Smart Panchayat

for Panchayatiraj Dept., Govt. of Odisha

The problem.

The government spends a huge amount in rural development and reaching out to the rural people. 18 govt. departments are targeting the villages through PRI in some way or other to deliver their services through various schemes. From an in-depth analysis of these schemes, it was found that the benefits are not reaching the common people, the reasons being the complexity in the Govt. delivery process and lack of information to the public. It results in the creation of touts/brokers who are responsible for the pilferage and corruptions as a citizen have to spend a lot of time and money to avail the services, which they end up not getting.

The solution

• Project Accounting and Monitoring System, specifically tailored for use in Gram Panchayats. The GPs have revenue streams in the form of grants from the Government for schemes' implementation, taxes of various forms, & income from GP’s own assets.
• The Revenue Management System helps in managing tax collection and other revenue streams. Organizational and Governance module helps the recording of all information relating to Organization structure of the GP and the Governance system such as Gram Sabha.
• Scheme Services Monitoring Tool looks after automating of the services related to the scheme.
• Administrative Services Monitoring Tool
• Grievance Redressal System

Process...

Inception

Under this phase CSM notified the CLIENT authority regarding the team nominated for this project and seek conformation about name and contact details of Nodal Officer from CLIENT who would be the point of contact for CSM. CSM provided the system assessment schedule in this stage to CLIENT nodal officer. A project kick off meeting was conducted between the CLIENT team and CSM team where CSM consultants were present. Here scope of work, execution plan for the assignment, activity schedule, and stakeholder’s involvement required for each activity, facilities to be provided by CLIENT during the assignment and review schedule was finalized. 

Planning

The project plan was prepared by the CSM Project Manager (and was reviewed by CSM Program Manager and CLIENT) to form the basis of the actual project work plan. This formed the baseline against the project being tracked and controlled. The plan defined a work breakdown structure to individual task level, milestones and resource assignments required to complete the tasks.​ ​

Methodologies & Deliverables

Once the project was initiated, requirements gathering and analysis was the first phase in software development life cycle and a process of reviewing business's processes to determine the business needs and functional requirements that a system must meet. During this phase, requirements were analyzed to identify the application flow, the business logic implementation, and their context and usage pattern. The analysis process started with the study and analysis of the current application.

Requirement Analysis

During this stage, CLIENT’s requirement was ascertained with the software requirements specifications​

Design

In this stage the Detailed Design for the project was made. The conceptual and logical models developed in the High Level Design stage were translated into Physical Data Models and detailed design of each architectural component was taken up.​

Development

This stage involved development of the software, which includes development of user interfaces, business components, database creation and unit testing. The migration of existing data to the new system was also be undertaken.​

Testing

In this stage all the components, scripts and Database were tested in complete flow together, different tools were used to create to do testing like stress testing etc.

User Acceptance Testing

In this Stage, the deliverables as per Contract/Project Charter was be validated against the implemented solution. Then a user acceptance testing was conducted after data migration using the migration engine. CLIENT provided system test scripts and data for the acceptance testing.

User Testing

We know the importance of training in the success of any implementation; hence we have elaborated training system that ensures that the end users have the needed understanding of the solution so that maximum benefits of the solution are harnessed. We are interested in providing a solution that is proactive and able to meet the total solution needs of our clients, hence aside the initial implementation training, we organized regular training to meet some exigency needs.

Implementation

The project was initially launched as a pilot.The project covered 2 Blocks in two different Districts. After successful implementation of the pilot, this system will roll out across the state. In the first phase, services directly covered by the Panchayati Raj Department will be covered. In the second phase services relating 17 other Departments will be implemented and focus will be on application enhancement and integration, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment. Then on the successful implementation of the pilot, it will be rolled out throughout the state.

Results

Implementation of Smart Panchayat has not only resulted in faster processing & service delivery but also increase confidence among citizens over Governance system. It has resulted in faster and efficient MIS generation for prompt decision making. The smart panchayat application has helped reduce redundancy of data and work. Moreover, interdependency pertaining to many works was also reduced. As this became a single platform of delivery of services it drastically reduced cost and time. This also increased transparency & accountability in Govt. system for better Governance System.