Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has come up with a system for integrating digital signatures in free and open-source software (FOSS)-based operating systems used in most government offices.
The state government had recently made digital signatures compulsory for salaries and benefits on the Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala (SPARK) portal. At present, 27,797 offices use SPARK for salary disbursement for over seven lakh employees.
The new mechanism comes following reports of some offices, including general education department, depending on proprietary software. The government policy mandates FOSS applications in all offices.
The IT@School GNU/Linux 18.04 operating system of KITE already has inbuilt software utilities for running drivers for Java-based digital signature.
KITE would provide technical assistance to offices to install the Trust Key used for digital signature token devices, along with ProxKey and ePass besides client software for using them on SPARK. KITE would guide the offices on registration in the FOSS operating system and on the BIMS and SPARK websites.
“The specific installation script, user guide and video tutorials would be made available on the website of KITE www.kite.kerala.gov.in from August 2.,” said K. Anvar Sadath, its vice-chairman.
KITE would also organise workshops, sessions and help desks in all 14 district offices from Aug 2, to provide real-time support. The officers who require the facility have to bring their laptops preloaded with Ubuntu operating system along with their digital signature token device.
Those who wish to install FOSS-based OS should contact the KITE district teams. It will extend the facility to more places with the help of 'Little KITEs Clubs. Details would be available on the website.
