E-Governance in Panchayats

The Government has formulated a project namely e- Mission Mode Project (MMP) for e-enablement of all the which will make their functioning more efficient and transparent. The Project received in principle approval from the Planning Commission in August 2007. Out 130.39 only that have been allocated for the Project so far, 23 and 24 were allocated during 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively without any disbursement to States. However, during 2011-12, 40 allocated of which the releases to States/Union Territories as under:

) 1.5 for incentivizing the adoption of ; and

ii) 38.5 for setting up of Programme Management Units at State and District levels for rollout of e- MMP.

iii) The budgetary allocation during 2012-13 40 .

in is sought to be achieved through the e- MMP under the National e-Governance Plan (). Under the e- MMP, 11 Core Common Software applications are planned. Four of these applications namely , , National Portal and Local Governance Directory have been rolled out. Six more applications except Geographic Information System (GIS) namely Area Profiler, , Asset Directory, , Social Audit and Trainings Management have also been launched on 24th April, 2012 on the occasion of National 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) – cash-based double entry accounting software that implements the Model Accounting System for PRIs, has been a major success with 1.2 on board and about 65,000 are making online voucher entries during 2011-2012. Over 60 vouchers have been entered till March, 2012 for the year 2011-12 and reports can be accessed at .

b) Over 75,000 Annual Draft Plans & Action Plans of different plan units (ULBs/ RLBs/ Line .) are available online on . The software facilitates planning by , ULBs/RLBs and line departments. Over 43,000 Plan Units have uploaded their Annual Action Plans online in 2011-12. This includes 82 , 1300 Block & 41500 Gram who have adopted during 2011-12. These can be accessed at

c) The National Portal: Over 2 dynamic websites have been created for (95% adoption) and 30,000 of these websites are seeing an active content upload. It can be accessed at

d)Local Governance Directory captures details of local governments and assigns unique code to all to ensure interoperability amongst all applications of Enterprise Suite (PES). It also maps with Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies. It can be accessed at

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), Gram (RGSY) etc. for computerization of .

Training of the Trainers () 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 Enterprise 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 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.

Release of funds to States for Setting up Programme Management Units at State and District levels as under:

This information was given by the Minister of Panchayati Affairs, V. Chandra in a written reply in the today.

PKM