Minutes of the CTEP meeting held at DBT on 26th July 2013
Present:
Dr Madhan Mohan -Chair
Dr Gulshan Wadhwa
................... Finance Officer
Mr K Rajagopal
Mr Jagdish Mutharia
Mr K Venugopal
Mr Jagdish Mutharia made a brief presentation covering on the agenda items.
discussions emerged thereafter are summarized below:
The issues raised and the
1/ Data archival policy and server space limitations
In order to ease the space constraint in the CTEP server, it was decided that partially filled forms for both
organization registration and applications for grants pending for more than three months would be deleted
from the system.
Documents uploaded by applicants against rejected registrations and rejected proposals would be archived
and deleted after three months. Only registration details and proposal details excluding uploaded documents
will be kept for records.
Documents related completed proposals would be archived and deleted after nine months.
The approved Data Archival Policy for CTEP operations is enclosed.
2/ Hosting charges for 2nd year
The hosting charges required for 2nd year would be paid from the amount budgeted for Security Audit. The
charges for 3rd would be reimburse by DBT.
3/ Budget approved for Phase II
The budget of Rs. 33.19 lakhs approved by DBT is much lower than the budget proposed by TERI. This
concern was highlighted by Mr K Rajagopal and Mr Jagidsh Mutharia. The TERI team was put up a request
for increase in the budget providing necessary details to justify the need for increasing the grant.
TERI employees two full time staff and partial involvement of several others in order to manage the CTEP
operations. Also, volume of work has increased extensively over the original scope of the project and
method of operations. TERI team needs to put up a case for increase in the budget because of these
reasons.
TERI team emphasized the need for increase in the budget in order for smooth functioning and efficient
operations of the CTEP programme.
4/ System enhancement proposal
Both the applicants and the TERI team managing the CTEP programme often face problems in operating the
programme. Therefore, the system requires a lot of new features/ functionalities and improvements
considering the increased demands from applicants and expectations from DBT.
Such an enhancement in the system requires additional manpower and efforts. The TERI team, therefore,
emphasized the need for additional grant for system enhancements.
Agreeing to this proposal, Dr Madhan Mohan requested the TERI team to submit an additional proposal for
this for consideration by DBT.
5/ Storage space for documents
TERI had submitted a budget for procuring at least two Fire Resistant Record Cabinet (almirahs) for storing
some important documents. However, TERI’s request to DBT was still pending. DBT agreed to this
proposals and revive the same for getting funds from DBT finance.
In order to reduce storage space constraint, the followed decisions were taken in the meeting:
6/
-
UCs and travel claims submitted by the applicants need to be retained by TERI for at least five
years.
-
Publications and other technical documents submitted along with applications can be discarded
after one year from the date of receipt.
Operational issues
The following operation issues were highlighted:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Minor additional features need to be added in the system
The existing FAQs available in the system need to be update
Facility to search any details in the system
Facility to avoid duplicate applications
Improvement in help menu
A few MIS reports
TERI team mentioned that due to budget constraints, TERI is unable to carry out any technical improvement
in the system. In response, DBT assured TERI that budget will be increased by DBT Finance. However,
TERI was requested to make these changes in the system, pending DBT’s decision to increase the budget.
7/
Formal approval from DBT to TERI for payment of new allowances approved by Govt.
The new allowances approved by DBT can be availed by only those applicants whose applications were
considered for approval since 1st July 2013.
All other conditions pertaining to this new approval by DBT would be formally conveyed by DBT to TERI.
TERI will not remit payment against the new allowances, until a formal communication is sent by DBT to
TERI to this effect.
8/
Conclusion
DBT assured TERI for increase in the budget for managing CTEP operations. DBT will also provide additional
support for system enhancement. TERI was requested to submit justifications for increase in the budget
providing convincing justifications so that the case can be put to the DBT finance for approval.
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