THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

Transcription

1 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA NATIONAL INFORMATICS CENTRE

2 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

3 National Portal of India s vast content repository comprises of diverse content contributed by Government entities across the Country. It is imperative that these varied entities contribute the content in a standardized format so that consistency of the content on the National Portal of India is ensured. Such a measure will not only facilitate an effective access by the citizens but also enable an electronic exchange of information between the National Portal of India and other Indian Government websites. The primary objective of this content framework is to ensure that the contributors, belonging to any constituent of the Government at any level, contribute content in a pre-set standardized format through a Content Management System (CMS). These contents contributed using the CMS are fed into a centralised content repository for consumption of the visitors. It is expected that this framework be followed while creating, developing or managing any content for the National Portal of India. Contributors This document has been developed by the team at Data Centre and Web Services Division of National Informatics Centre, Department of Information Technology, Government of India under the National Portal of India Project, a mission mode project of the National e-governance Plan (NeGP). Though each member of the division has contributed to the document in one way or the other, the primary contributors are: z Neeta Verma, Senior Technical Director z Alka Mishra, Technical Director 03

4 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Mohan Das, Principal Systems Analyst z Durga Prasad Misra, Senior Systems Analyst z T. Pechi Muthu, Senior Systems Analyst z Sonal Kalra, Senior Systems Analyst z Ritu Ghai, Systems Analyst Feedback and Suggestions This is the first version of the Content Framework Document. The framework is evolving and will continue to be updated and enhanced periodically based on the feedback received from the users as well as the decisions undertaken by the concerned Project Committees. Such updations and revisions shall be duly incorporated in the future versions of this document. Feedback and suggestions on this document from all interested and concerned are welcome and shall prove helpful in enhancing and enriching the future versions. Feedback can be sent at the below stated address. Address for Correspondence National Portal Secretariat Room No. 375, 3rd Floor, National Informatics Centre A- Block, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi indiaportal@gov.in, Phone : , Fax : Copyright 2007 ; NIC, DIT, MCIT This document may not be reproduced partially or fully, without due permission from NIC. If referred to as a part of another publication, source MUST be appropriately acknowledged. The content of this document is not to be used in any misleading or objectionable context.

5 National Portal Content Framework 5

6 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

7 National Portal of India marks a successful step in the realisation of a long cherished vision to have an ideal single window platform for an integrated delivery of information and citizen services by the Government. In the past two years of its existence, the Portal has not only ended up benefiting the end-users or common citizens immensely, but has also gained significant ground when it comes to fulfilling the other basic objectives of electronic governance such as enhancing transparency, increasing efficiency in service delivery and encouraging effective citizen participation in the process of governance. The huge content repository in the National Portal of India is the culmination of collaborative efforts as content is being contributed by varied sources right from every ministry/ department in the Government to state governments as well as district administrations. To make this content accessible to the common man in a unified and meaningful manner, it is imperative to have a high degree of uniformity and consistency in its structure and form. This content framework for the National Portal of India aims to serve this much needed purpose. This document is a perfect guide for all those who generate, package and contribute content for the Portal. This framework is a cyclopedia, which will help in clarifying all sorts of syntaxes and is a guide that will channelise the way how to approach towards each content component. It is a manual that addresses all important issues about the kind of content which can be included in the Portal, formats in which content can be added, the attributes and type of information to be provided for each content element, the review & exit policies etc. Thus, keeping all integral points that help in the making Portal a success. I hope that this document shall act as a useful instrument and guide for all those who generate, package and contribute content for the Portal, and in turn will significantly partake in the success journey of this National Endeavour. Dr. B K Gairola Director General, National Informatics Centre

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9 CONTENTS Introduction 01 National Portal Of India Background 1.2 Brief Description 1.3 Portal Development 1.4 Salient Features of the Portal 1.5 Hosting Infrastructure 1.6 Launch of the Portal 02 National Portal of India: Content Critical 2.1 Content is Critical Target Audience 2.3 Content Scope 2.4 Content Contribution Sourses 2.5 Need for Content Framework 03 National Portal of India Content Framework Brief Description on Content Framework 3.2 Constituents of the Content Frame work 3.3 Generic Content Categories 3.4 Different Forms of Content 3.5 Content Classification 3.6 Schema for Content Architecture 04 Content Management Policies Overview of Content Management Policy 4.2 Access Control Policy (ACP) 4.3 Content Flow Process (CFP) 4.4 Content Moderation and Approval Policy (CMAP) 4.5 Content Review Policy (CRP) 4.6 Content Archival and Exit Policy 4.7 Content Consumption Policy (CCP) 09

10 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 05 Content Management System 5.1 Brief Description on CMS Reference Documents 5.3 Content Sections 5.4 Content Management System: Features and Functionality 5.5 Content Modification 5.6 Content Deletion Annexures I. NIC State Coordinators of National Portal 115 II. III. IV. V. of India Generic Content Classifications Content Preparation Guidelines About National egovernance Plan (NeGP) About National Informatics Centre

11 National Portal Content Framework 1 National Portal of India

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13 National Portal Content Framework 1.1 Background The National e-governance Plan ( ) of Indian Government seeks to lay the foundation and provide the impetus for long-term growth of e- Governance within the country. The plan seeks to create the right governance and institutional mechanisms, set up the core infrastructure and policies, implement a number of projects with integrated service levels at the center as well as state levels in order to create a citizen-centric and business-centric environment for governance. Under the Plan announced by the Prime Minister, the Government has made its intention clear of executing a comprehensive agenda to make e-governance effective at all spheres to ensure efficiency, transparency, and accountability at the Government-Citizen interface. Nudging the creation of fair governance and institutional machinery are the principle objective of the National e- Governance Plan, thus fortifying the correlation between the Government and the citizens. The rationale of the Plan is to prepare the pedestal for the establishment of an effective e-governance structure within the Country. NEGP symbolizes an attempt of presenting the Country as a formidable contender in the field of Information Technology at the global level. 13

14 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Under the Plan, certain projects have been assigned the status of Mission Mode Projects on the basis of the following criteria Selection Criteria for the Mission Mode Projects z Impact in terms of number of people likely to be affected by the project z Impact in terms of likely improvement of the quality of service z Impact on the economy or economic environment in the country z Impact in terms of the likely cost-benefit of investments in the project z Readiness and willingness of ministry/ department to position a National Mission Project z Feasibility of implementing the project from a financial, administrative and political perspective within a reasonable time frame. National Portal of India Project has been accorded the Status of a Mission Mode Project at the Integrated Service level, under the NEGP 1.2 Brief Description Ever since Internet made its foray into the world of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the concept of good governance has assumed a whole new dimension coupled with an increased awareness and desire amongst citizens and other stake holders to have a much more enriching and convenient interaction with their government. Considering the global position enjoyed by India when it comes to progress in the field of Information Technology, the Indian Government has been amongst the frontrunners in its initiatives towards adoption of best practices and integrated delivery of information and services to achieve ICT led

15 development in the Country. In the past few years, a large number of websites belonging to various ministries, departments, state governments, districts, organizations and projects have sprung up which are offering a lot of information and different services to the citizens. In such a case citizens have to visit a large number of websites for different services. Sometimes, one also has to visit multiple websites to avail a single service. Different websites are National Portal Content Framework following different Technology Standards, Design Lay-outs, and Navigation Architecture etc. Accordingly, it results in a lot of inconvenience at the citizens end and requires a lot of learning on their part to even access these services, thus defeating the very purpose of the various e-governance initiatives. For making such information and services accessible in a convenient manner, a need to establish a one-stop source for all the government information and services was felt. The concept of having a single unified interface could prove beneficial as compared to having multiple websites of different departments simply because it saves the citizen from the hassles of searching across a large number of sites, with diverse design and navigation patterns in order to look for the desired information or service This led to the genesis of National Portal of India a Gateway to over 5000 Indian Government websites facilitating a single window web based availability of government information and services The aim behind National Portal of India is to further strengthen the effort towards good governance through anytime, anywhere delivery of government information and services for the benefit of citizens, businesses and other stake holders, both within India and abroad. By providing a unified interface and acting as a logical front-end to the e-government initiatives, the edict of the Portal is to facilitate the foundation 15

16 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA of a healthy relationship between the Government and the citizens through the collaborative efforts of various Ministries and Departments. National Portal of India has been developed as an extensive repository enumerating significant information about the Country, and the services available to the citizens of India at every level and relating it all the departments of the Government. It is envisaged that in the years to come, this National Portal of India shall not only lead to benefiting the end-users or common citizens immensely but shall also fulfill the other basic objectives of electronic governance namely enhancing transparency & accountability, raising the trust levels of the stakeholders, increasing efficiency in service delivery, increasing the revenue and encouraging effective citizen participation in the process of governance. 1.3 Portal Development Figure 1 (Home Page of National Portal of India,

17 The National Portal of India ( has been designed, developed and hosted by National Informatics Centre, the premier ICT organization of the Government of India. The core project team, comprising experts in the areas of content, design and technology conceptualized the project, worked out an information architecture based on user perception and developed the project utilizing latest technologies. The Portal has been hosted in the world class Data Centre at NIC HQ with stringent 24X7 security and data protection facilities. National Portal Content Framework 1.4 Salient Features National Portal of India comes with unique features geared up to facilitate improved access, enhanced quality of services and convenient single window access for a variety of Government Information and Services: - z One stop source of all information Single Window Service) The services and information offered by various government bodies are spread over hundreds of websites at various levels of navigation hierarchy and many of them remain largely unnoticed. The portal acts as a platform to connect all these services and information in a manner that these are easily accessible and available to the citizen as well as other stakeholders. The target audience may need to only visit the National Portal of India, rather than a number of websites, for a desired information/service belonging to the government sector, which is available on the Portal in a predictable and consistent manner. To augment the huge information resource available in the portal, it is served with a state of the art Advanced Search Facility that is able to index and organize vast amount of information optimally. 17

18 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Comprehensive Content The National Portal of India presents comprehensive information on all aspects and constituents of the government whether central, state or local bodies. Any information on an individual department s website or any electronic services for citizens available anywhere in the Country is accessible through the National Portal of India. In other words, the Portal does not belong to just one group or sector of government, its mandate includes complete and comprehensive information from the various entities including Legislature, Judiciary, Executive, Apex Institutions, Local Government Bodies, Public Sector Undertakings, Government Institutions, Organizations, etc. The content in this Portal is the result of a collaborative effort of various Indian Government Ministries and Departments, at the Central/State/District level. z Citizen Orientation The National Portal of India has been built from the users or citizens perspective, rather than from the perspective of the government. In other words, instead of presenting and categorizing the information and services on the basis of government departments, information has been presented in a manner citizens would like. This feature is further strengthened with the concepts of personalization through the feature of My Portal whereby the registered users can view the information as per their profile or requirements. z User Centered Design As more and more people are accessing government information and services online, the portal has become a citizen s first point of contact with Government. The well established Principles of Usability and Human Centered Design have been applied while designing the interface for the Portal. The various components of the Portal have a common look and feel to ensure ease of navigation and consistency in design.

19 z Personalization / Customization (Serving diverse user needs) The Portal has the features of personalization of content which entails providing information suited to specific categories/kinds of target audience classified according to factors such as their geographical location (urban/rural, specific region of the country), contexts and scenarios of use (citizen, NRI, foreigner interested in India) etc. The content of the portal is packaged in a diverse manner having different presentations as required by its visitors. National Portal Content Framework z Bi-Lingual Content A significant portion of the content on the Portal is available in Hindi language, apart from English. The navigation interface of all the sections in the Portal is available in Hindi as well and the process of making the same available in regional languages of India is also underway. This effectively ensures a much wider reach of the information and services being provided by the National Portal of India to the target audience in the Country. z Content Repository National Portal of India has become a huge repository and dispenser of information on a variety of subjects (services, documents, schemes, forms, rules, acts, web-directories etc). A whole lot of metadata has been defined/stored for each item of information and all this has been stored in a database/ repository for easy and efficient management as well as to improve quality of search and access by visitors. z XML Interface An innovative feature of the Portal is the single point content repository with Extensible Markup Language (XML) interface where the content shall be entered just once by any department and the same could be exposed across the departments/ministries/ states. Information and Services can be shared at a number of places, including the National Portal of India, as well as the respective website(s) of the department 19

20 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA preserving the look and feel of the host website. z Distributed Content Management System Since the National Portal of India is the repository of a huge amount of content being sourced from/ maintained by multiple sources and different teams at multiple geographic locations, a comprehensive and secure web-based Content Management System (CMS) to effectively manage the content has been developed for the Portal which is useful for not only carrying out future modifications and updations of the Portal content but also allows the flexibility of a convenient change in the content architecture of the Portal. The CMS also provides the facility for searching across the entire content base, presenting content in multiple formats and facilitating delivery of information through multiple channels. Figure 2 (Home Page of Content Management System)

21 1.5 National Portal of India: Hosting Infrastructure The state-of-the-art Portal is being hosted at NIC Internet Data Centre with industry standard infrastructure to deliver citizen centric services with primary objectives of high availability, scalable, secure, accessible and manageable system. Since the Portal delivers citizen centric services, National Portal Content Framework which are accessed by millions of users and its meta contents are consumed by various state government and private portals, its availability for 24*7*365 is one of its main objective. The following are the deployed state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, and the managerial policies of National Portal of India to meet the above mentioned objectives. Multi-Layered Architecture: The portal Application, Database and front end servers are fully independent of each other. Therefore bringing about change in any of the layers doesn t affect the other layers. Hence the architecture facilitates high system availability by adding additional node / module with zero down time. Clustered Server components: In order to cater to millions of users simultaneous access, and to deliver meta contents to various state portals, multiple server nodes are clustered for processing the user request simultaneously. Also the clustered system ensures the availability of the portal during any node failure. The state-of-the-art load balancing at network level distributes the users request to the cluster nodes to decrease the system response time and increase its availability. Storage Area Network: To meet the exponential data growth of India portal, all server nodes are equipped with SAN storage system which is accessible through high speed up to 1Gbps Network ensuring that the system is highly scalable in terms of storage to meet additional requirements. 21

22 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Pre, Post production auditing: The processing of auditing the application modules of India portal before and after production includes, testing security, performance, usability and accessibility hence ensuring the portals security and performance. Similarly, any new hardware component which needs to be added are also tested and tuned before integrating them in production environment. Data Backup and Recovery: National Portal of India has huge structured central content repository and consists of more valuable citizen services and information. Thus securing them from storage/hardware failure is another core objective of the deployed hosting infrastructure. Moreover during any natural disaster, the Disaster Recovery System located at Hyderabad ensures the portals availability and data security. The portal data is replicated asynchronously over WAN using FC-IP protocol. Open Source Technology: National Portal of India is developed and hosted in open source platform such as Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP, XML and Javascript. Hence the system is completely flexible and can be easily configured/upgraded for any additional functionalities. National Portal of India - Architecture Diagram

23 1.6 Launch of the Portal The first version of the National Portal of India was formally launched and dedicated to the nation on 10th November, 2005 at a function in New Delhi by Thiru. Dayanidhi Maran, the then Union Minister of Communications & Information Technology. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Shri. Montek Singh Ahluwalia presided over the function, National Portal Content Framework attended by several dignitaries. Figure 3 (Brochure Releasing of the National Portal of India, The then Union Minister for C&IT releasing the brochure of the National Portal. In the pic (from L to R): Dr. N Vijayaditya (DG-NIC), Sh Brijesh Kumar, the then Secretary (IT), Thiru Dayanidhi Maran and Sh Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Ever since its launch, the Portal has been extremely popular with web users community all across the world and receives a large number of hits every day. More than 22,000 people have registered themselves with the Portal to avail value added services and use the personalization facility. Publication of information and documents on the Net and online delivery of citizen 23

24 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA services such as government tenders, policies, citizen charters on the Portal, as well as status of applications submitted for various government services has not only led to benefiting the end-users or common citizens but also fulfills the other basic objectives of electronic governance namely z Enhancing transparency & accountability, z Raising the trust levels of the stakeholders, z Increasing efficiency in service delivery and z Encouraging effective citizen participation in the process of governance. Besides, the National Portal of India has provided a readily available base infrastructure to the government departments/ organisations for launching their new e-governance services for the benefits of citizens, businesses and other stakeholders.indirectly, the Portal has also contributed towards employment generation and growth of ICT related business since it has been observed through experience that popular e-governance services such as dissemination of exam results, computerization of land records etc leads to a growth in the usage of public ICT infrastructure such as cyber cafes, Information Centres / kiosks etc.

25 National Portal Content Framework 2 National Portal OF India:Content Critical

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27 National Portal Content Framework 2.1 Content is Critical In today s era of Knowledge Management, it has been well realized that knowledge capital or intellectual capital is more important to the success of any entity than physical capital. This knowledge capital, either lies in the minds of people or exists in the form of Content or formal written down expressions. According to a study conducted by University of California in 2000, startling Statistics reveal that printed content represents only percent of all content published annually. This effectively means that a very large percentage of content is published through the medium of Web and is scattered in millions of websites. Therefore, it becomes all the more critical that this content is tapped properly and is made accessible to the people it is meant for. The three building blocks of the foundation of any Portal are undoubtedly the content it comprises, the technology deployed in its development as well as sustenance and finally, where and how it is hosted. While for the latter two, viz technology and hosting, a large number of off the shelf standard solutions are available, thanks to the advancement in technology tools and techniques the world over, there is no standard solution available for the biggest challenge of them all, i.e the content. The content in a 27

28 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA portal, especially the official government portal of any country has to be painstakingly compiled, edited, written and packaged keeping the specific needs and requirements of the citizens in mind. Hence, the point that CONTENT is of utmost criticality in the overall realm of crucial success factors for a Portal can not be stressed enough. 2.2 Target Audience By virtue of being the National Portal of India, india.gov.in has a nationwide coverage in terms of information as well as services right upto districts and village panchayats. Accordingly it caters to information needs of a wide range of people in India and abroad. Its prospective audience/ beneficiaries could be grouped as follows: z Citizens of India at all age groups and demographic backgrounds z Government Ministries, Departments and associated offices and the staff there in z State Governments, UTs, District Administrations & Panchayats z Legislative & Judicial Institutions of the Government z Public sector enterprises and organizations z Corporate Sector & Business Establishments z National and International Media Agencies z Non Resident Indians & Persons of Indian Origin z Public at large, all across the globe As is evident from the above, India being a huge country full of diversities, the spectrum of stakeholders in the National Portal of India is quite vast, right from a semi-literate farmer in a rural area to visionaries &

29 scholars. and from school children to senior citizens. Accordingly, the scope and coverage of the content in different sections and modules of the Portal is simply huge. 2.3 Content Scope National Portal Content Framework An attempt has been made through the Portal to provide comprehensive, accurate, reliable and one stop source of information about India and its various facets. The information in the Portal has been well classified into distinct modules, which are also interlinked at relevant places to provide the visitor with a holistic view. There are exclusive sections on Citizens, Business, Overseas, Government, Know India, Sectors etc. Sections targeting special interest groups such as Government Employees, Students, Kids etc are also present, A variety of citizen services being provided by the Government across sectors can also be accessed from the Portal. Besides, one can find Government Tenders, Documents, Policies, Forms, Schemes, Maps etc on the National Portal of India. The Portal establishes a single window access to information and services being delivered by any Government of India constituent, enhancing primarily the following four forms of interaction as an integral part of overall mission towards good governance. G2C: Government to Citizen interaction where electronic delivery and exchange of information and services takes place through the Portal, thus fulfilling the primary objective of e-government. Services available on the Portal have rendered transactions such as obtaining certificates, renewing licenses, paying taxes /bills and applying for benefit schemes less time consuming and convenient. Also facilitated through the portal is the key component of citizen participation in the processes and policy formulation 29

30 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA by the government. G2B: Government to Business interaction through the portal has not only facilitated the transaction and exchange of information between the government and the businesses regarding licenses, taxation and policies issued for various sectors, but has also led to improved and efficient procurement of goods and services by the government from the commercial business entities. The Online Government Tender Information System is an integral part of the Project which has made the entire Govt Tender Procedure extremely simplified, transparent and convenient for the stakeholders. G2G: Government to Government interaction through the National Portal of India has led to sharing of data and conduct of electronic exchanges amongst various government departments and other entities. This exchange is both intra and inter agency exchange at the National level as well as information among the national, state and local level agencies. G2E: Government to Employee interaction through the National Portal of India has facilitated information about employment opportunities, work guidelines, rules & regulations, benefits and services. A special section in the Portal known as the Employee Corner which caters to information needs of the Government Employees. 2.4 Content Contribution Sources The National Portal of India is a huge content repository which is meant to be the culmination of a joint effort by all entities of the Indian Government at all levels. Broadly expressed, the content contribution sources would include z Apex Offices of the Government including the President s Secretariat,

31 Vice President s Office and Prime Minister s Office z Independent/Autonomous Bodies such as Planning Commission, Central Vigilance Commission, Central Bureau of Investigation, Election Commission of India, Central Information Commission, Union Public Service Commission, National Human Rights Commission et al. z Judicial Bodies, at all levels, right from Supreme Court of India to High Courts, Sessions Courts and District Courts. National Portal Content Framework z Central Government Ministries and Departments,including their attached and sub-ordinate offices z Public Sector Undertakings and other organizations affiliated/ funded by the Government State and UT Governments, including all their departments and organizations z Autonomous Organisations at the State/UT level z Academic Institutions run by the Government at the Central/State level z District Administrations and Government Offices at the District level z Panchayats and other block/village level administrative entities Apart from the above, the Core Content Development Team of the National Portal of India researches, compiles, generates and packages content for different sections of the Portal. 2.5 Need for Content Framework By virtue of being the single point source for all information and services being provided electronically by the Government, the National Portal of India has a huge content base. As indicative from the previous section enlisting the content contribution sources, it is evident that the content 31

32 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA in the National Portal of India is being contributed by lakhs of different sources right from every ministry/department in the Government to every village administration. This content, though arising from diverse sources belonging to varied departments, states and demography, is still quite similar in nature and can be classified into a defined set of generic information categories. Hence there is a dire necessity to have a clear cut content framework in place which can guide these content contributors into submitting the content in a correct and consistent shape and formats. Such uniformity of content at the source level itself would automatically ensure that a unified picture of the government information is presented which shall also help in attaining effective and more fruitful results when the visitors search through the content.

33 National Portal Content Framework 3 National Portal Content Framework

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35 National Portal Content Framework 3.1 Brief Description on Content Framework As of today, there are thousands of Indian Government Websites and Portals in the Internet Space and this number is constantly on the rise. As mentioned earlier, it is imperative to ensure that a common citizen is able to access the information and service provided by these numerous websites in the most convenient and friendly manner. Therefore the National Portal of India of India (india.gov.in) has emerged as a tool to provide the much needed single window access to the plethora of online information and services by the Indian Government. This Content Framework outlines the scope, coverage, submission guidelines and management of content in the various sections of the National Portal of India. This document can act as a virtual guide for all those who generate, package and contribute content for the Portal. It is an attempt, through this document to clarify the syntax and approach to be followed towards each content component which is an integral part of the Portal. It aims to address important issues about the kind of content which can be included in the Portal, formats in which content can be added, the attributes and type of information to be provided for each content element and their review & exit policies etc. 35

36 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA This document shall be a reference resource for 3.2 Constituents of the Content Framework anyone who associates with the National Portal of India Project at a future date as this shall give the complete information and background about why and how each content element in the Portal has been conceived and what are the guidelines to be followed for adding any new content anywhere in the Portal so that there is no scope of any ambiguity. This is a working document and shall continue to evolve and get modified based on the new content components added on the National Portal of India and the policies adopted by the different Project Committees in this regard. The policies and corresponding guidelines that form the foundation of this document are evolving and will continue to be updated over time. Feedback on this document from all interested and concerned is welcome and shall prove helpful in improving the future versions. 3.2 Constituents of the Content Framework The Content Framework for the National Portal of India comprises the following constituents: z Content Architecture z Schemas z Policies z Examples The content framework of the National Portal of India shall encompass all items and sub items of Information/Services that should become a part of

37 enough and a detailed architecture needed to be worked out. Therefore, a study was conducted wherein over a 1000 Indian government websites were randomly scanned to understand the kind of content categories under which the information is presented. After gaining a broad understanding, a sample set of over 100 websites belonging to a cross section of Ministries/ Departments/State/UT Governments was chosen and studied in depth to analyze the content. National Portal Content Framework the National Portal of India. However, simply enlisting these items is not Figure-3 (Generic Content Classification of National Portal of India, 37

38 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA It was observed that more or less similar information is being provided by almost all government websites with different nomenclature for various modules and sections. After a number of iterations, all this content was realistically mapped into generic categories so that a Common Content Framework encompassing ALL information available on government websites under different sections with varied nomenclature could be derived and the National Portal of India could be used as a successful application of such a Framework. The information/content meant for citizens and available on most Indian Government websites/portals (including the National Portal of India as well as those of Ministries, Departments, States, UTs, Districts) can be accommodated under any one of the following generic categories. However, the information could be presented under different names/headings on these respective websites. 3.3 Generic Content Categories Given below is a broad idea of what each of the generic content category covers z About the Ministry/State This category includes introductory information and profile of the concerned department/ministry/state etc including its Mission, roles and responsibilities, organizational structure and associated offices/ organizations. z Programmes and Schemes The Government Departments at the Centre and State have welfare programmes and schemes, benefiting the individuals, special

39 interest groups of citizens (e.g widows, physically challenged etc) or community at large running in different regions and sectors across the country. Information about all such programmes and schemes of the Central as well as State Governments are included in this category. These schemes could be Centrally Sponsored, funded by some International Body, or being run by the State/District Administration itself. z Policies National Portal Content Framework The official policies issued by various departments from time to time. Examples include sectoral policies, incentive policies, language policies, export/import policies etc z Services The ministries, departments and organizations of the Indian Government at the Central/State/District/Village level provide a whole lot of services to the citizens and other stakeholders. These services cover a vast range right from applying for licenses & certificates to filing tax returns and from paying utility bills to booking travel tickets. Quite a few of these services are now being provided online and for the rest of them, the complete information as well as downloadable forms (if any) are being made available through the Web. This content category includes all such services and details about them. z Forms This category includes all Application Forms of Central/State/UT Governments in the public domain which are required to be filled up and submitted for availing different services and applying for obtaining important certificates/licenses scholarships, grants, services, information, loans, utilities etc. z Acts/Rules This category includes all the Acts passed by the Parliament and 39

40 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA the State Legislative Assemblies as well as the Rules/Sub-ordinate legislations issued by the Departments based on these Acts. z Documents/Reports ALL documents developed/published and issued in the Public Domain by Government Departments, Ministries, State/UT Governments, Public Sector Units and Organisations. These documents may belong to either of the following categories z Gazettes z Guidelines z Circulars/Notifications z Plans z Annual Reports z Budget z Census z Surveys z Statistics z Others z Interaction Tools Interaction Tools comprise all those features which facilitate an interaction experience for the visitors to the portal. Examples include online discussion forums,feedback forms, Site Maps, Guest Books, online surveys, and such similar tools. z Help This category includes the kind of content which allows for an easy and convenient navigation for the visitor to the Portal (e.g Online Help, How to open files of certain formats, how to access audio/video on the portal, kinds of plug-ins required etc). Further, the content which clarifies the purpose of the website as well as its policies for the visitors is also included in this category. For instance; About the

41 Portal, Copyright Policy, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy etc. z Events & Announcements This category comprises information on Events and Announcements by the different Government departments and other entities at the Central and State level on topics such as the following 1. Announcements related to important upcoming government events being organized by a Ministry/ National Portal Content Framework Department/State/UT Announcements on bi-lateral/multilateral relations having International/ National/State level importance Calls for relief funds during disasters as well as display of important helpline numbers in case of crisis Announcements related to new schemes/grants/ scholarships/fellowships etc Warnings of Natural/Other disasters and Epidemics etc z News & Press Releases News having National importance and significance for the Citizens as well as the Government Press Releases issued by departments and organizations at the Central and State level are included in this content category. z Tenders Government and Public Sector Procurement / Tenders/ Notifications issued by the Central and State Governments and other public bodies across India for goods, services and works. Information may include the notifications and complete documents for tenders of all categories including open tenders, limited tenders, empanelments, auctions, work contracts, service contracts etc. z Recruitment 41

42 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA This content comprises information on recruitment in the Government sector and would include vacancy notices, call for recruitment exams, eligibility criteria and information of similar nature for the purpose of recruitment in government departments, organizations and Public sector undertakings at the central and state levels. Note : A table providing samples of sub sections to be included under each of the above categories is given as Annexure 3.4 Different Forms of Content The details of the specific content components which form a part of the overall Content Framework have been discussed in the following sections. Before the content components are studied, it would do us well to ponder upon the different forms in which the content can exist on the National Portal of India. The content in the Portal can be either of the following: z Original Content i.e Original write-ups or compiled write-ups prepared on general issues such as culture & heritage of India, business planning etc. Example Kathakali (Classical Dance) A rich and flourishing tradition of dance drama belongs to the South- Western state of Kerala. Kathakali means a story play or a dance drama. Katha means story, here actors depict characters from the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and from the Puranas (ancient scriptures). It is extremely colourful. The dancers adorn themselves with billowing costumes, flowing scarves, ornaments and crowns. They use a specific type of symbolic makeup to portray various roles

43 which are character-types rather than individual characters z Connecting Content: Brief write-ups introducing each section and giving an overview of what all it contains. This kind of content is required to put the information in context and proves very helpful for first time visitors to the Portal. Example Health Module National Portal Content Framework Health and wellness are a prime consideration to ensure efficiency and productivity of a Country s human resources. A healthy citizen contributes to make a healthy nation. We offer resources, both information and links, on the various schemes and facilities offered by your government to protect your health, a list of hospitals and medical institutions in the Country, information about alternative systems of medicine...and much more... z Meta Content which is primarily the content definition or in other words, the information on various attributes or items describing any content entity, be it forms, documents, services or web-links. Meta information comprises of elements such as titles, ownership, location, keywords etc on the basis of which, information can be easily retrieved on searching. Meta Content is highly useful as on one hand, it can be used for presenting the same content in different ways and on the other hand, it can facilitate personalization/customization of the information as per the needs and profile of the individual visitors to the Portal. Example Meta Content for entering Information about a Scheme : Title z Title z Ownership/Location z Funding Pattern 43

44 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Brief Description z Beneficiaries z Eligibility Criteria z Types of Benefits z Website of the Scheme z Validity z Keywords If meta information about each scheme is available in the database in the above formats, it is easy to search or present the schemes using any of the criterion. Auto Sourced Content: This refers to published content on some other Portal/Website which is sourced electronically and comprises information that changes very frequently, such as News headlines, press releases, weather report etc. Example The News Headlines and the corresponding news details which change every hour on the news websites such as Doordarshan etc can be auto-sourced to appear on the Portal through dynamic RSS feed or some other technology. z Hyperlinked content Hyperlinked Content is provided when details about a certain content item exist on some other website or in another section of the Portal and is very useful for enriching the content, provided the hyperlinked content is relevant and accurate. From the National Portal of India, hyperlinks can be provided to content available on other Indian Government websites but it is important to ensure that the information available through the links is verified and checked at regular intervals.

45 As mentioned above, the hyperlinks could be of the following kinds: z Hyperlinks to external web pages (outside of National Portal of India) belonging to different government websites (for eg. Links to websites of ministries along with information on the concerned sectors) z Hyperlinks to other relevant pages/sections within the National Portal of India. For eg. On the Page describing National Portal Content Framework a certain city, an internal link could be given to the details of monuments in the city, given in some other section of the portal. z Hyperlinks to Third Party websites wherever required. This is applicable in special cases such as where the link points to the homepage of a partner organization/state government agency/ngo/institution which has been involved in developing content for certain modules/sections of the Portal. z Traditional Databases A lot of databases containing important information and details such as database of members of parliament, database of court case judgments etc already exist from where the content would be directly sourced for the National Portal of India. These databases are to be maintained and kept up-to-date by the respective departments. z Service Directory A number of online services (e.g Passport Status, Land Records etc) are already being run by different government departments which shall be seamlessly integrated with the National Portal of India using the SOA protocol. Accordingly, National Portal of India would turn out to be a Repository at a common place of all Government Services classified under different metadata to facilitate easy search and 45

46 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA retrieval of information. z Documents A lot of content is in the form of published documents and reports by some ministry/department/state government such as Acts/Rules, Gazettes, Survey Reports, Statistical Data etc. This content could be directly uploaded on the National Portal of India in a Portable Document Format (PDF). z Content Repositories Various repositories pertaining to specific kind of content have been formed as a part of the National Portal of India by assimilating the content contributed by different sources. For example, content repositories of Application Forms, Schemes, Policies etc. This means that although these forms, schemes etc have been contributed by different departments, ministries etc, they are also all available at a single point in the concerned content repository. z Graphics Content This kind of content includes the graphics element in various sections of the National Portal of India, including the following z Layout Graphics for each section z Navigational Graphics on each page z Banners (on home page and in different sections) z Graphics Headers for different content sections z Maps z Photographs z Other Visual Elements z Audio/Video Content This refers to audio/video clippings which form a part of the content in the Portal. Various important events shall be webcast live through the

47 portal and would be available as Video on Demand after the event is over. Besides, important speeches, messages from the dignitaries, videos of National Day celebrations as well as multimedia promotional clippings on sections such as State Profiles, Tourism etc shall form a part of this content 3.5 Content Classification National Portal Content Framework After understanding the various types of content which shall form a part of the overall Content Architecture of the National Portal of India, we can derive a uniform classification of content on the basis of following parameters Sector Based Overall, the content has to cover all the various sectors of the economy in the category and thus shall belong to the following broad areas or sectors Agriculture Education Health and Family Welfare Industries Trade & Commerce Tourism External Affairs Defence & Internal Security Science and Technology Finance and Taxation Rural Development Communications Information Technology 14. Power & Energy 47

48 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Transport & Infrastructure Environment & Forests Target Audience Based Based on the target users like, Government, Business, Citizen or Employees, students etc. content is further classified into: G2C Classification of Government to Citizen Information and Services have been incorporated. For example: services like application of passport, registration of birth etc. G2E All the employees working in the Government be it Central or State can access useful information and avail a number of services like GPF Status, LTC Claims, etc. G2B Useful information for those wishing to start or already running a business in India has been provided in the Portal. Further, there are a number of services offered by the Government like Registration of companies, Obtaining Broadband Licenses, etc which cater to Business or dealer community. G2G - All Government to Government content has been classified as G2G information and Services. For example: Status of different Schemes launched by the Government (Central, State or Shared) Life Cycle Based The content has also been classified on the basis of stages of the life cycle of the user i.e specific content for kids, students, senior citizens etc Location Based

49 India being a large country with diversified culture, different languages and varied socio-economic parameters, it is not feasible to have generalized, common information and services model across the country. The content has to be customized incorporating the varying rules, regulations and policies for the particular state. National Portal of India classifies the information and services offered to its end users on the basis of their choice of location, to make it more valuable. Content has even been classified into different regions of the country. The portal is also delivering state specific National Portal Content Framework information and services. 3.6 Schema for Content Architecture As mentioned earlier, the National Portal of India has vast content right from citizen services to government documents & publications, from schemes & rules to sectoral information and much more. This content is meant for a fairly diverse target audience who could greatly differ in terms of their demographic background. Therefore the content has to be generated and presented in such a fashion that proves useful and easy to comprehend by one and all. Further, the National Portal of India has not been conceived and positioned as a stand alone entity. It is instead a National level content repository whose scope encompasses all online content generated by any Government entity. As mentioned in the salient features earlier in this document, the Portal leverages upon the latest Technology using XML to ensure that the presentation layer is effectively separated from the content layer, or in other words, the same content stored in the backend could be presented in different ways at the front-end. This also means that the content generated by any Government entity, be it a Ministry/department or a state Government need to be stored at a single place at the backend 49

50 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA and this content in turn could be displayed in different ways as per the contextual requirements on different websites and portals. For instance, online information about the welfare schemes of a State Government may be stored only at one point (with adequate meta information) and displayed both on the National Portal of India as well as the Website/Portal of the State Government in their respective presentation style and look & feel. Usage of this technology effectively avoids data duplication and redundancy, takes care of the problem of updating the same information at different places and also ensures the much needed standardization of content in the Government websites.keeping the above in mind, as mentioned earlier in this report, a study was conducted wherein over a 1000 Indian government websites were randomly scanned to understand the kind of content categories under which the information is presented. Eventually a sample set of over 100 websites belonging to a cross section of Ministries/ Departments/State/UT Governments was chosen and studies in depth to analyze the content. The generic framework derived out of this study (as mentioned in Section 3.2) formed the basis of the National Portal of India Content Framework comprising the broad architecture and content categories. In this section, we discuss the schema for each of the content categories in the National Portal of India. Content policies with regards to each of the above categories, once specified, can be used to generate content in a standardized format, for use by the National Portal of India as well as the respective State Government website/portal. As evident from the above illustration, the content in the National Portal of India is of three kinds z Primary z Secondary z Tertiary

51 The Primary Content is generated at the source of the information i.e the different ministries/departments or other constituents of the Government and further comprises of content with long-term value (i.e the content which shall be sustained and relevant for a long time period) and content with short term value (i.e time specific content with a pre-defined expiry date). Examples of long-term primary content include schemes, documents, services, policies etc. while those of short-term primary content would include tender notices, events, announcements, press releases, news etc, National Portal Content Framework which are all topical in nature. Figure-4 (Contents of National Portal of India, Secondary Content refers to that content which has been packaged from an assortment of primary content available at different places in the Portal to achieve a meaningful presentation for a certain module. For instance, Sectorial content comprises information and services about key development sectors in the Indian economy. Sectorial information on Agriculture, for instance would be a compilation of schemes, documents, policies etc (which are all primary content components) pertaining to agriculture. Similarly, the primary content repackaged and presented 51

52 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA for certain sets of target audience ie. Citizens, Business Community etc, along with some value addition would form the secondary content for the Portal. Tertiary Content in the National Portal of India is the information about the primary and secondary content. For instance, details about the ownership and terms & conditions associated with a certain piece of content or help on how to navigate and use the content in the Portal are telling the users something about the content on the Portal and therefore become Tertiary Content themselves. The various content components of the above types shall appear across the National portal of India in various sections depending upon their context and affinity with the concerned module/sector. The detailed schema and guidelines with respect to some of the content categories is given below: Primary Content Documents The National Portal of India shall house ALL documents developed/ published and issued in the Public Domain by Government Departments, Ministries, State/UT Governments, Public Sector Units and Organisations. These documents may belong to either of the following categories z Gazettes z Policy Documents z Circulars/Notifications z Guidelines z Plans z Annual Reports z Budget z Census

53 »»»» z Surveys z Statistics z Others This content should be reviewed every month to ensure the accuracy and currency of the information. Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting a document in the National Portal of India National Portal Content Framework Document Database z Document Title The complete official title of the document should be submitted which should be self explanatory. The correct title would lead to an accurate search output for that document and it would be easy for the users to locate it. For example : Policy on Promotion of Tourism in the State of Manipur is a more appropriate title than just Tourism Policy. Any abbreviation in the title should be expanded and the title should not be based on just a document number/date. z Ownership It should be clearly specified that with whom lies the ownership of the document i.e which is the exact Ministry/Department at the Central or State level which has produced/published/issued the concerned document z Language It should be specified whether the language of the document is English, Hindi or any other regional language. In case of the latter, the name of the concerned language must be mentioned clearly. If the document is bi-lingual/multi-lingual, it is important to mention which languages does it exist in. 53

54 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Form of Document The Form in which the document exists on the National Portal of India has to be clearly mentioned i.e whether the document file itself has been uploaded on the National Portal of India or whether the portal provides a link to another government website where the document is located. The Document file should preferably be uploaded on to the National Portal of India so that there is no risk of the hyperlink going inactive or incorrect. The uploaded document file has to be only in Portable Document Format (PDF) and no other format shall be acceptable. In case it is not possible to upload the document, a link should be provided to the exact reference webpage where the document is located and the accuracy and currency of the link ought to be checked on a regular basis. z Reference URL This is applicable in case the document file has not been physically uploaded on the National Portal of India and it only provides a link to some other website where the document is available. z Validity It is important If the document is valid only for a certain time period, the validity has to be clearly mentioned while submitting the information so that the document is moved to Archives after expiry of the validity period. z Keywords There should be a minimum of 5 keywords, separated by a comma, and relevant to the nature and content of the document in question. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords

55 Schemes The Government Departments at the Centre and State have welfare schemes running in different regions and sectors across the country. Information about ALL schemes of the Central as well as State Governments would be made available on the National Portal of India. These schemes could be Centrally Sponsored, funded by some International Body, or being run by the State/District Administration itself. It is important to note that these National Portal Content Framework schemes should be directly benefiting the individuals, special interest groups of citizens (e.g widows, physically challenged etc) or community at large. Also, content should be submitted only with regards to those schemes which are currently active and ongoing and not about some schemes which are no longer open/available to public. z The content submitted about schemes should be reviewed every month to ensure that accuracy and currency of the information. z Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting information related to a Scheme in the National Portal of India Schemes Database z Title of the Scheme The complete official title of the Scheme should be submitted which should be self explanatory. The correct title would lead to an accurate search output for information on that scheme and it would be easy for the users to locate it. Any abbreviation in the title should be expanded. z Ownership It should be clearly specified that with whom lies the ownership of the concerned scheme which is the exact Ministry/Department at the Central or State level which has announced and is running the scheme. 55

56 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Type/Funding Pattern of Scheme The schemes could pertain to any sector and could be either Centrally sponsored, State based or even shared between the Centre and State. It is also possible that the scheme is being jointly funded/ administered by the Government and some NGO/International Body. z Brief Description A brief description of each scheme must be provided which should give an overview of how, why and when the scheme was started and what is the kind of benefits it can provide. z Beneficiaries & Eligibility Criterion This should enlist all those who are eligible to receive benefits under the scheme. For e.g widows, children, disabled, poor etc). Also the details of the eligibility criteria for availing those benefits have to be clearly mentioned. z Types of Benefits Information about whether the scheme entails monetary or non monetary benefits. Also, what are the specific kinds of non monetary benefits which can be availed. For eg Subsidy, training, land allotment etc. z How to Avail Benefits Procedure to be followed, whom to contact, supporting documents to be carried etc for availing benefits under the scheme. z Website of the Scheme In case there is a website/webpage dedicated for information about the scheme, the address of the same must be mentioned. z Validity of the Scheme

57 Validity period of the scheme contributed. It is important to mention this so that the information could accordingly be moved to archives after the expiry date. z Keywords There should be a minimum of 5 keywords, separated by a comma, and relevant to the nature and content of the scheme. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords. National Portal Content Framework Online Services A large number of citizen services are being provided online by the various Ministries, Departments and State/UT governments and information about these services as well as interface to access and use them would be available on the National Portal of India.»» It is important to clearly understand here as to what constitutes the term services in this context. Information about all services provided by the government, whether fully online, partially online or available offline but the description and details exist online can be entered in this database. For e.g if the complete details about how to apply for a birth certificate in a particular state are given along with the facility to download the requisite application form, it shall be categorized as a Service. However, just information about things like any programme of a department, or access to a searchable database etc will not constitute a service.»» Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting information related to a service in the National Portal of India Services Database 57

58 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Title of the Service The title of the Service should be self explanatory and devoid of any abbreviations etc which may render it universally incomprehensible. The correct title would lead to an accurate search output for information on that service and it would be easy for the users to locate it. z Ownership It should be clearly specified with whom lies the ownership of the concerned service i.e whether the service is provided by the Central Government or is in the purview of the State Government and which is the exact Ministry/Department at the Central or State level which is providing the service. z Category of Service It is important to clarify the category of service i.e whether the service is G2C (Government to Citizen), G2B (Government to Business), G2G (Government to Government) or G2E (Government to Employee), or any other. z Brief Description A brief description of what the service is, how is it useful for the citizens, how it can be availed, who is eligible to avail the service, who is to be contacted during which hours. This is very important for the common citizens to understand the significance of the service and what are the steps to be followed for availing it. z Language It should be specified whether the language of the interface is English, Hindi or any other regional language. In case of the latter, the name of the concerned language must be mentioned clearly.

59 z Website of the Service The exact address of the webpage where the service is being provided and which has more details about the same must be mentioned. z Validity of the Scheme In case the service is time bound, it is important to mention the validity so that the content is not rendered obsolete. National Portal Content Framework z Keywords There should be a minimum of 5 keywords, separated by a comma, and relevant to the nature and content of the Service. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords Application Forms The National Portal of India has a centralized resource for all Application Forms of Central/State/UT Governments which are required to be filled up and submitted for availing different services and applying for obtaining important certificates/licenses etc.»» All application forms existing in the public domain and meant for applying for licenses, certificates, scholarships, grants, services, information, loans, utilities etc ought to be published on the National Portal of India for the convenience of the citizens.»» The form file should preferably be uploaded on to the National Portal of India so that there is no risk of the hyperlink going inactive or incorrect. In case it is not possible to upload the form, a link should be provided to the exact page where the form is located and the accuracy and currency of the link ought to be checked on a regular basis.»» The uploaded form has to be either in Portable Document Format 59

60 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA (PDF) or HTML format, no other format should be acceptable.»» Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting information related to an Application Form in the National Portal of India Forms Database. z Title and Number of the Form The title of the form should be self explanatory and devoid of any abbreviations etc which may then render it universally incomprehensible. The correct title would lead to an accurate search output for information on that Form and it would be easy for the users to locate it. Also, in case the Form is popularly known by a number (for e.g Form 16 for Income Statement or Form 4 for Driving license), the same should also be mentioned along with the title. z Ownership The name of the department/ministry at the Central or State level which has issued the concerned Application form must be mentioned. This is significant because many times, the same form number is used by different departments to denote different forms. z Language of the Form It should be specified whether the language of the form is English, Hindi or any other regional language. In case of the latter, the name of the concerned language must be mentioned clearly. If the form is bi-lingual/multi-lingual, it is important to mention which languages does it exists in. z Associated Service This denotes the service for which the concerned Application Form should be filled. For example, if the form is for obtaining driving licence, the associated service would be Application for applying

61 for a new driving licence. z Type of Form This is the most significant attribute when it comes to Application Forms. Here one must clarify whether the form is available on the Portal for a download and print or whether the visitor can also fill and submit the form online. National Portal Content Framework z Availability of Form This clarifies whether the form file has been physically uploaded onto the Portal and can be downloaded by the users or whether the form has been linked to an external website. In case of the latter, the exact address of the webpage from there the form has been hyperlinked must be mentioned. z Validity In case the form is valid only for a certain time period, the date of expiry must be mentioned so that obsolete information does not stay on the Portal under any circumstances. z Keywords There should be a minimum of 5 keywords, separated by a comma, and relevant to the nature and content of the Form. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords Acts & Rules All the Acts passed by the Parliament as well as the State Legislative Assemblies have to be entered in the National Portal of India Acts & Rules Database so that they can be accessed from all relevant sections for reference. Further, the Rules/Sub-ordinate legislations issued by the departments based on those Acts should also be submitted on the Portal. 61

62 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA»» The Act Document should preferably be uploaded on to the National Portal of India so that there is no risk of the hyperlink going inactive or incorrect. In case it is not possible to upload the Act, a link should be provided to the exact page where the Act is located and the accuracy and currency of the link ought to be checked on a regular basis.»» For every Rule submitted in the Database it is mandatory to mention the name of the Parent Act from which the Rule has been derived Only one Act can be mentioned for one rule.»» Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting information related to an Act/Rule in the National Portal of India Acts & Rules Database Title of the Act The complete title of the Act as written in the official notification must be mentioned which should be self explanatory and devoid of any abbreviations etc which may render it universally incomprehensible. The correct title would lead to an accurate search output for information on that Act and it would be easy for the users to locate it. z Ownership The name of the concerned department/ministry at the Central or State level which is concerned with the Act/Rule. z Act Year This stands for the year in which the Act was passed by the Parliament. The year of the Act is an important part of the Act title. z Short Title

63 At times, an Act is popularly known by its abbreviation or some commonly used short form, which must also be mentioned since it is possible that a user may search using the popular name of the Act. For example, RTI Act is a short form more popularly used than Right to Information Act. z Extent of the Act This refers to the scope or geographical region to which the Act National Portal Content Framework applies. In case it is a central act passed by the parliament, the extent is normally the whole of India. However, the acts passed by the state legislatures are usually confined to the boundaries of the concerned state. z Commencement Date This refers to the date when the Act comes into force. The date ought to be mentioned in the dd-mm- yyyy format. z Availability of Act/Rule Document This should specify whether the Act document can be downloaded from the Portal or is it only available for viewing at an external website. In case the Act has been linked from another site, the Address of the exact webpage where the Act is available has to be mentioned z Brief Description/Objectives This is essentially a brief summary of the objectives behind a certain Act and the key features of the Act. A description of around 100 words ought to be given which should cover the essence of the Act. z Validity This is applicable in case the information has a defined life and shall become obsolete after that. 63

64 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA z Keywords A minimum of 5 keywords to be submitted (separated by a comma) which are relevant for searching and retrieval of information. The keywords could comprise the Act name, the department name, the thrust area, the target audience of the act etc. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords Announcements The National Portal of India has a section dedicated to Announcements by the different Government departments and other entities at the Central and State level. Primarily, the announcements of the following kind can be published on the National Portal of India 1. Announcements having International/ National/State level importance 2. Announcements related to important upcoming government events being organized by a Ministry/ Department/State/UT 3. Calls for relief funds during disasters as well as display of important helpline numbers in case of crisis 4. Announcements related to new schemes/grants/ scholarships/fellowships etc 5. Warnings of Natural/Other disasters and Epidemics etc»» Information in terms of the following attributes/metadata ought to be specified while submitting information related to an Announcement in the National Portal of India Announcements Database z Title of the Announcement The headline or title of the Announcement should be brief and self explanatory. If the announcement is about a forthcoming event,

65 the headline should preferably have the venue and date clearly mentioned z Ownership The name of the concerned department/ministry at the Central or State level which has issued the announcement. z Description National Portal Content Framework A brief description (around 50 words) comprising details about the announced event or the concerned news z Link Address This is the address of the webpage where further details pertaining to the announcement are available. For e.g In case the announcement is about some forthcoming National/International Conference, the link address would be of the website developed for the concerned conference. z Starting Date This is a very important attribute while entering information about an announcement as this refers to the Date from which the Announcement shall start displaying on the Portal. Normally this date should be set a few days before the actual event has to take place. z Expiry Date This refers to the date on which the Announcement should be taken off the Portal. z Keywords A minimum of 5 keywords to be submitted (separated by a comma) which are relevant for searching and retrieval of information. For more details, refer to the section on Keywords

66 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Contact Directory The National Portal of India has a section providing contact details of the senior office bearers in the Ministries/Departments/States/UTs. As of now, this section directly provides link to the contact directories already existing on the government websites. However, eventually there shall be a common repository of Contact Information pertaining to all Government entities at the Central and State level. Broadly, the contact details pertaining to the following shall form a part of this repository. Apex/Central Government Offices z President of India & Secretariat of President of India z Vice President of India & Secretariat of Vice-President of India z Prime Minister of India & Prime Minister s Office z Ministers of Union Cabinet z Cabinet Secretariat z Ministries of the Central Government z Judges of Supreme Court of India & Subordinate Courts z Members of Parliament (Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha) z Constitutional Offices (CEC, CVC, CBI, RGI, Human Rights Comm. etc.) z Chief Information Officer z Intergovernmental Organizations in India Missions/Embassies z Indian Missions/Consulates Abroad z Foreign Embassies/Consulates in India z Intergovernmental Organizations z Asian Organizations z Regional Organizations

67 State Government Offices z Governors of States z Lt. Governor & Administrators of UTs z Ministers of the State Government z Chief Information Officer z Contacts of state Government Depts. z Judges of High Courts & Subsidiary/Supporting Courts in State HQ National Portal Content Framework z Members of Legislative Assembly & Legislative Council z Independent Offices (State Election Comm., State Finance Comm., etc.) z Police HQ and its hierarchy z State HQ city civic body (Corporation/Municipality) z Boards relevant to general public viz. Exam. Board, Electricity Board, City Development Authority, Tourism Development Corporations, etc. District Level Offices z District Magistrate z District Level Judicial Offices z District Development Commissioner z District Administration z Zila Parishad Chairman and Members z Superintendent of Police & its hierarchy z Municipality or local city civic body z Police Stations Block Level Offices z Block Development Offices z Block Panchayat Chairman and Members z Police Stations 67

68 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Other Offices z Public Sector Undertakings z Joint Venture Organizations z Autonomous Bodies z Banking/Finance/Insurance Institutions Organizations z RBI z SBI and Associates z Nationalized Banks z Cooperative, Agricultural and Rural Banks z Financial Institutions z Insurance Companies z Securities and Exchanges Cultural z Art Galleries z Archives and Museums z Libraries z Cultural Organizations Educational z Universities/Deemed Universities z Colleges z Schools z Specialized institutions z Training Institutions/Centers z Boards z Councils z Commissions Scientific Organizations R&D Organizations International Organizations Viz. UNICEF, UNESCO, ADB etc.

69 The contact information shall be represented with designations instead of names (except Apex offices) so that any change occurring due to transfers etc shall not render the information obsolete. Contact information shall be given in terms of Designation, Postal Address, Telephone Number, Fax Number and Id. National Portal Content Framework News & Press Releases It is important to have the daily news reflected in the National Portal of India since it is the main authentic source of information regarding the happenings in the Country before the world. z The News in the Portal ought to comprise a headline linked with further details. Only the News having national importance and significance for the citizens in general shall be published on the Portal. Local news pertaining only to specific regions shall not be a part of news on the National Portal of India. z The source of the news ought to be official reliable government news agencies and channels z The news would be categorized into areas such as National Headlines, Sports News, Financial News etc z This section shall be reviewed and updated twice daily to include the latest news headlines z The news in the National Portal of India is being at present sourced from the RSS feed provided by the Doordarshan, the official news channel of the Government ( However, in the long run, RSS feed shall also be obtained from other official news agencies. 69

70 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Press Releases The Government Press Releases appearing on the National Portal of India are directly sourced from the RSS feed provided by the Press Information Bureau ( The Press Releases are available both in English and Hindi Language and photographs of official functions are also provided. However, in the long run, a centralized repository of all Press Releases issued by the various Government entities, both at the central and state level shall be developed which shall store all current and archived press releases. A framework shall be defined by which the press releases shall be submitted to the National Portal of India simultaneously as they are released in the other media, if not before. This shall ensure that the press releases are always latest at any time. This section shall be reviewed and updated twice daily to include the latest press releases About the Ministry/State At various places in the National Portal of India, Profile write-ups on India in general as well as State/UT Profiles and sectoral profiles are provided. These profiles ought to be sourced from officially approved documents from concerned agencies such as MHA/MEA (for country profile), Public Relations Department of the State/UT Governments for State profile as well as concerned ministries for sectoral profile. Each write-up must be accompanied by the Source of information along with the date when that information has been sourced. The profiles ought to be reviewed every month to ensure updation of any stated facts and figures.

71 Photogallery The National Portal of India has an aesthetically designed visual panorama of high quality photographs depicting the various facets of India. The photographs to be published on the Portal must be free of copyrights by a private party National Portal Content Framework z The photos ought to be in high resolution to ensure good picture quality, however, the size of the same shall be optimized by the National Portal of India design team to ensure faster download. z The photographs should depict non controversial, non offensive and non-personal subjects showing India s art & culture, traditions, lifestyle, monuments etc. z Every photo published on the Portal must be accompanied by the following meta data 1. A self explanatory brief caption. 2. Source/Contributor of the Photograph 3. Theme of the Photograph ( for eg, does it belong to the category of monuments or lifestyle etc) Apart from the above, the photogallery should invite the citizens to contribute their original work i.e photographs clicked by them depicting some interesting facet of the Country. Due credit ought to be given to the photographer along with his/her published photographs. Eventually, even a photo contest could be initiated amongst the visitors in order to motivate them further and sustain the photogallery with new additions on a regular basis. Secondary Content Spotlight 71

72 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA National Portal Of India has a section called Spotlight which focuses on a certain issue of National Importance every month and brings it to limelight. The policy with regards to this section is as follows:- z Every Spotlight topic shall be chosen keeping in mind the current relevance and significance of the topic in today s context. It should be ensured that the chosen topic is of National significance and should interest diverse group of audience. z The content for Spotlight Section shall have the following essential elements: z Brief Introductory Text (one sentence) to appear on the Home Page of the National Portal of India. z Detailed Body text on the topic in the Main Page of the Spotlight section. This content should comprise key highlights of the topic and the facts ought to be sourced from authentic and official sources relating to the topic. Address of the Webpage/Website which has detailed further information on the topic addressed in the Spotlight Graphical Banner highlighting the Spotlight topic and linked to the website with further details. The frequency of the Spotlight section is monthly, hence the spotlight should be made in advance in order to adhere by the date Once the new spotlight is launched, the older one ought to be passed in an Archives section along with the date for future reference Banners

73 Major initiatives of the Government is publicized and given prominence by designing special banners which are placed on the National Portal of India. The textual content in the various modules and section of the National Portal of India is visually enhanced by relevant banners which are linked to other webpages/websites for further information. z The Banners on the National Portal of India should be made on the following categories National Portal Content Framework z Social Messages z Banners on National Days/Festivals/Commemorative Days z Banners announcing forthcoming events such as conferences etc z Banners announcing the webcast of certain events z Banners linking to some websites for further information.for e.g banners in the spotlight section z Banners highlighting some new citizen service/ initiative z Each Banner must be accompanied by the following attributes/ metadata z Banner Size (Both in terms of the dimensions as well as the file size. The size of the banners must be compliant with the recommended specifications i.e the file size should not exceed 4 K-10 K and the dimensions ought to be:380 X 66 pixels (Main Banner on Home Page) and 128 X 34 Pixels (subsequent sections) z Each banner shall be linked with the corresponding detailed information available on a government website. The exact URL of the concerned website/ webpage ought to be mentioned clearly. z The Page(s) of the National Portal of India where the 73

74 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA banner shall be displayed z Alternate Text for ensuring universal accessibility z The Banners based on important dates/events which are predetermined in the beginning of the year (available on DAVP website) should be designed in the beginning itself clearly specifying the Entry and Exit dates i.e the date on which the banner shall be displayed and the date on which it should be taken off the Portal. z After a week, the Home Page banner can be moved to the concerned inside sections of the portal (in smaller dimensions). Incase the other banners have a specified validity, they shall automatically be moved to the Archives for any future use/reference. z Incase a banner pertains to the Live webcast of a certain event, the same ought to be changed to Video on Demand after the event gets over. z The language/slogans used on the banners ought to be non controversial, grammatically correct and non offensive z Each banner shall have self explanatory alternate text to ensure its accessibility for text browsers as well as for browsers meant for visually challenges users. z Besides the above examples of Primary and Secondary Content Components, the following guidelines pertain to providing related links (in different sections and modules of the Portal) as well as specifying keywords while entering metadata of different content components. Related Links For every content topic in different modules of the National Portal of India, a separate box is provided for Related Links to the concerned information.

75 z Each content topic covered in the National Portal of India shall have some related links to other government websites which provide further details on the topic. z For every related link, The complete URL of the Home Page/Concerned webpage ought to be provided correctly along with the complete title of the Website which shall appear on the screen z The Validity and accuracy of the URL should be checked on a regular National Portal Content Framework basis to make sure that the information is relevant and the linked address is correct. Only Government websites/webpages can be provided as Related Links for further information since there is no control over the veracity and availability of information on private websites. Policy on Keywords For every content component in the National Portal of India, it is extremely important to have clear and concise metadata elements, most important of which are the keywords. If the keywords for a certain piece of information have been accurately and judiciously provided, it goes a long way in ensuring faster and useful search and effective information retrieval. While entering the keywords, the following ought to be ensured z All important words appearing in the title of the concerned document/ scheme/ form/ service etc must be included as keywords z The keywords should also comprise the name of the department,sector etc z In case of services and schemes, the beneficiaries (e.g disabled, widows etc) should also be included as keywords z There should be a minimum of 5 keywords for each content component, separated by a comma z Care should be taken to ensure that there are no spelling errorswhile 75

76 entering the keywords. THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

77 National Portal Content Framework 4 Content Management Policies

78 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

79 National Portal Content Framework 4.1 Overview of Content Management Policy National Portal of India is a comprehensive repository of content related to government services and is being contributed by a number of authorized content contributors across the country. In order to retrieve the relevant, meaningful content easily from the portal at the optimum time it is mandatory to have laid out the overall Content Management Policies. This would ensure that the portal users extract the content in a correct and consistent manner without facing any inconvenience of having to navigate a number of websites of different look & feel. These Content Management Policies outline the content contribution process, the procedure of content approval and moderation, content review, expiry and archival of content as well as the content consumption process. This document shall be a reference resource for anyone who associates with the National Portal of India Project at a future date as this shall give the complete information about how the content can be managed across different sections of the portal. 79

80 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 4.2 Access Control Level Policy Content can be contributed by any authorized contributor at the Ministry/ Department/ State/ District/ Block/ Panchayat levels, identified external agencies, associated third party or National Portal of India Team at Centre/ States. For security reasons the authorized CMS users are grouped into different classes and each class of users has been assigned specific role and access to the content categories. The Content Contributors have also been mentioned earlier in Section 2.4 of this document. There are a number of stakeholders of the National Portal of India and the content is contributed across the country at multiple levels by authorized content contributors. The different types of content categories along with their contributors are given in the table below:- Table 4.2.1:(Content Categories and Contributors) No. Contributor Content Elements 1 Third Party (Agency/ OutsourcedTeam) About the Ministry/ Department/State Acts/Rules Programmes & Schemes Documents/Reports Forms Services Directories Circulars/Notifications Sectoral Profile Regional Profile News Tenders Announcements Recruitments 2 Department/Ministry/National Portal of India Coordinator (NPC)/ NIC Coordinator for the National Portal of India (NCNP)/ State Informatics Officer (SIO)/ Head of the Division (HOD) 3 National Portal of India (NPI) Team About the Ministry/ Department/State Acts/Rules Programmes & Schemes Documents/Reports Forms Services Directories About the Ministry/ Department/State Acts/Rules Programmes & Schemes Documents/Reports Forms Services Directories Circulars/Notifications Circulars/Notifications Sectoral Profile Regional Profile News Tenders Announcements Recruitments Spotlight Greetings Events Advertisements/Banners Related Links Media Gallery About the Portal Section Help

81 Sectoral Profile Regional Profile News Tenders Announcements Recruitments Audience Specific Views Special Interest Group General Feedback Content Specific Feedback Registration Terms of reference, Privacy Policy Content Contributor, Source & Validity Content could be contributed at different levels and similarly it may be approved at most in two levels and finally published on the portal after National Portal Content Framework moderation. The different Levels are tabulated below:- Table 4.2.2:Levels Of Content Contributions S.No. Level Acronym Description 1. Level 1 L 1 Agent (outsourced Team)/Agency/NPI Team 2. Level 2 L 2 Nodal Officer/ Approver/NCNP 3. Level 3 L 3 NPC 4. Level 4 L 4 Moderator 5. Level 5 L5 Publisher Access Control policy has been defined for each of the content contributor and is elaborated in the table given below: Table 4.2.3:Access Control Policy of National Portal of India, india.gov.in S.No Legend Explanation 1. Outsourced Team CR Create new content MD DD CL BP VS Modify a content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Bypass Nodal officer ie, in case of important/urgent contribution, the work flow is not followed and content reaches the moderator directly to reduce time View only self contributed contents 2. NPC CR Create new content MD DD Modify a content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage 81

82 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA RD CL AP RJ VA Request Moderator to Delete a Live Content Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Approve Content submitted to NPC Reject Content by NPC to the creator 3. Nodal Officer CR Create new content MD DD RD CL AP RJ VD BP View all State/Central contributed contents Modify a content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage Request Moderator to Delete a Live Content Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Approve Content submitted by Outsourced Team/Agency to the Nodal Officer Reject Content submitted by Outsourced Team/Agency View all contributed contents for a Department 4. Agency CR Create new content 5. NCNP SIO and HOD too are known as NCNP MD DD CL BP VS CR Incase of urgent/important content, the NPC- State/Centre stage of workflow is bypassed and content is sent to moderator directly. Modify a content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Bypass Nodal officer ie, in case of important/urgent contribution, the work flow is not followed and content reaches the moderator directly to reduce time View only self contributed content Create new content MD Modify a content which is in draft stage DD RD CL BP VA Delete a content which is in draft stage Request Moderator to Delete a Live Content Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Incase of urgent/important content, the NPC- State/Centre stage of workflow is bypassed and content is sent to moderator directly. View all contributed contents (State/ Ministry/Department) 6. NPI Team CR Create new content for State/Central MD Modify a content which is in draft stage

83 7. Approver DD CL VS CR MD DD CL RD VA Delete a content which is in draft stage Make a copy of self created Live content for modification View only self contributed content Create new content for State/Central Modify a content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage Make a copy of self created Live content for modification Request Moderator to Delete a Live Content View all contributed contents (State/ Ministry/Department) 8. Moderator RJ Reject any content to the content creator submitted for publishing MD DD DC VA Modify any content which is in draft stage Delete a content which is in draft stage Delete Content requested by any authorized user View all content 9. Publisher RJ Reject any content to the content creator submitted for publishing DC ML DL VA PB Delete Content requested by any authorized user Modify any content which is live Delete any content which is live View all content Publish Content on the Portal National Portal Content Framework Table 4.2.4:Privelege Levels Of The Contributors S.No Contributor Access Control 1. Agent (Outsourced Team) CR MD DD CL BP VS 2. NPC CR MD DD AP RD CL RJ VA 3. Nodal Officer CR MD DD AP RD CL RJ BP VD 4. Agency CR MD DD CL BP VS 5. NCNP CR MD DD RD CL VA BP 6. NPI Team/Third Party CR MD DD CL VS 7. Approver CR MD DD CL RD VA 8. Moderator RJ MD DD DC VA 9. Publisher RJ DC ML DL VA PB 83

84 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 4.3 Content Flow Process Content Flow Process for different levels at state, central,npi team and third party are maintained and provided as follows: Content Flow Process(CFP) - State Content once contributed has to be approved at the Department/Ministry/ NPI level (level 2) or at the NPC/NCNP/SIO/HOD level (level 3) and finally published on the portal only after being moderated by the Chief Moderator (level 4). Content could also be contributed either by the NIC Coordinator for the National Portal of India (NCNP) or State Informatics Officer (SIO) or National Portal of India Coordinator State (NPC-S) at the State level. Content contributed by NCNP/SIO could be approved at level L 3 or could be bypassed to the Moderator. The Content contributed at any stage can be rejected by the Approver or moderator and is sent back to the originator of the content with remarks. At any stage the content contributor can edit the content before resubmitting the same for approval and moderation. The Content Flow Process is explained below for the State. Figure : CFP - State

85 4.3.2 Content Flow Process(CFP) - Central (Ministry/ Department) Content once contributed by Agency has to be approved by the Nodal Officer at L2 level or bypassed to National Portal of India Coordinator Central (NPC-C) at level (L 3) and finally published on the portal only after being moderated by the Moderator (L 4). National Portal Content Framework Content could also be contributed by the Head of the Division (HOD) or NPC Centre (NPC-C). Content contributed by HOD could be approved at level L 3 or could be bypassed to the Moderator. The Content contributed at any stage can be rejected by the Approver or moderator and is sent back to the originator of the content with remarks. At any stage the content contributor can edit the content before resubmitting the same for approval and moderation. The Content Flow Process is explained below for Central Levels respectively. Figure : CFP - Central 85

86 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Content Flow Process(CFP) - NPI Team NPI Team could contribute all the types of content namely primary, secondary and Tertiary. Content once contributed by the team has to be approved by the NIC Approver at L2 and finally published on the portal only after being moderated by the Moderator (L 4). The Content contributed at any stage can be rejected by the Approver or moderator and is sent back to the originator of the content with remarks. At any stage the content contributor can edit the content before resubmitting the same for approval and moderation. The Content Flow Process for the NPI Team is explained below. Figure : CFP - NPI Team

87 4.3.4 Content Flow Process(CFP) Third Party Third Party could contribute all the types of content namely primary, secondary and Tertiary. Content once contributed by the party has to be approved by the NIC Approver at L2 and finally published on the portal only after being moderated by the Moderator (L 4). National Portal Content Framework The Content contributed at any stage can be rejected by the Approver or moderator and is sent back to the originator of the content with remarks. At any stage the content contributor can edit the content before resubmitting the same for approval and moderation. The Content Flow Process for the Third Party is explained below. Figure : CFP - Third Party 87

88 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 4.4 Content Moderation and Approval Policy (CMAP) Content needs to be contributed by any of the authorized contributors in a consistent fashion to maintain uniformity and to bring in standardization along with associated metadata and keywords as explained in the section 3.7 (Guidelines for Content Categories in National Portal of India) of this document. In order to present the content as per the requirement of the viewer, organize the content in categorized manner and to retrieve the relevant content efficiently, it is required to contribute the content to the portal through a Content Management System which would be webbased having user-friendly interface. The content on the portal goes through the entire life-cycle process of:- z Contribution z Modification z Approval z Moderation z Publishing z Expiry z Archival Once the content is contributed it needs to be approved and moderated prior to being published on the portal. The moderation is multilevel and is role based. If the content is rejected at any level then it is reverted back to the originator of the content for modification. Different Content Element are categorized as: - z Routine z Priority z Express

89 The content elements,the type of control,approver and moderator for the content on the portal is provided as a matrix below. It gives a brief about the approver and the moderator for each of the content element. No. Table 4.4.1: Approver and the moderator for each of the content element Content Elements 1 About the Ministry/ Department/State Type of Content Routine Priority Express Approver L 2 & L 3 L 4 Moderator 2 Acts/Rules L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 National Portal Content Framework 3 Programme/ Schemes 4 Documents/ Reports L 2 & L 3 L 4 L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 5 Forms L 2 & L 3 L 4 6 Services L 2 & L 3 L 4 7 Directories L 2 & L 3 L 4 :- By pass L 3 in case of priority 8 Circulars/ Notifications L 3:- 9 Sectoral Profile By pass L 2 in case of priority L 4 :- By pass L 3 L 4 :- By pass L 3 in case of priority 10 Regional Profile L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 11 News L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 12 Tenders L 3:- L 4 :- By pass L 3 13 Announcements By pass L 2 L 4 :- By pass L 3 14 Recruitments L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 15 Audience Specific Views 16 Special Interest Group L 3:- By pass L 2 L 4 :- By pass L 3 L 4 :- By pass L 3 17 Spotlight L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L4 18 Greetings L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 19 Events 89

90 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 20 Advertisements / Banners L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 21 Related Links L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 22 Media-gallery L 2 & L 3 L 3 & L 4 23 About the Portal L 2 L 4 24 Help L 2 L 4 25 General Feedback 26 Content Specific Feedback L 2 L 4 L 2 L 4 27 Registration L 2 L 4 28 Terms of reference, privacy policy 29 Content Contributor, Source & Validity L 2 L 4 L 2 L Content Review Policy (CRP) The National Portal of India is the face of the Government disseminating government information and services. It is therefore required to keep the content on the portal current and up-to-date and hence there is a need for a Content Review Policy. Since the scope of the content is huge, different Review Policies are defined for the different content categories. Content is reviewed either on a predefined interval or based on certain event or change in policy. Table gives the matrix details or reviews frequency or trigger for each content category. Table 4.5.1: Content Review Policy No. Content Elements 1 About the Ministry/ Department/ State Trigger Event Time Policy Frequency Of Review Immediate in case a new Ministry/ Department/ State is created. Once in a quarter as a Policy. 2 Acts/Rules Once in a quarter as a Policy L 3 Reviewer L 3 (Level)

91 3 Programme/ Schemes 4 Documents/ Reports Immediate for new programme/ scheme introduced. Once in a quarter as a Policy. Once in a quarter as a Policy. Keep recent 2 years documents/ Reports 5 Forms Every fortnight L 3 6 Services Every fortnight L 3 7 Directories Immediate in case of change. Once in a quarter as a Policy. 8 Circulars/ Notifications L 3 L 3 L 3 Every Fortnight L 3 9 Sectoral Profile Immediate in case a new Sector is added. Once in a quarter as a Policy. 10 Regional Profile Immediate in case of any change L 3 L 3 National Portal Content Framework 11 News Immediate L 3 /L 4 12 Tenders Immediate in case a new Tenders Once in a quarter as a Policy. L 3 13 Announcements Immediate L 3 /L 4 14 Recruitments Every fortnight L 3 15 Audience Specific Views 16 Special Interest Group Immediate L 3 /L 4 Immediate L 3 /L 4 17 Spotlight Once a month L 4 18 Greetings 19 Events Immediate L 3 /L 4 20 Advertisements/ Banners Immediate in case of an event. Once in a quarter as a Policy. 21 Related Links Once in a quarter as a policy. L 2 L 4 22 Media-gallery Immediate in case of an event. Once in a quarter as a Policy. 23 About the Portal Immediate in case of a change. Once in a quarter as a policy. 24 Help Immediate in case of a change. Once in a quarter as a policy. L 3 /L 4 L2 L2 25 General Feedback 26 Content Specific Feedback Daily. Daily. L2 L2 27 Registration Immediate in case of a change. Once in a quarter as a policy. L2 28 Terms of reference, privacy policy 29 Content Contributor, Source & Validity Immediate in case of a change. Once in a quarter as a policy. Immediate L2 L2 The entire content category would be reviewed for syntax once a week by the NPI Team; however the above matrix is for the semantics review. 91

92 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 4.6 Content Archival and Exit Policy Each of the content category is accompanied by the meta data, source and the validity date. For some of the categories the validity date may not be known i.e., the content is stated to be perpetual. Under this scenario, the validity date should be ten years hence. Under no circumstances, any content is to be displayed on the portal after the validity date. For few of the categories like announcements and tenders only the live content whose validity date is after the current date is shown on the portal. For some of the categories like documents, schemes, services, forms, websites and contact directory there is a need for timely review of the same as per the Content Review Policy elaborated under section 4.5. List of content contributed is sent to the content contributor two weeks prior to the expiry of the validity date to revalidate the content and if required modify the validity date. In case of no response, then a reminder is sent a week before the validity date and thereafter the content is archived and no longer published on the Portal. For the retrieval of content which has expired, there is a need to archive the content. Government Websites, Forms, Services and Contact Directory which are discontinued should be expunged. The archival policy and exit policy for different content categories of the portal is enlisted below: - Table 4.6.1: Content Entry and Exit Policy No. Content Category Exit Policy Archival Policy 1 About the Ministry/ Department/State In case a Department or Ministry A is merged with a Department or Ministry B then information with respect to A would exit Information of A can be archived for a period of 5 years.

93 No. Content Category Exit Policy Archival Policy 2 Acts/Rules Perpetual to be always available in the acts/rules database. 3 Programme/ Schemes 4 Documents/ Reports Schemes/Programmes which have been completed or discontinued. Documents/reports of years prior to previous year to exit. 5 Forms Discontinued forms to be expunged. 6. Services Discontinued services to be expunged. 7. Directories Changes to be incorporated in case there is a change in the Executive/legislative/ Judicial setup. Content apart from above to be expunged on expiry. Documents/ Reports 8. Circulars/ Notifications Current year and previous year s documents/reports of importance. NPCs may decide to keep relevant documents prior to lastyear. In case of perpetual circulars/notifications there is no exit policy. 9. Sectoral Profile In case a sector, A is merged with another sector B then information with respect to A would exit. 10. Regional Profile Change in any Regional Profile, the previous profile to exit. 11. News Automatically after the expiry of the validity period. Discontinued schemes/ programmes to be archived for a plan period. Completed chemes / programmes to be archived for two plan periods. Discontinued services to be expunged. Perpetual to be always available in the acts/rules database. Bio-data of previous heads of administrative /judicial/ executive to be archived Available in the Documents/ Reports repository for years prior to previous year. Archived for five years for others Information of A can be archived for a period of 5 years. Previous profile to be archived. Event/Demand Based 12. Tenders Once it is no longer active Inactive tenders to be archived in the repository. 13. Announcements Automatically after the expiry of the validity period. 14. Recruitments Automatic after the expiry of the validity period 15. Audience Specific Views 16. Special Interest Group Perpetual Perpetual but to be reviewed Event/Demand Based Meta data about any recruitment to be achieved for five years. Previous Version to be archived. Not Applicable National Portal Content Framework 93

94 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA No. Content Category Exit Policy Archival Policy 17. Spotlight Each Month end Year wise, month wise 18. Greetings Perpetual Not Applicable 19. Events Expiry of events Not Applicable 20. Advertisements/ Banners After a week 21. Related Links Perpetual but to be reviewed In the respective section once it exits. Not Applicable 22. Media-gallery Perpetual Not Applicable 23. About the Portal Perpetual Not Applicable 24. Help Perpetual Not Applicable 25. General Feedback Perpetual Maintained for 5 years 26. Content Specific Feedback Perpetual Maintained for 5 years 27. Registration Perpetual Not Applicable 28. Terms of reference, privacy policy 29. Content Contributor, Source & Validity Perpetual Perpetual Not Applicable Not Applicable 4.7 Content Consumption Policy India having a federal structure has a number of departments under each Central Ministry and similarly a large number of line departments in the states. However, the requirement of each Ministry/Department/ State/District/Block/Panchayat can not be uniform and depending upon the domain, priority and focus point of each of the stake holder of the portal, there is a need to consume the content contributed to the Central Repository of the Portal. Each of the stake holders would also like to preserve their individual look and feel and navigation pattern. National Portal of India is the central repository of all government information and services be it of Central Ministries or States. Content is contributed across the country and is a collaborative effort. Content can be consumed by the stake holders of the portal through XML and RSS technologies.

95 The Portal leverages upon the latest Technologies to ensure that the presentation layer is effectively separated from the content layer, or in other words, the content stored in the backend could be presented in different ways at the front-end. This also means that the content generated by any Government entity, be it a Ministry/department or a state Government stored at a single place at the backend could in turn be displayed in different ways as per the contextual requirements on different websites and portals. For instance, online information about the welfare schemes National Portal Content Framework of a State Government may be stored only at one point (with adequate meta information) and displayed both on the National Portal of India as well as the Website/Portal of the State Government in their respective presentation style and look & feel. Usage of this technology effectively avoids data duplication and redundancy, takes care of the problem of updating the same information at different places and also ensures the much needed standardization of content in the Government websites. Thus any department can access the content contributed by them in NPI repository and display on their website/portal after due authentication by NPI team. Figure : Content Consumption Policy 95

96 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

97 National Portal Content Framework 5 Content Management System

98 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA

99 National Portal Content Framework 5.1 Brief Description on CMS A Web Based secured Content Management System (CMS) has been developed by NIC to facilitate contribution of content, for the National Portal of India, by the authorized content contributors through a simpler and easier interface. Each user of the CMS has been provided with a userid and password to access the CMS modules. The CMS can be accessed at The login screen prompts the user for their userid and password to enable using the CMS modules. The User is advised to change his/her password the first time he/she logs into the CMS. Table 5.1.1: Authorized CMS Users from Central Government Sl.No. Ministry / Department Designation 1 Cabinet Secretariat Joint Secretary 2 CBDT, Department of Revenue, M/o Finance DG Income Tax (Systems), CBDT 3 CBEC, Department of Revenue, M/o Finance DG(System) CBEC 4 Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, M/o Science and Technology 5 Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, M/o Personnel, PG and Pensions 6 Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, M/o Agriculture Head, Information Technology Division Director (IT) Joint Secretary (IT) 99

100 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Sl.No. Ministry / Department Designation 7 Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, M/o Agriculture 8 Department of Ayurveda & Medicines, M/o Health & Family Welfare 9 Department of Bio-Technology, M/o Science and Technology, 10 Department of Chemical & Petrochemicals, M/o Chemicals & Fertilizers 11 Department of Consumer Affairs, M/o Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Joint Secretary (A&LH) Director (Admin) Joint Secretary Joint Secretary Joint Secretary 12 Department of Disinvestment, M/o Finance Officer on Special Duty 13 Department of Drinking Water Supply, M/o Rural Development Joint Secretary 14 Department of Economic Affairs, M/o Finance Joint Secretary (FT) 15 Department of Expenditure, M/o Finance Additional Secretary (Ex.) 16 Department of Fertilizers, M/o Chemicals & Fertilizers 17 Department of Food and Public Distribution, M/o Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution 18 Department of Health and Family Welfare, M/o Health and Family Welfare 19 Department of Heavy Industry, M/o Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises 20 Department of Higher Education, M/o Human Resource Development 21 Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, M/o Commerce and Industry 22 Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication & Information Technology 23 Department of Legislative, M/o Law and Justice 24 Department of Ocean Development, M/o Earth Sciences 25 Department of Official Language, M/o Home Affairs 26 Department of Personnel and Training, M/o Personnel, PG and Pensions 27 Department of Posts, M/o Communication and IT 28 Department of Road Transport & Highways, M/o Shipping, Road Transport & Highways 29 Department of School Education & Literacy, M/o Human Resource Development 30 Department of Science & Technology, M/o Science and Technology 31 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, M/o Science and Technology 32 Department of Shipping, M/o Shipping, Road Transport and Highways 33 Department of Telecommunication, M/o Communication and IT Joint Secretary Director (C&G) Director (NRHM-II/NGO) Joint Secretary Joint Secretary Joint Secretary Director (E-Governance) Joint Secretary Adviser Director (Technical) Joint Secretary (Training) DDG (Technology) Joint Secretary (T & A) Joint Secretary Scientist G Scientist G Joint Secretary (Ports and Admin) DDG (Data Services)

101 Sl.No. Ministry / Department Designation 34 Department of Women and Child Development, M/o Human Resource Development Joint Secretary 35 Indian Airlines, M/o Civil Aviation DGM-IT 36 Indian Council of Agricultural Research, M/o Agriculture ADG(ARIS), ICAR 37 Ministry of Civil Aviation Joint Secretary 38 Ministry of Coal Joint Secretary (LA) 39 Ministry of Corporate Affairs Joint Secretary 40 Ministry of Culture Joint Secretary 41 Ministry of Defence Joint Secretary 42 Ministry of Defence Joint Secretary (X) 43 Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region Joint Secretary 44 Ministry of Environment and Forests Additional Secretary (E-Governance) 45 Ministry of External Affairs Joint Secretary (E-Governance) 46 Ministry of Food Processing Industries Joint Secretary(PG) 47 Ministry of Home Affairs Joint Secretary (Police) 48 Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Joint Secretary 49 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Joint Secretary (P&A) 50 Ministry of Labour & Employment Director 51 Ministry of Mines Joint Secretary 52 Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Joint Secretary 53 Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Joint Secretary 54 Ministry of Panchayati Raj Joint Secretary 55 Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs Joint Secretary 56 Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas Joint Secretary 57 Ministry of Power Joint Secretary 58 Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Joint Secretary 59 Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Joint Secretary 60 Ministry of Textiles Joint Secretary 61 Ministry of Tourism Joint Secretary 62 Ministry of Water Resources Joint Secretary (Admin) 63 Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports Joint Secretary 64 Planning Commission Adviser (Admin) & JS (SP) 65 Prime Minister s Office Joint Secretary 66 Rajya Sabha Joint Secretary and Financial A National Portal Content Framework 101

102 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Table 5.1.2: Authorized CMS Users from State and UT s Sl.No. State / UT Designation 1 Andhra Pradesh Secretary (IT & C) 2 Arunachal Pradesh Secretary (IT) 3 Assam Commissioner and Secretary 4 Bihar Commissioner 5 Chattisgarh Jt. Secretary (IT) (Secretary I/C) 6 Goa Secretary (IT) 7 Gujarat Secretary 8 Haryana Principal Secretary (Electronics & IT) 9 Himachal Pradesh Secretary (IT) 10 Jammu and Kashmir Principal Secretary (IT) 11 Jharkhand Principal Secretary (IT) 12 Karnataka Secretary (e-governance) 13 Kerala Secretary (IT) 14 Madhya Pradesh Secretary (IT) 15 Maharashtra Information Technology Secretary 16 Manipur Secretary (IT) 17 Meghalaya Secretary (IT) 18 Mizoram Commissioner Planning & IT 19 Nagaland Secretary (IT) 20 Orissa Commissioner-Cum-Secretary 21 Punjab Director (IT) 22 Rajasthan Principal Secretary IT & C, Relief & DM 23 Sikkim Secretary (IT) 24 Tamilnadu Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer 25 Tripura Commissioner & Secretary (IT) 26 Uttar Pradesh Principal Secretary (IT & Electronics) 27 Uttarakhand Principal Secretary (IT) 28 West Bengal Secretary (IT) 29 UT of Andaman & Nicobar Secretary (IT) 30 UT of Chandigarh Finance Secretary-cum-Secretary IT 31 UT of Dadra & Nagar Haveli Secretary (IT & Finance) 32 UT Of Daman & Diu Secretary (IT & Finance) 33 UT of Lakshadweep Secretary (IT) 34 UT of NCT of Delhi Secretary (IT) 35 UT of Puducherry Secretary to Government (Health & IT)

103 The userid and password has been communicated to the users by the National Portal of India Secretariat at New Delhi. For any further information/ query on this you may contact the Secretariat. The complete address of the Secretariat along with the is given on page no 4 of this document. Web based user-friendly CMS is self explanatory and does not need much explanation. However, few screen shots are given below to give an idea on the interfaces. Once the contributor logs into the CMS, the welcome screen appears as follows having the Content Section and the Reference National Portal Content Framework Documents Section. The screen-shots of the Content Management Interface and the Home Page of the Content Management Section are given in Figure and Figure respectively. Figure-5.1.1: (Content Management Interface) 103

104 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Figure-5.1.2: Home Page of Content Management System 5.2 Reference Documents This section contains all the reference documents of the Portal such as communications made to its coordinators, content policies, guidelines, media files, presentations etc. regarding the Portal. This facilitates faster dissemination of information amongst the content contributors and coordinators of the Portal and also acts as a ready reference for those associated with the portal at a later date. Presentations about the National Portal of India are also available in this section. 5.3 Content Sections z Forms z Acts z Rules

105 z Documents (Policies/Guidelines/Reports) z Schemes z Service Registration z Important Websites z Contact Directory z Announcements z List of Departments z List of Districts National Portal Content Framework As Content is the key for the success of the Portal, it is very crucial to keep it updated and current. Any content contributed to the portal follows the entire content life cycle as explained in Section 4.4 of this document. The schemas to capture metadata for the above category of content have been carefully designed to suite requirements of any level of administrative hierarchy of the government. These metadata capture forms are selfexplanatory and prompt on what needs to be entered against each column. These entries are simplified using dropdown lists and option buttons. 5.4 Content Management System: Features and Functionality The features and functionality of CMS based content contribution to the National Portal of India is as follows: Identification Details z Once a contributor logs in, the concerned identification details are picked up through his/her user id and are displayed. z In case there is any change in his/her personal details then he/she needs to modify the details by clicking Edit my Profile. 105

106 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Classification of attributes z The Department Name/List needs to be populated first (if not entered earlier) and thereafter the other content components are to be contributed. z All Mandatory fields are marked with a Red Star (*), which needs to be entered. z Once the content components are contributed as per the guidelines given in the section 3.5 a unique id is generated and the entire content life cycle is followed for the component as per the section 4.4 of this document. z This unique id is used for further integration of component, which is used for the consumption of any component by Stakeholders of the portal from the central repository Workflow stages of content z Draft Stage The Content has been contributed but has not been further sent to the approver for approval. z Approve Stage The Content has been approved but not yet submitted to the moderator for moderation. z Moderate Stage Though the content has been moderated at intermediary stages i.e., level 1 or 2 but not by the final moderator. z Live Stage The content moves to this stage only after the final moderation. z This unique id is used for further integration of component, which is used for the consumption of any component by Stakeholders of the portal from the central repository.

107 5.4.4 Content Contribution Since the National Portal of India is the repository of a huge amount of content being sourced from/ maintained by multiple sources and different teams at multiple geographic locations, a comprehensive Content Management System to effectively manage the content has been developed for the Portal which is useful for not only carrying out National Portal Content Framework future modifications and updations of the Portal content but also allows a convenient change in the content architecture of the Portal. The CMS also provides the facility for searching across the entire content base, presenting content in multiple formats and facilitating delivery of information through multiple channels. The CMS is web-based and interface developed is easy and self explanatory. However for bringing in more clarity, a step by step procedure of content contribution using the CMS for the Forms category is provided below:- i. The authorized content contributor accesses the CMS interface (Figure-5.1.1) ii. The home page of the CMS is displayed after the contributor logs in the interface.(figure-5.1.2) iii. The content category for which the contribution is to be made is selected from the content section of CMS home page. Examples of Forms, Services and Schemes are taken up in subsequent section of this chapter iv. Once the category Forms is selected the following Screen is displayed as given in Figure for contribution of the form. 107

108 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA Figure : Form Management Page of Content Management System The following are the attributes along with brief description of the attributes of form contribution interface. a) Concerned State - Is Identification details and is automated by the login details. b) Concerned Ministry/Department The contributor selects from the list populated c) Title It is a mandatory attribute and is the Title of the form d) Form No If there is an assigned Form Number then it has to be provided under this heading e) Language One has to check the language box ie, Hindi, English or Regional in which the form is available. This is again mandatory attribute. f) Source URL The form could be available at the department/ ministry website and it s URL is the source URL g) Associated Services The service related to the form for example Form for registering birth has the associated service as Birth Registration h) Form Type The form could be either uploaded to the

109 National Portal of India ie the form is downloadable or could be available at a specific uniform resource locator ie URL is to be provided. i) Keywords This attribute is mandatory and is to be filled as per the keyword policy given in Chapter 3. j) Valid upto Is the date till when the form is valid. In case validity is not known then the date of one year hence is given so that the contributor could review the currency of the National Portal Content Framework form. v. The form once contributed is either saved or canceled. The saved form then moves to the next level of the content life-cycle. vi. In case the form has to be modified, then it could be edited by the creator without re-entering it. Modification of any content category can be done as per the Access Control Policy explained in Table of Chapter 4. vii. The edited content would also then follow the entire workflow stage as explained above in section Some of the Screen shots of different content components being contributed by the contributors and in different stages of workflow are captured in subsequent sections. Any of the contents, which is contributed to the portal follows the entire life cycle as explained in Section 4.4 of this document. The different life cycle stages (draft, approve, moderate or live) of a document which is contributed is explained in section above. 109

110 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 5.5 Content Modification Any content which is in the draft stage i.e. has been contributed but not yet approved to be published on the portal, can be modified or edited by the contributor of the content or by any of the subsequent approvers. Once content is published and needs to be edited or modified, then the contributor alone can make a copy of the self created live content for modification. After editing or incorporating the modification the content goes through the entire process of approval and moderation as in the initial process before replacing the published content. Only NCNP can edit/modify content of that particular State/Ministry/Department. Figure and Figure captures the listing of the content categories documents and schemes respectively along with their workflow stages. Figure provides the screen-shot of editing/modifying the content category Services. Figure-5.5.1: Form Management Page of Content Management System

111 Figure : Scheme listing in different stages of workflow National Portal Content Framework Figure-5.5.3: Editing/modifying the contributed Scheme The content contributed through the CMS is categorized and indexed to facilitate effective retrieval. 111

112 THE NATIONAL PORTAL OF INDIA 5.6 Content Deletion Any content which is in the draft stage can be deleted by the content contributors as well as per the Access Control Policy defined in Table of Chapter 4. Content which is in the live stage can be requested for deletion by content contributors. However Published Content can be deleted only by the Publisher. Figure provides the screen shot of live content category Schemes to be deleted. Figure-5.6.1: Form Management Page of Content Management System Similar steps as elaborated above are followed for other content categories.