GUWAHATI, April 12 - The Assam Higher Secondary Education Council (AHSEC)�s new drive to go digital with its information delivery system is helping the Council make a huge monthly savings of Rs 2,04,000 apart from bridging the information gap with its affiliated institutions.
By stepping up digitalization in its examination branch and replacing the postal mails with e-mails and bulk messaging, the Council is expected to add Rs 24.48 lakh to its coffers annually.
The simple step of shifting from posts to secure e-mails and messages can be an example to be emulated by other government departments and agencies that rely heavily on speed posts, etc., which not only just leads to cost escalation, but stretches the window period of information delivery by a couple of days.
�The step was conceptualized to eliminate the lengthy and expensive process of bulk posting of letters, notifications and other directions to our 1,500 affiliated institutions across the State. Not just it was an additional task to post the letters to different addresses, often, the HS schools, junior colleges and colleges of rural Assam had to suffer because of the postal delays,� AHSEC�s Controller of Examination Pankaj Borthakur told The Assam Tribune.
�The Controller of Examination has to issue minimum four official letters every month to all the affiliated institutions, with a single letter costing Rs 34. Thus, in one year, the minimum cost incurred in sending such letters to each of the institutions is approximately Rs 24, 48,000, which we are being able to save now,� he added.
Unlike earlier, when institutions waited for official letters for every notice and instruction, now any information reaches all of them in minutes, bringing uniformity in the system.
Borthakur and his team have created a digital database of all the 1,500 affiliated institutions, including HS schools, colleges and universities. With the help of this any information related to examinations is circulated through mails and bulk messaging under the two step verification system.
�This process took us two months. We had to create a database and explain the process to those who were skeptical about embracing the change,� he added.
The bulk messaging was also used to alert and inform the supervising officers, observers and officers in charge on each day of the HS final exam of 2019.
The Council has also started digitizing the tabulation register (TR), which contains the HS final year marks obtained by the students since the year 1986. On completion of the digitized TR, the marks verification, which used to take minimum 15 days, would take only two minutes.
For the ease of students the form fill-up of HS final exam for Art, Commerce, Science and Vocational streams has been made online. Additionally, non-institutional private candidates, including betterment and reappearance examinees can also fill up their forms online.
For the first time, the HS first year students also availed the online for fill up facility this year.
