E-Governance in Panchayats

The Government has formulated a project namely e-Panchayat Mission Mode Project (MMP) for e-enablement of all the Panchayats which will make their functioning more efficient and transparent. The Project received in principle approval from the Planning Commission in August 2007. Out of  130.39 crores only that have been allocated for the Project so far, 23 crores and 24 crores were allocated during 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively without any disbursement to States. However, during 2011-12, 40 crores was allocated of which the releases to States/Union Territories as under: i)             1.5 crores for incentivizing the adoption of PRIASoft; and ii)            38.5 crores for setting up of Programme Management Units at State and District levels for rollout of e-Panchayat MMP. iii)           The budgetary allocation during 2012-13 is  40 Crores. e-Governance in Panchayats is sought to be achieved through the e-Panchayat MMP under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). Under the e-Panchayat MMP, 11 Core Common Software applications are planned. Four of these applications namely PRIASoft, PlanPlus, National Panchayat Portal and Local Governance Directory have been rolled out. Six more applications except Geographic Information System (GIS) namely Area Profiler, ServicePlus, Asset Directory, ActionSoft, Social Audit and Trainings Management have also been launched on 24th April, 2012 on the occasion of National Panchayat Day. For effective implementation of the project, workshops are held to demonstrate the applications to the State Govt. functionaries. The present status of the 4 applications that have been rolled out is as under: a)            PRIASoft – an online cash-based double entry accounting software that implements the Model Accounting System for PRIs, has been a major success with 1.2 lakh Panchayats on board and about 65,000Panchayats are making online voucher entries during 2011-2012. Over 60 lakhs vouchers have been entered till March, 2012 for the year 2011-12 and reports can be accessed at http://Accountingonline.gov.in. b)            Over 75,000 Annual Draft Plans & Action Plans of different plan units (ULBs/ RLBs/ Line Deptts.) are available online on PlanPlus. The software facilitates planning by Panchayats, ULBs/RLBs and line departments. Over 43,000 Plan Units have uploaded their Annual Action Plans online in 2011-12. This includes 82 ZillaPanchayts, 1300 Block Panchayats & 41500 Gram Panchayats who have adopted PlanPlus during 2011-12. These can be accessed at http://planningonline.gov.in c)            The National Panchayat Portal: Over 2,36,500 dynamic websites have been created for Panchayats(95% adoption) and 30,000 of these websites are seeing an active content upload. It can be accessed athttp://panchayat.gov.in d)            Local Governance Directory captures details of local governments and assigns unique code to allPanchayats to ensure interoperability amongst all applications of Panchayat Enterprise Suite (PES). It also mapsPanchayats with Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies. It can be accessed athttp://panchayatdirectory.gov.in Since the Project so far has not provided any funds for hardware including computers, the States have been advised to utilize available funds from other sources such as 13th Central Finance Commission grants, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF),Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Yojana (RGSY) etc. for computerization of Panchayats. Training of the Trainers (ToT) model has been adopted for training the PRI functionaries down to the grass-root level. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj is also providing trained faculty to provide training on PanchayatEnterprise Suite (PES) applications and has advised States to create a cadre of Master Trainers. So far, approximately 20,000 officials have been trained. Trainings are also being conducted to impart basic ICT literacy trainings to PRI functionaries and elected representatives. So far, 4500 functionaries and elected members have been trained in fourteen States. The project is being regularly reviewed by NeGP Apex Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, Government of India. Review Meetings chaired by the Secretary, Panchayati Raj are also held regularly to monitor the progress of the Project. This information was given by the Minister of Panchayati Affairs, Shri V. Kishore Chandra Deo in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.