All Kerala government employees to get e-mail IDs

Thiruvananthapuram: Taking a major step forward on the e-Governance front the Government of Kerala has launched an ambitious e-Mail to All Employees project.

The project was kicked off with the allocation of official e-mail IDs to over 4,000 employees, through a
web-based mail service using an open source software package, reports IANS.

"Over 475,000 employees will get the same in a phased manner," Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan said while launching the project.

Once this project is completed there would be an improvement in the efficiency of government functioning, Kerala's state IT Mission Director Rathan Kelkar said.

"We have already published a set of rules and policies regarding managing e-mails approved by the government based on the guidelines of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances," Kelkar said.

He further said that this project will save both—time in inter department communication and paperwork.

"Earlier notes were written on the file and it used to take a couple of days before some action could be taken, as the files had to be carried manually. But now all the information sharing will be done through e- mail which will make the system more efficient and speed up the governance process." he added.

He also said that as of now all the Secretaries from different departments have an official mail ID and in second phase all the Directors will have one. He expected that by next year all the government employees will get their official mail IDs.

The project was developed on a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) platform, configured and tested for hardware and software and finally rolled out by the state-owned Centre for the Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT).