Even if the Secretary of any department is on tour and not available in the State Secretariat, files can be cleared by him where he is at the moment, thanks to a decision of the State Government to provide VPN (Virtual Private Network) Services to the top mandarins.
This was revealed at a meeting of the All Secretaries held in the State Secretariat here on Thursday under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra.
All the Secretaries are given PIN Numbers to handle their files through the Odisha Secretariat Workflow Automation Services (OSWAS). As the OSWAS is protected under firewall, the files cannot be attended. So, when a Secretary is on tour, files pile up and decision-making gets delayed. Keeping this in view, it has been decided to provide VPN Services to the Secretaries.
The VPN Service is a secure connection that allows one’s computer to access the State Secretariat computer network when one is not inside his official chamber.
Once the software is installed on the computer, it allows the officer to establish a secure connection so that the data passed between the computer and the OSWAS network is protected as it is strongly encrypted. One can then be confident that the files, emails and passwords, etc., cannot be inspected by anyone on other networks, said an official.
At this meeting, ACS Finance UN Behera gave out the details on expenditure and revenue generation during the year 2013-14. The total expenditure rose by 18.2 per cent. However, the revenue expenditure was only 16.8 per cent while the capital expenditure was 31 per cent.
While the total expenditure was Rs55,073 crore, the spending in the Non-Plan Sector was Rs32,324 crore and the State Plan expenditure was
Rs22,749 crore.
The revenue earning during the fiscal was Rs47,890 crore. While the tax revenue was Rs16,937 crore, the non-tax revenue was Rs7,587 crore.
As the mining activities slowed down, the earning from the metal sector was Rs5,511 crore during the last fiscal compared to Rs5,696 crore during 2012-13.
The agriculture and allied sector spending was much higher with Rs4,800 crore which was 23.17 per cent higher than the previous year.
During 2013-14, the infrastructure spending was Rs4,587.22 crore, which was 63 per cent higher. The water resources sector spent Rs 2,572. 81crore, which was 14 per cent higher than the previous year.
The Department of Works topped the list with a spending of Rs1,499 .41 crore, 55 per cent higher than previous year. The social sector spending went high with Rs7,355.65 crore, 23.35 per cent higher than 2012-13.
The State Plan spending was achieved at Rs19,337 crore, which was 31 per cent higher than 2012-13. Obviously, there was less thrust on Non Plan expenditure, which was 11 per cent higher.