Page 143 - DLIS408_INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY-APPLICATIONSL SCIENCES

Information Technology and Application

Notes 4. Prof. V. S. Rajamani, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi Member
5. Col. A. Balasubramanian, Officer on Special Duty, Department of Electronics Member
6. Dr. N. Seshagiri, Director (IPAG) and Executive Director (Protem), NIC Member
The long-term objective of the National Informatics Centre, as approved by the Planning
Commission, Ministry of Finance and the Electronics Commission, is ‘to establish the feasibility
of a system for the provision of detailed information to government ministries and agencies to
assist them in making decisions relating to the country’s economic and social development planning
and programme implementation’. (Annual Report of the Department of Electronics, Government
of India, 1977-78,p172.)
NIC was set up with the objective to promote economic, social, scientific and technological activities, and
also for macro-economic adjustment programme of the Government, through the applications of IT.
As laid down in the Annual Reports of DOE 1976-77 and 1977-78, NIC was given the mandate to
provide this informatics service to various user agencies in Government
play a promotional role in creating appropriate information systems in Government
act as a focal point for developing, managing and operating information system in Government
act as a focal point for development of methodologies for designing and implementing
national information systems and data management techniques
act as a focal point for maintaining inventories of primary data and computer-based
systems for data collection and dissemination
train users in information systems, data management and computing techniques
Ten information systems were planned for development by NIC in the following sectors:
Agriculture
Construction and Transport
Education and Manpower
Energy
Finance
Industry
Small-Scale Industries
Socio-Economic Index
Trade and Media
Government Archival Information
With this, NIC embarked on a grandiose mission to develop various national data bases for use in
planning and decision making by the government.
Starting as a small programme under an external stimulus by an UNDP project in early 1970s, NIC
started functioning in 1977 and since then it has grown incrementally and later exponentially as
one of India’s major S&T; Organisations promoting Informatics-led Development, which has
helped to usher in the required transformation to cope with the trends in the new millennium.

NICNET Facilities at LEH
The DISNIC programme is operational in 440 districts throughout the Country. Many states have
taken up the implementation of this programme on priority basis, and have used it successfully in
the sectors of Industry, Agriculture, Education, Transport, Treasury, Revenue, Administration, Civil
Supplies, Animal Husbandry, Decentralized planning and Project detailing for sectorial programmes
(Fisheries, Water Resources, Cooperation etc.).
A special decision-support system, using GISNIC software for educational planning and
administration at district level, has been initiated. GISNIC has also been used to prepare the 1991
Population Census Atlas.
NIC has implemented Land Records computerisation using GIST terminals in 15 Pilot districts
(Burdwan, Rewari, Ropar, Bishnupur, Sonitpur, Thiruvananthapuram, Gulberga, Salem, Wardha,
Durgapur, Kangra, Deoria,Tripura, Imphal and Thoubal) selected by DRD; and also at Port Blair,
Kanpur(Dehat), and Ghaziabad. The Project has also been initiated by NIC State Units in the states
of Maharashtra, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh with fund allocation by the respective State Governments.
138 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY