UNICEF identified these needs and hence decided to come up with an optimized data reporting scheme for governmental data. The overall plan was that the system would first be designed by UNICEF, a pilot project would be implemented and then the program would be handed over to the government for implementation on a larger scale.
“ The program is in the initial phases but has a huge potential for the overall upliftment of the village and increasing the efficiency of the functioning of the village. It also has potential to track the progress of various developmental activities in the village which currently got untracked with no one held accountable” said Dr. Ganesh Nigam, the State Consultant for M & E at UNICEF in Maharashtra state.
UNICEF wanted to align the current village operation with the decentralization policy of the government, in which a major part of the decisions and work on the village level was to be carried out by the people in the village with the government making broad level policies and guidelines for the same. Being a global organization, UNICEF already possessed the technical know-how and experience with such projects across the world.
POSSIBLE BENEFITS OF THE NEW SYSTEM
In the ideal system the feedback mechanisms should be strengthened by Joint Planning( e. g. school gives the feedback for the pre-school: Anganwadi) for bringing about the improvement in the children even before they enter the school. It should also help in identifying some missing areas not reported by different entities and if deemed important, should actually be included in the reporting to the government.
As observed by BDO for Chandrapur District Mr. Tukaram Tekade:“ Developmental planning mechanism at Panchayat level is failing due to lack of database integration for the government ' s schemes. This causes lack of cohesiveness between them. No scheme can work effectively until this problem is cured.”
A similar scenario existed at the Gram level. This scheme, Upendra believed, when scaled up would address the needs of the Panchayat level, district level and state level as well. It would induce reduction in the corruption due to transparency, as the data will be in public domain and its dissemination at regular intervals will reduce it. Also the instant report generation and strengthening of the Community based monitoring system( CBMS). Citizen services could be availed easily and corruption and delay in the process could also be reduced.
The integrated common format for reporting should be of great help in implementation as well, along with planning. This system should bring in the much needed accountability in the functioning of the village authorities. The typical attendance and contribution of villagers in the Gram Sabha – the meeting of the entire village to discuss the issues and prioritize them was seen to be very low even among the government appointed officials, leave alone common people. The fund allocation( usually in case of the united fund) to the various schemes in the village is done in lieu with the decisions in the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha decisions were dominated by an influential few and the opinions of the entire village did not get voiced.
The new system could avoid blind data entry and incoherent decision making since functionaries could be held accountable to the entire village. Also, catching of fraudulent data during planning could become feasible by monitoring anomalies in the entered data.
Thus, he felt that success of the Gram Sabha as a decision making forum would be achieved through people-centric development by convergence of the data, planning and implementation at the Panchayat level. Considering all these factors, Upendra was strongly advocating the integration of the database at the village level.
EVALUATION OF THE ALTERNATIVES
Being an IT consultant Upendra was well aware of the various options available to him for the implementation of the system. While thinking about which solution would be best suited for addressing the issues present, Upendra and his team narrowed down on few options:
a. Cloud based solution: A cloud based solution seemed viable on the cost and feasibility fronts. Several companies provide cloud based data processing services, thus precluding the need for heavy server infrastructure through rent and of maintenance through AMCs. The inherent problems of internet connectivity and electricity supply, however, continue to be of prime concern. Convincing government officials about data security would prove to be a tough task, given certain cases of medical information leakage and the consequent social gaffe in Chandrapur district.
b. ERP: ERP is more focused, customizable and uses its own hardware infrastructure, but in the e- Governance context, it would handle seamless information flow between different departments and different functions within the departments. Though much more expensive than the cloud based system, it secures the data and eliminates the risk of losing important data to a large extent. A system in a corporate firm with 2 modules costs in the range of few crores. Considering the magnitude and complexity desired, it would be a major cost to the exchequer. Another major issue with ERP was that the migration process from the current system to the new system would be very cumbersome with multiple processes and stakeholder involved.
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