Avinash Azad
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday informed the assembly that approximately ₹5 crore was spent by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to develop the e-office application.
In the assembly session, MLA Ranbir Singh Pathania raised queries about the implementation of the e-office platform in Jammu and Kashmir, prompting detailed responses from the J&K government on Tuesday.
The government clarified that the e-office system was rolled out by the Information Technology Department through the Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA), the nodal agency tasked with implementing e-governance projects across the Union Territory. JaKeGA has been responsible for training, handholding, and onboarding users onto the platform.
Addressing expenditure, the government revealed that the e-office application, designed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), incurred a total cost of Rs. 4,96,73,878. This included expenses on software licensing, training, capacity building, a one-year data recovery site, and manpower support.
On the involvement of vendors, the government stated that Railtel Corporation of India Limited, a Central Public Sector Enterprise, was assigned two key components—training officials and establishing a Disaster Recovery Centre—on a nomination basis under GFR 2017 provisions, following Administrative Council Decision No. 32/4/2021 dated March 10, 2021. Additionally, 20 outsourced manpower resources have been engaged for training and support.
The government reported that the e-office platform, serving over 25,000 users and processing extensive e-files, faced six major downtimes between April 2022 and February 2025 due to technical glitches and upgrades. To enhance services, the system was migrated to NIC/NICSI cloud infrastructure managed by Railtel, ensuring 99.9% uptime.
Refuting claims of privatization, the government emphasized that JaKeGA, under the IT Department, spearheaded the implementation, with Railtel’s role limited to cloud hosting, fully funded by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) for three years. This includes robust data security with local backups and a remote disaster recovery facility, aligning with national e-governance goals.
The government informed that 20 ICT Support persons has been engaged with Rs 38000 as monthly remuneration by the government.
