Partaking in 'Digital India' week, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal launched the state Portal ePMS (Electronic Projects Management System) to fast track infrastructural development on 02.07.2015 at 09:30 AM in the CM Residence.

The project was kicked off to enhance efficiency, bring transparency, boost the investor confidence, revive the investment cycle, eliminate the human interaction and improve the communication between industries to Government (B2G), State to Centre (G2G), or vice versa (G2B).

Badal lauded this unique initiative taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hasten the industrial and infrastructural growth in the country, a CMO spokesperson said.

He hoped that this state portal would act as a catalyst to seek clearances from various central agencies expeditiously required for the timely implementation of the ongoing development projects and welfare schemes in the state thereby cutting down inordinate delay.

Joint Secretary Cabinet Secretariat VP Joy apprised the Chief Minister that this portal was developed and managed by the Cabinet Secretariat Informatics Division of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Cabinet Secretariat, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi, to fast track infrastructure investment stalled projects, both in the public and private sectors, involving investment between Rs 100 crores and Rs 1,000 crores.

This would include submission of a new project, editing/updating the projects, reviewing the projects, submission of details relating to bottlenecks. It also includes preparation of agenda that could be generated online and circulated with auto mailer to all the Nodal Officers, Secretary of the Ministries or Departments and Invitees with their name. So, it was mandatory to update contact details in the master database by the administrator of the state portal. Similar to the agenda preparation, minutes of the meetings could be generated and circulated online just after the meeting if decision taken by the subgroup was being entered online to the system. System also provides various Graphical Analysis, Reports and Investment Monitoring module.

He urged the Chief Minister to arrange a capacity building program for all the head of departments and Administrative Secretaries to familiarize them with the modus operandi of this project and seek their inputs/ suggestions to make any further improvement in the existing portal, if the need be.

Making presentation on the project, Dr. Shubhag Chand, HOD & Director(IT), Cabinet Secretariat Informatics Division, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India said that portal also provide the list of nodal officers of State and Centre, user manual, audio visual tutorial, frequently asked questions, help-desk for assistance. It also provides updated list of accepted projects. Industries could create their login credential with this platform and the same credential could be used to submit projects with issues.

When any project with issues was being added by an industry to the State PMG, the portal shall automatically push the data to the respective ministries for their comment or action, at the state level. Once the project was being endorsed by State level Nodal Officer, it shall also be automatically routed to the Central PMG, if there were any issues/bottlenecks related to Government of India. Industries get the immediate response from the automatic mailer and they could see the current status of concerned projects through this platform immediately after the subgroup meeting is over if the decision being entered online, he said.

It was informed in the meeting that so far, online projects tracking mechanism has been adopted by the states of Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat , Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of Punjab Investment Promotion Bureau (PIPB) Anirudh Tiwari informed the Chief Minister that the PIPB had already its own its own portal to facilitate the prospective entrepreneurs and investors to apply online for the registration as well as requisite clearances.

He however said that the with the launch of e-PMS project the investment scenario in the state would get a further boost as the new system would help the Bureau and other state agencies in getting GoI's clearances in a fast track mode.

The Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India has developed a uniform e-PMS Portal through NIC New Delhi, for monitoring of investments over Rs. 1000 Crores in India, by PMG (Project Management Group) Cell, Government of India. 

A news article published in the various news agencies i.e. The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Zee News, The Hindu, The Business Line, The Economics Times, Dainik Bhaskar, yespunjab.com, Day & Night New, Niti Central, Punjab Mail Online  on e-PMS, an Online Projects Management System for Punjab.