National Crime Record Bureau held a nation-wide video conferencing last week and officials in Ranchi took part.

Officials in Delhi and Ranchi also held consultations on horticulture.

Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan director interacted with staff of 840 through video conferencing.

Video conferencing saves time, cuts down on travelling and curtails expenses on TA and DA (travelling and daily allowances).

But IT secretary A.K. Basu is candid while accepting that not many in the government use the facility.

None of the ministers use the service, barring chief minister. And only 10 per cent of secretaries make use of it.

But Koda, like his predecessor, has begun using it more effectively, aided by an OB van, which moves at his beck and call. Arjun Munda stationed the van in his constituency and, not surprisingly, it now spends more time in Koda’s constituency.

Koda conducted a “surprise inspection” in Khunti, sitting all the time at his residence, and a few days later, suspended an official after finding that no action had been taken against teachers who were absent in a school in Jagannathpur.

One reason could be the cumbersome procedures that are currently followed. An advance notice is required to be given for booking the slot and all participants need to be alerted to gather for the video-conference in the collectorate conference rooms. There are also complaints of connectivity, poor video, audio quality and power trippings disrupting it.

All that will hopefully change on All Fool’s Day. That is the day designated for formally launching Jharnet in the state. The 24-hour-service will function through a dedicated bandwidth and will link the capital with all the blocks and sub divisions.

The current NICNET enables eight users to interact at a time. All eight can watch and speak to each other on the screen. But if the chief minister or the chief secretary want to deliver a monologue, officials in the 22 districts can be made to listen, too.

All this will change when Jharnet is commissioned. Gushes Sunil Kumar Burnwal, who has used it during testing stage, “It seemed I am holding a meeting with people sitting just in front.”

Burnwal, director of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, testifies that in Jharnet, there was no time-lag and picture and audio qualities were better.

“It is difficult for block officials to come to Ranchi but they can easily come to their district headquarters. I have done video conferencing with 21 districts, where up to 40 officials have participated at one district,” Burnwal said.

Enthused, he is already exploring options of conducting workshops and training courses through video-conferencing. “NIC slots are available for only one or two hours every day; but Jharnet will be a 24-hour service,” he adds.

Gumla deputy commissioner Aradhana Patnaik claims her trips to Ranchi has gone down after video-conferencing started regularly. Some of the DCs are 300 km away from Ranchi and found it difficult to travel back and forth.