Smart Panchayat

THE PROBLEM
Government spends 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 citizen have to spend a lot of time and
money to avail the services, which they end up not getting.
THE CUSTOMER
Panchayatiraj Dept., Govt. of Odisha
SOLUTION
Smart Panchayat is a
Project Accounting and Monitoring system and specifically tailored for use in Gram
Panchayats. The GP have revenue streams in the form of grants from the Government for
schemes implementation, taxes of various forms, income from GPs 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
THE PROCESS ADOPTED
Project 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 stakeholders involvement required for each activity, facilities to be provided by
CLIENT during the assignment and review schedule was finalized.
Project Plan
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 and 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.
Requirements Analysis
During this stage, CLIENTs 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 Training
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 OF THE SOLUTION
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 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.