1. For Directorate of Health Services (DHS) A & N Administration By NIC, Andaman State Unit

2. “BIRDS” 1. Project Background 2. Objectives of BIRDS 3. Statistics 4. Infrastructure Provided 5. Results achieved 6. Challenges faced 7. Change Management 8. Technology Environment 9. Security 10. Standards

3. 1. “BIRDS” – Background 1. Registration of Birth, Death & Still birth, as per RGI guidelines 2. Births can take place in Govt / Private Institutions or at Home but have to be registered at Registration units of DHS only 3. Total 95 Health centres in A & N Islands, 26 Registration units (Urban / Rural) 4. CRBD office at DHS, Port Blair is Registration Unit as well as monitoring authority 5. Inputs - from Forms Legal and Statistical data 6. Outputs – Birth & Death certificates, Registers, RGI tables, etc., 7. Basis for analysis of Birth and Mortality rates – one factor of a Developed state as well to identify abnormal/alert situations

4. 2. “BIRDS” – Key Objectives 1. Each Unit to register Birth / Death online through Internet in the website of BIRDS (www.and.nic.in) 2. Legally valid Birth / death certificate to be issued by Unit from website 3. Office of CRBD to monitor registration of all units through website 4. Citizens to download ‘Gist of Certificate’ through Internet freely 5. Access to BIRDS project for other Govt offices through Internet – Sharing and Interfacing software

5. 3. “BIRDS” – Statistics 1. Around 2.00 lakhs of Birth & Death records from 1982 in the whole of UT 2. Around 6000 births registered every year 3. Around 2000 deaths registered every year 4. Around 1000 duplicate birth certificates every year 5. Delayed registration - After two years of birth of child, Birth and Death registers are shifted to CRBD 6. Time taken to issue Birth certificate manually - 2 to 6 days

6. 4. “BIRDS” – Infrastructure provided 1. Each registration unit provided with computer, printer, UPS 2. Server at CRBD for Urban registration 3. CRBD office has LAN with citizen service counters 4. Broad band / Data card of BSNL / CIC centres 5. Entire BIRDS software, database hosted in NIC server 6. NIC is the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for the project with shared 2 mbps Internet bandwidth 7. Leased line between NIC and CRBD for Data sharing and for disaster recovery.

7. 5. “BIRDS” – Results achieved 1. BIRDS project conceived in Aug 2007, developed Dec 2007 2. BIRDS project online at CRBD from Jan 2008 3. Extended to all other units in UT by April 2010 4. Completely online from May 2010 5. Access enabled for other Govt offices now 6. Integration with other applications provided now 7. Backlog entry of past records going on, expected to be completed by Mar 2011. Separate software developed. 8. End Objective - Any unit can issue Birth certificate through internet for any birth record

8. 6. “BIRDS” – Challenges faced 1. Resistance to change 2. Persistence with old procedures 3. Implementation support at remote locations 4. Fall back measures when internet connectivity fails 5. Monitoring the activities 6. Change of manpower at implementation locations 7. Little review at HOD level

9. 7. “BIRDS” – Change Management 1. Pilot and Rollout in Phases 2. Review meetings at Principal Secretary level 3. Orders banning manual issue of certificates and manual maintenance of registers 4. Order for each unit to produce computerized registers periodically to CRBD - For cross verification with website data 5. Systematically reduced Registration date at unit to be “ Online ” with Server date 6. Training provided to officials in each unit at Port Blair and at implementation locations 7. Software professional engaged from Aug 2010 to support implementation 8. Continuous improvement in BIRDS project

10. 8. “BIRDS” – Technology Environment 1. Entirely in Open Source 2. Linux, Apache, My SQL and PHP (LAMP) 3. Completely Web based, not just web enabled 4. Hosted in NIC server at Secretariat 5. Open standards (XML) 6. Inter operability with other applications 7. Data in English only, but certificate Bi-lingual

11. 9. “BIRDS” – Security 1. Roles created for each Regn Unit, CRBD & Other offices 2. User based access rights for each role 3. Will be enabling Bio Metric based access to BIRDS 4. Will be integrating with Digital Signature Certificate 5. Virtual Private Network (VPN) over Broad band 6. Audit trail and Access Log maintained in Linux 7. Automatic locking of access if failed for more than 3 times during Login.

12. 10. “BIRDS” – Standards 1. Data set and structures as per RGI standards 2. Provision for “Miscellaneous” panel during data entry – to accommodate state-specific features 3. Business rules for live and delayed Registration, Birth certificate, change of details, NOC etc., as per RGI instructions 4. Open standards based on XML – Technology

13. “BIRDS” – Sharing Data and Beyond A Birth/Death once registered affects other Govt functions. Death Registered From Ration Card database of Civil Supplies dept From Electoral Roll database of Election dept From Driving license database of Transport dept From Beneficiary database of Social welfare schemes From Employment exchange database of Labour dept And so on.. Removal of deceased Name from

14. “BIRDS” – Sharing Data and Beyond Facility provided to other Govt departments to access BIRDS software through Internet Each department provided with separate access rights Each department can download Report of Births / Deaths from website Each department can download report in the format they require, from dataset of BIRDS project

15. “BIRDS” – Sharing Data and Beyond But it is still not enough Each department can download Birth / Death details as “ data ” so that it need not be entered again in the dept The data can be downloaded simply as “ Text ” file However, as BIRDS is based on Open Standards, the data can be downloaded as “ XML ” format. XML data can be directly imported to department database, if it also follows “ Open Standards ”

16. “BIRDS” – Sharing Data and Beyond This Implies that, Sharing of data is possible if we : Identify Project objectives and interfaces with other offices / software projects at the beginning and Design and develop software as per “Open standards”

17. “BIRDS” – Sharing Data and Beyond Is it Possible for Software Applications to be shared ? We can make one application “ Talk ” to another. The concept is called as “ Web Services ” One software requests for a “ Service ” from another The other application “ Provides ” the service requested for Again this happens through Internet, following “Open standards” and “Security” BIRDS has interfaces to e-Tehsil, Civil supplies, Electoral roll etc.,

18. “BIRDS” – Conclusion We can extend the underlying concepts of BIRDS project to any e-Gov project for standardization, Sharing and Integration of Data and software Applications. This can result in a common Database and Software for A & N Administration as a whole.