Transcript No Slide Title

Reaching to the Grassroots
Leveraging ICT for effective implementation of RD Programmes –
An Indian Perspective
Dr. B.K. Gairola
Director General
National Informatics Centre
Ministry of Communications & IT
Government of India
E-Governance Evolution
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Induction of ICT in Central Government by
NIC – 1976
 Extension of ICT to State & District
Administration by NIC – 1985
 Permeation of ICT in the third-tier of
Government (Panchayati Raj Institutions)
under process
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Need for strengthening e-Governance
efforts at the sub-district level
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73rd amendment of Indian Constitution, 1992 envisages devolution of
power to panchayats (Rural Local Self Government) for decentralized
development which requires knowledge to utilize the power and
responsibilities devolved
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More and more financial resources being provided to panchayats for
which panchayats need to be equipped in terms of ICT infrastructure &
tools and related capacities for better management of resources
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Most of the existing ICT initiatives at Central, State and District Level
focus at collecting data for planning purposes. There is a need to build
automated workflows extended to the last mile to also include the
third-tier of government viz. panchayats
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e-Governance Initiatives for the third-tier of
government so far
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Round Table of State Panchayati Raj Ministers at Jaipur recommends
positioning ICT as enhancing Panchayat capacity so that they can perform
their constitutionally and legislatively mandated functions better.
Consensus to position IT as
– decision making support system for Panchayats
– tool for transparency, disclosure of information to citizens, social audit,
– better and convergent delivery of services to citizens,
– improving internal management and efficiency of Panchayats,
– a means for capacity building,
– as an e-Procurement medium.
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Assessment of existing IT Programmes for PRIs by an Expert Committee
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E-PRI Mission Mode Project
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DIT, Government of India has initiated National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)
where e-Governance in Gram Panchayats (e-PRI) is one of the Mission Mode
Projects
Proposed Major Activities
– Information & Service Need Assessment
– Business Process Reengineering
– Hardware & System Software
– Connectivity
– Application Software
– Capacity Building
– Content Management
– Project Management
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Guidelines have been issued to the states for preparation of the proposals
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Some E-Governance Applications
implementation at the sub-district level
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under
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) MIS
(http://nrega.nic.in)
Automation of various schemes sponsored by Department of Drinking
Water Supply (Swajaldhara, Total Sanitation Campaign, Accelerated
Rural Water Supply Programme, Nirmal Gram Puraskar etc.)
(http://ddws.nic.in)
Rural Roads MIS – (http://pmgsyonline.nic.in)
Land Records & Property Registration MIS
PlanPlus – An application for decentralized planning at grassroots
(http://panchayat.gov.in/planplus)
National Panchayat Portal - (http://panchayat.gov.in)
Panchayat backend applications in States like e-Panchayat (A.P), eGram (Gujarat), Infogram (Goa), Drishti (West Bengal) etc.
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Enabling e-Governance at the Last Mile –
Issues
Technology Issues
 Connectivity
 Accessibility
 Localization
 Cost effective, low power
& portable devices
 Metadata standards for
data transfer along the
workflows
 e-payment
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Other Issues
 Building human capacities
of all those who are part of
development process to
use ICT tools
 Systematic
manual
operations to go hand-inhand with ICT application
 Large expanse of the
domain (2,40,000 PRIs)
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Future Direction
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Undertaking ICT initiatives in a phased manner to gradually cover the
large domain expanse at the sub-district level
Low Cost, Low Power and Portable Technological devices needed at the
last mile
Suitable Connectivity Options (Broadband, dialup or VSAT) to be
exercised for last mile connection
Open Technologies may be adopted to prevent vendor locking issues and
for cost effectiveness
Suitable Domain-specific data and metadata standards for data transfer
across the workflows
Addressing localization issues by adopting suitable technologies such as
unicode enabled fonts
Appropriate use of GIS technologies for spatial representation of data to
facilitate better decision making
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Future Direction
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Concerted Efforts required for building capacities for effective
utilization of IT applications among all concerned with the
decentralized development process
 Multi-modal training interventions like distance learning and
satellite based training need to be considered for PRIs
 Convergence of capacity building funds from different
sources for sustained and long-term impact
 Training the local manpower for IT operations with the twinpurpose of manning the IT systems and employment
generation among the local youth
 Earmarking some percentage of total investment in eGovernance projects towards project management activities
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In Conclusion
Let us not try to retrofit e-governance into the
governance processes. Let us take a part out
of the plentiful IT applications already
available and improve the delivery of the
system from Centre to the last-mile i.e
panchayats
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Details of E-Governance
Applications under
implementation at the subdistrict level
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NREGA MIS
(http://nrega.nic.in)
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National Rural Employment Gaurantee Scheme(NREGS,
http://nrega.nic.in)
Web based Online software package to manage the various process
associated with NREGS implementation
Off-line package is also available, fully compatible with online
package, to grass-root institutions involved in data management on
NREGS
The packages covers Job Seekers registration, loose coupling with
family survey, managing shelf of projects, assigning jobs to seekers,
man-days calculation, payment and monitoring by various layers.
The data/information of many states is available and could be seen up
to district/block/GramPanchayat/ Job Seeker level
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Drinking Water & Sanitation
(A Component of Bharat Nirman)
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Deptt. Of Drinking Water Supply (http://ddws.nic.in ) , GoI has automated
the various functions of schemes (like SwajalDhara, ARWSP, Total
Sanitation Campaign, Habitation Survey etc) sponsored by it. It is one of
data rich site in Govt. of India.
State Public Health Department Computerisation
– Associated with providing & managing potable water supply to rural areas and
managing sanitation
– DDWS encouraged and funded the states in conceptualisation &
operationalisation of State MIS.
– Some of the States have launched the package for utilisation and conducted
training programmes.
– Other States are in the process of developing the software.
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PlanPlus – A Grassroot Level Decentralized &
Participatory Planning System
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Facilitates the Decentralized Participatory webbased Planning by – Converging the rural and urban plans to generate an
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integrated district plan
Supporting need/activity based planning rather than
scheme-driven
capturing the planning work flow
Converging the flow of funds from different central and
state sponsored schemes
Acting as a decision support tool through the use of
supporting GIS and Graphs
Addressing Local Language issues
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National Panchayat Portal
(http://panchayat.gov.in)
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A Gateway to more than two and a half lakh Portals including
State PR Deptt.(35), District(560), Intermediate(6096) and Village
Panchayats(2,32,000)
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Dynamically generated using Panchayat Portal Framework
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Information & service delivery points for each Panchayat
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Portals for new Panchayats can be generated with ease
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Provides support for local languages
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E-Panchayat Applications in States
e-panchayat – Andhra Pradesh
 Infogram – Goa
 e-gram – Gujarat
 Asthi – Karnataka
 Dristi – West Bengal
 Priasoft – Orissa
 PanchLekha – Madhya Pradesh
etc.
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Thank You