IT Touches Rural Bengal

West Bengal has been one of the front runners in the country with respect to
a strong panchayat system. Therefore, it does not come as a big surprise that it
has tasted the fruits of e-gov early in the day. The Panchayati Raj and Rural
Development Department (PR&RD) of the West Bengal government realized the role
played by ICT toward achieving good governance through efficient citizen
services delivery model, and therefore opted to computerize, to improve its
management and efficiency.

The aim of the project was to bring about effective governance within the
panchayati institutions that were efficient, innovative, quick, easy to monitor
and inexpensive. According to Ranjit Kumar Maiti, joint secretary, Panchayats
and Rural Development Department, Govt of West Bengal and head, computerization
cell, West Bengal State Rural Development Agency, The potential of ICT lies in
its capabilities to instantaneously connect vast networks of individuals and
organizations across great geographic distances at relatively low costs.

The panchayati institutions therefore required a sturdy infrastructure that
ensured the availability of ICT to ithe villagers. The infrastructure required
had to weather the conditions of a rural environment and hurdles like power
shortage that impedes the delivery of services to its residents.

The Need

The Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Department of West Bengal
government had a plan to install at least one personal computer in each of its
block panchayat offices. The department wanted a tool for transparency,
disclosure of information to citizens, social audit and accountability. Through
ICT it wanted to built a decision-support system for Panchayati Raj institutions
for better and convergent delivery of services to citizens, improving internal
management and efficiency of panchayats, and use it as an e-procurement medium.

The objective of ICT adoption in Panchayati Raj institutions is basically
for a comprehensive digital support system to provide system-wide information to
the self governance tiers, enabling them to take informed decisions and to
ensure capacity building and resource supports, explained Maiti. The project
involved expansion of existing PC infrastructure to ensure that software such as
the Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS), Integrated Fund Monitoring and
Accounting System (IFMAS) and Rural Household Survey (RHS) data could be
installed, and accessed quickly by all Panchayati Raj institutions and also by
the citizens, he added.

The P&RD Department was looking for a solution whereby it could easily
install software like the Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS), Integrated
Fund Monitoring and Accounting System (IFMAS) and Rural Household Survey (RHS).
In addition to this, it also wanted easy access and efficient utilization of all
their existing resources.

Panchayat officials using AMD-based desktops in rural Bengal now have relevant village information at the click of their mouses

The BPO consultant of the e-governance cell of West Bengal State Rural
Development Agency led the implementation team alongwith the PR&RD. However, two
key concern areas of the department was optimal use of the available budget and
dealing with technology obsoleteness leading to additional cost incurred for
subsequent upgradations.

The Solution

In rural West Bengal power fluctuations is frequent or even non-existent,
and humidity soars in the absence of air conditioning. The computers, therefore,
need to withstand such severe conditions. These conditions were among the other
challenges the state government faced while initiating this project. AMD in turn
took on these challenges and worked with government officials to improve their
services.

It is very important to understand the clients needs. The solution has to
be provided accordingly in order to offer the client maximum benefit at minimum
cost, says Arvind Chandrashekhar, general manager, business development, AMD.
Interestingly, in this project we found out that the PR&RD of the West Bengal
government planned to bring together all the gram panchayats and blocks through
ICT and provide them with all types of facilities like videoconferencing, email,
etc, in order to create a better management facility for good governance within
the state.

According to Maiti, through an open bid process, the best vendor was chosen
after rigorous technical and financial evaluation. Definitely, price was a
major factor in our decision-making. In choosing AMD-processor-based machines,
we saved a lot of money, which was used to buy extra hardware, peripherals and
licensed software for the PRIs. We also saw an opportunity to save money on
technology upgrades. We found that the AMD motherboards would support upcoming
chips for at least three more years.

The talks between the state PR&RD Department and AMD began in July 2007. The
first demonstration was held on a Dell make AMD processor-based PC. The
demonstration imbibed all the specifications as directed by Rashtriya Gram
Swaraj Yojna (RGSY), resulting in AMD and its partners securing the order for
the first batch of desktops.

However, during the pre-order demonstration, AMD had to put its chip in an
extremely remote place, near Bangladesh border, situated at the 24 Parganas
district. Soon after the installation, the site was affected by flood which, as
per Chandrashekhar, proved to be lucky for the chipset makers. The situation
though was not too bad, the water rose to a certain level in the room and
engulfed some parts of the hardware. Once the water receded it was online
immediately proving the reliability and durability of the product. Subsequently,
once the order was placed, AMDs partners undertook the installation of these
desktops in two phases and completed it.

Benefits

The project has been very effective and helped the department increase its
overall efficiency and productivity. The panchayats covered under this
initiative are now able to generate their financial reportscash book, general
ledger, receipt payment accounts and other reports as prescribed by the rules.
The accuracy levels have also improved a lot. The accounting systems at the
three tiers of Panchayats Raj system greatly capacitated them for complex
accounting and audit requirements of managing funds from different government
programs while ensuring easy remote monitoring by higher levels. These features
greatly reduced the fiscal risk associated with higher degrees of
decentralisation and movement of most financial powers to self governance
levels. Issuing regular records and certificates to rural citizens through a
digital system reduces the amount of human-intensive work required otherwise
while ensuring higher levels of transparency and accountability.

The RHS database has enabled the panchayats to take informed decisions. Even
the system has a strong provision of public scrutiny and correction. This data
is also regularly updated. In fact, use of this new household survey data in
generating statistics over any number of different variables has allowed
conception of a new welfare scheme SAHAY that targets different kind of social
vulnerabilities.

Piyali Guha

piyalig@cybermedia.co.in