Online tapal system soon for speedy movement of mails

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The physical tapal system between various government departments that played a significant role in earning notoriety for government communications, will soon be history.

The general administration department, joining hands with C-DIT, is in the process of developing an online tapal system that will connect six lakh government officials and close to 10,000 government offices across the state. The online tapal system titled Kerala Communication Services, details of which has been accessed by TOI, will be a common platform which will be dedicated for sending communications across the departments, efficiently and without delay.

At present, each organization is using a different platform for file management. For example, while government secretariat uses e-office software, the districts use e-district at the district level and the software iAPS is used by state police for file management and sending tapal between its offices. In addition, there are several offices that have not switched to digital format yet, which would mean that the communication between different offices is still in the physical format.

A routine letter from secretariat to a field directorate functioning next to it would be sent by post, which goes to the post office, undergoes the usual process before it is delivered, consuming a lot of time. If the matter requires a clarification from the department, the directorate sends a letter back in the same channel, which drags on for days before the matter gets settled. Only in cases which are urgent, the tapals are delivered through a special messenger.

With the new system in place, it not only reduces the time delay, one can also check the status of the tapal, the number of tapals received and the number of tapals that have been processed. In addition, a department can also rearrange the queue of tapals by taking into account the priority of the subject. Moreover, there would be a separate feature to handle confidential tapals.

Secretariat officials cite the time taken in communicating with the field offices as one of the major hiccups in processing files. "Despite the e-office system of the secretariat for file processing, the files are left pending because in most of them, some or the other clarification from the field office would be inevitable. In such cases, the department will have to wait for the physical communique to reach the office and get the reply. If clarifications are required, it would further add to the delay," a senior official with general administration department said.