The Railway ministry has decided to provide laptops to all its officers in order to promote IT culture and reduce paper work.
"The laptops have already been given to senior officers at joint secretary level. Now, it has been decided to provide it to all our officers at director level and above," said a senior ministry official.
The ministry would spend about Rs 930 crore (Rs 9.30 billion) in the current fiscal year in information technology-related activities out of Rs 31,000 crore (Rs 310 billion) budget. The Planning Commission has suggested spending about three per cent of its budget on IT projects.
Currently, only 2,000 senior officials have been given laptops while there are about 14,000 officers in the railways.
"Laptops would be provided in phases as we are in the process of finalising the procurement process," said the official.
We order on track alignment and repairing the wagons, instant decision can be taken through the net. One can also access the data instantly without waiting for the report to be placed before him or her and so by providing laptops, the time gap in taking decisions would be reduced, he said.
It is not only officials but even the supervisors are to be equipped with laptops in the next phase as per the ministry's e-governance plan.
"Those supervisors who are involved in field duties are being considered for laptops," added the official.
There will be training course for officers and supervisors to make them Net-savvy.
Recently, the Railway ministry made it mandatory for all its DRMs (Divisional railway manager) and GMs (general managers) to go for training at reputed business schools.
While DRMs would go to HEC Paris, GMs would be sent to Stern Business School at New York for two weeks.
