NEW DELHI: Modi Sarkar has launched a frontal attack on Indian bureaucracy ’s greatest power — the power not to do anything. And it has done this via a brand new digital platform — called e-SamikSha — that allows sarkar’s top bosses a real-time clear view of intra and inter-departmental file movements and gives them the power to intervene when a babu is taking it too easy.Developed by the cabinet secretariat with technical support from the National Informatics Centre (NIC), e-SamikSha — the second ‘S’ in uppercase is how it’s officially written — has been operational for just over a month and has changed babus’ working style. So, if, say, a joint secretary is sitting on a file on a big infrastructure project that’s a PMO priority, this system will allow the prime minister to intervene digitally and ask the officer concerned to explain the delay or expedite decision-making.And worse — the PM’s interventions appear in bright red on the officer’s screen. The cabinet secretary’s interventions also appear in red. Warnings from other bosses such as department secretaries or state government chief secretaries appear in other colours.ETspoke to senior officials in various departments as well as NIC personnel for this story. All of them spoke on the condition they not be identified, saying they were officially unauthorised to speak on the matter.Before the warnings come the alerts. In e-SamikSha, the moment a job is assigned to a department, text messages and email alerts go to all officers responsible for delivery and their top bosses. A unique identity number is also automatically generated for each task. This number allows easy digital tracking of a project’s progress.From then on, every electronic file movement can be monitored at the click of a mouse by the sarkar’s big guns and the system allows a boss to retrieve the file’s journey at any point of time. Therefore, e-SamikSha is both a project monitoring system as well as an audit trail of the bureaucracy’s efficiency.Over 400 initiatives, projects and action points are already being digitally monitored through e-SamikSha.Every task is assigned four status descriptors - Not Started, Under Implementation, Implemented and No Further Action Required.The PM navigates through e-SamikSha via a digital dashboard that has customised drop-down windows – each allowing him to see progress in different areas such infrastructure, administrative reforms, pending court cases and special campaigns like Swachh Bharat and Ganga Rejuvenation.“Aasaan hai – Shuru to Karein” (It’s easy – let’s at least start) and “Monitor, Follow Up, Action” are the taglines assigned by the government to e-SamikSha. The software application that runs the system is hosted at NIC’s National Data Centre in Delhi . The cabinet secretariat is gung-ho about this digital class monitor for babus. A senior official in the secretariat said, “We have been able to use e-SamikSha to speed up and improve compliance.Since most activities are online, we have been able to move to a virtually paperless culture that helps save time, travel costs and physical movement of forms and personnel.”The new system’s champions stress that it can facilitate fearless decision-making. “Since e-SamikSha is transparent and interactive, it helps dispel fears about taking decisions…the fear of future investigation is less when all your bosses can see all the time what you are doing,” the official said. There’s a Centrestate module in e-SamikSha as well to cope with coordination issues.“Several states have already started updating the status of action points that need to be completed at their level,” said another official in the secretariat. The human resources ministry has its own twist to e-SamikSha, calling it HRD-SamikSha. HRD’s digital monitoring system has a specific module for tracking VIP requests on school and college admissions, among other things.Every time an action point is added to this system, it generates a unique identity number for the issue and allocates it automatically to the relevant departments that need to act on it. “Every time a meeting is held by these departments on the issue, the decision is updated on the portal and higherlevel officials can step in at any stage to give directions,” the official said. Other ministries are also seeking to create their own versions of e-SamikSha for intra-ministry file movement.Right now, when babus see red, they know the PM is watching them.