, in a central database and generate
appropriate reports as required.

Software Applications

Most of the services can be provided using web-based applications.

Hence, no extra software application needs to be installed. However, quite a few
software applications running successfully all over the State are client-server
based (Annexure-IV). It may be ensured that the latest version of these client-
server based applications is installed. For instance, in case of Himbhoomi, it
may be ensured that the version which enables compilation of tehsil-wise data for
centralised availability at district / sub-divisional data (thus facilitating immediate
issuance of Land Records based certificates such as caste, agriculturist etc.) is
installed. Similarly, in case of HIMRIS, the version allowing for keeping a deed
pending should be installed.

Internet Connectivity

Most of the software applications are being made web-based.

Therefore, each centre is required to have an Internet connection for delivering the
services. For this purpose, wherever the facility of broadband internet is available,
the facility may be taken. NIC also has leased line internet connectivity at all
district headquarters and four tribal sub-divisions viz. Kaza, Bharmaur, Pangi and
Pooh. Apart from this, Internet and State wide Intranet connectivity to these
centres shall be provided from HIMSWAN PoPs. It will be desirable to have at
least two kinds of internet connectivity at every centre to ensure sufficient
redundancy for uninterrupted operations.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Coding Scheme

The Sugam centres at each level have been assigned a particular

code. The codification scheme is enclosed at Annexure-V. This may be quoted
in all future references related to SUGAM centre. This will help in proper
referencing and report generation across the State for all the centres.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Infrastructure Requirement

Hardware / System Software Requirement

Minimum hardware / application software requirement at every

Sugam Centre of three levels has been summarised in Annexure-VI. The Deputy
Commissioners may review current availability of hardware at each location
in their districts and then plan for making up for the deficiency first through
their District e-Governance Society and then if necessary by taking financial
assistance from this Department. Sugam Manager will ensure proper
maintenance of hardware and software in the Sugam Centre.

Besides a UPS with at least 2 hours backup on computer load,

backup power can also be provided (by sharing the expenses for diesel on
pro-rata basis with HMSWAN operator) from DG sets installed for
HIMSWAN Project. Necessary electrical and network cabling from PoP to i-
CoSC centre should be done in order to establish this connectivity.

Electronic Token Machine

In case of centres having large number of visitors, electronic token

machine should be provided for Queue management System. The system will
provide thermal paper tokens with specific token number to the citizens based on
the service being availed and counter number will be displayed on LED / LCD
display board along with corresponding token number as per the queue. This will
ensure that citizens do not have to stand in queues and can instead sit in the
waiting area.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Touch screen kiosks

Touch screen kiosks should be installed within the centre for

providing touch screen based services.

Other Facilities

Adequate waiting and writing space should be provided for the

citizens and counters should have a citizen friendly access. Centre should have a
citizen friendly environment.

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 Operating Guidelines for Sugam Centers

Photo Gallery of SUGAM centre SHIMLA

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