Chandigarh, Nov 1 (IANS): To make decision-making in the government transparent, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday launched the eOffice facility to facilitate electronic movement of government files.

Punjab is the first state in the country to roll out such an across-the-board initiative.

Launching the hi-tech inter and intra-departmental service facility along with his cabinet colleagues here, the Chief Minister asked the officers to continuously innovate to leverage the latest advancements in the field of information technology for the larger public good.

He lauded the Department of Governance Reforms and Public Grievances for the novel initiative, with which all Administrative Departments and offices of Deputy Commissioners would go live and upload all new files and paper under considerations on the portal immediately.

Reiterating his commitment to ensure seamless delivery of government services, Amarinder Singh also asked the Chief Secretary to further speed up completion of online transmission of revenue records, the progress of which he had been personally reviewing regularly.

He also set a deadline for all directorates and other field-level offices to upgrade to the eOffice system latest by January 1, 2020.

The new eOffice programme, set to replace IWDMS system, is a national software product and is an initiative of the Punjab Government and the National Informatics Centre (NIC).