Use of Official e-Mail ID by Drawing and Disbursing Officers

Government of West Bengal
Finance Department
Audit Branch

No. 8634-F(Y) Dated, 23rd December, 2015

MEMORANDUM

Sub: Creation of e-Mail Accounts of the Drawing and Disbursing Officers under different departments of Government of West Bengal

The State Government has already introduced official e-mail ID and made its usage mandatory for all the PAOs/APAOs/TOs/ATOs. The Government has been further considering measures to ensure that all communications to and from DDOs regarding dissemination of important information on development and deployment of various modules of the IFMS and guidelines and various Government decisions regarding the financial transactions are made through official-mail IDs.

It has, however, been observed that either the DDOs are not having any email ID at all or e-Mail IDs used by the DDOs are their personal ones created on Mail Servers of the private service providers. In consequences, the Govt. Orders, instructions, guidelines sent to those e-Mail IDs are obviously not available to the successors of the present incumbents as soon as they are transferred to and posted elsewhere.

To obviate this situation and also for security reasons and uniform policy enforcement, it was decided to avail of the e-mail services provided by the National Informatic Centre (NIC) in accordance with the e-Mail Policy of the Government of India and to create Designation Based e-Mail IDs for the DDOs for all official communication with those officials to and fro Finance Department & DTA, WB.

All the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) who have been provided with the e-Mail ID on NIC Mail Server as per list enclosed, shall use those e-Mail Accounts only for the official communications instead of e-Mail services provided by other service providers and all the official mails received by them on their personal /official Mail ID should be forwarded to those newly created Mail Accounts so that those mails could be retrieved & used by the successors of the present incumbents. All system based communication from IFMS will also be communicated through this official e-mail ID. However, if any DDO has any other official e-mail ID, issued by the NIC or any other government authority or their official portal they may intimate to TO/PAO in writing and the same will be added to IFMS in addition to this official e-mail ID.

Users shall hand over the Designation Based IDs to their successor prior to moving out of the office on transfer/ retirement/resignation etc. and shall ensure that the password for the ID is changed before her/his departure. The successor shall need to get the password reset after taking over the charge of the post. In such cases the user shall inform the concerned Treasury Officer, who will act as the Nodal Officer for this purpose.

e-Mail Accounts thus created on NIC Mail Servers shall not be used for any communication which is personal in nature nor be used to subscribe to any service on any website.

All users accessing the e-Mail services must use strong passwords for security of their e-Mail Accounts and shall not share the password with any person, not even with her/his colleague and shall change such passwords on a periodic basis. The “save/ remember password” feature of the browser should be disabled.

Users shall be solely responsible for any data/e-mail that will be transmitted through the Mail Server of the National Informatic Centre (NIC) and also for any inappropriate use of such e-Mail Accounts which may invite scrutiny by the investigating agencies depending on the nature of violation. All attachments must be scanned with an anti virus programme before they are downloaded /executed.

Any account which remains inactive for a period of 90 (ninety) days shall be deactivated by the NIC and the user ID along with the data shall be deleted from the e-Mail system after a period of 180 (one hundred eighty) days, if no request for activation is received during this period. Any e-Mail addressed to a user, whose account has been deactivated/ deleted, shall not be redirected to another e-Mail address, whether of Government or private service providers.

All the Head of the Departments/ Directorates are requested to utilize these e-Mail Accounts created on NIC Mail Server for all types of official communication & dissemination of information.

All concerned are being informed accordingly.

Sd/- H.K. Dwidedi
Principal Secretary to the
Government of West Bengal

No. 8634-F dated 23.12.2015, Source