• Home
• /
• World

Chief Minister Naidu to introduce first-of-its-kind e-Cabinet

The e-Cabinet is configured to use open source database, ideally suited for managing all types of documents.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who takes pride in his image as a tech-savvy politician, is all set to unveil e-Cabinet, a first of its kind initiative in the country that uses a new technology tool to hold an entirely paperless cabinet meeting.

On September 15, when Naidu chairs a cabinet meeting, it will not be just another routine meeting of ministerial colleagues but will be a watershed event in the way technology is used to improve administrative efficiency. Official sources said the meeting will be totally paperless, and all ministers will be using their iPads. e-Cabinet is a powerful technology tool that is designed to streamline the decision-making process. A self-hosted and self-managed file sharing system, e-Cabinet is being implemented using FileCloud Tool that enables sharing and synchronisation of files from multiple client devices.

“It will be a historic moment in the e-governance history of the country as cabinet ministers will walk into the meeting room wielding iPads and no files or any other papers,” the sources said. e-Cabinet system functions similar to a Dropbox, the popular file sharing and syncing tool in the web, but in a private cloud environment. It provides secure access to data through multiple client devices such as desktops, laptops and iPads as well as mobile access client systems like iOS, Android and Windows. Word, Excel, Power Point, Text types of documents can be stored, shared and synchronised.

The e-Cabinet is configured to use open source database, ideally suited for managing all types of documents. In the current configuration, 30 users can access eCabinet through VPN from Internet, providing a minimum storage space of 2GB per user which can be scaled up. Incidentally, September 15 marks completion of 100 days in office by Chandrababu Naidu whose Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had won the recent general elections. Naidu had earned laurels for introducing bold reforms during his tenure as chief minister of the combined state of Andhra Pradesh from 1995 to 2004, and giving a corporate touch to governance.