Loud Echo Of Lokvani

Lokvani is an interesting revelation as to how ICT can be streamlined at the
grassroot level for a vibrant and dynamic government to citizen (G2C) interface.
It has unleashed a new way of life for the common man in Sitapur District of
Uttar Pradesh by providing an online service delivery mechanism to redress their
day-to-day grievances.

Nevertheless the project seems to have raised a number of issues pertaining
to role of bureaucracy, impact on projects due to shifting of officials,
negative use of Lokvani platform, non-fulfillment of grievances, complaints
overload, and so on.

The Emergence

Lokvani was introduced in September 2004 in selected 13 locations of Sitapur.
It was the then DM of Sitapur District, Amod Kumar who implemented Lokvani along
with his core team after making a detailed survey. The surveys helped to
implement an improvised version of a citizen centric online governance system.
Thereafter, a Lokvani Society was given shape whose mandate is to look after
day-to-day functioning of Lokvani centers including emerging issues and
challenges. The Sitapur DM, ADM and the chief development officer constitute the
president, secretary and vice-president of the Lokvani Society, respectively.
The senior treasury officer, Sitapur is the treasurer and the DIO, Sitapur is
the chief technical expert of the society. Other officials and experts are also
roped in for the good cause.

Services On Offer

Online submission, monitoring and disposal of public grievances/ complaints Online Land Records Information about various government schemes, application forms, developmental works/schemes/expenditures/beneficiaries etc — Online status of Arm License applications — GPF account status of Basic Shiksha Teachers — Information about local employment opportunities in the district — allotment of food grains to fair price shops — List of Indira Awas beneficiaries — Details of work done under MPLAD/Vidhayak Nidhi

An e-Gov Platform

As of now there are 45 Lokvani centers in the district serving six tehsils
and 19 blocks. A number of services are on offer online through Lokvani centers.
Basically two services are fitting more into the demand-supply matrix of Lokvani
as of now. One is registering and monitoring complaints by complainants as per
their problems and the second is getting a copy of their land records from the
Lokvani centers. Other services such as information on departments and schemes
are being made available but the users are hardly accessing these. 

Usually the complaints are made on papers to the Lokvani centers on some
payments (the payment ranges between Rs 10-15). Lokvani coordinators than upload
the complaints online to the Lokvani site (http://sitapur.nic.in/lokvani) by
signing in with their center specific username and password. The complainants
and users are given a receipt that contains a specific number to know their
identity and registration. Next time onwards, the users can check and monitor
the progress of their cases online either coming to the centers physically or
through telephonic calls.

The subject area of complaints so far had been complaints against the ration
shop owner, the police, fellow villagers, and officials of various departments.
Cases range from abuse by policemen to demanding undue favors from petty traders
and others.

The service also provides information on arms license application status, and
GPF accounts of basic education teachers. To ensure transparency, details of
developmental works, ration allotment to fair price shop dealers, money sent to
Gram Sabhas etc are made available but less accessed by the people.

The Impact

The Lokvani online government to citizen (G2C) interface has so far given
out mixed outcomes. It is mixed because many are not pleased with its
functioning, especially in dealing with their complaints.

According to the DIO, Sitapur, Amar Pal Singh around 50-60% of people are
satisfied by the Lokvani facility. “There is little or no scope for delay and
corruption now, as the common man does not have to come and see the officials
while being physically present,” says Dr Rajshekhar, additional SDM, Sidhauli
tehsil, Sitapur.

All is Not Well

“The reasons for non-satisfaction could be wrong information provided,
delay in redressal, and so on,” says Singh. There are instances when a
complaint takes weeks to get redressed after repeated reminders. Rakesh Singh
(39) from the nearby Durgapur Mohalla, 10 km from Sitapur town, has got his left
leg damaged due to collision with a water tanker. He has filed complaints along
with so many remainders to reclaim his financial compensation duly ruled by the
local court. Still half of the amount out of Rs 65,000 is due and day-by-day the
condition of his injured leg is getting worse in absence of proper healthcare.

Some have taken recourse to Lokvani to harass their opponents. The quantum of
judgment or remedies of complaints at times are not satisfactory. Prem Prakash
(42), ration card shop owner, from Sidhauli tehsil has a reason to complain. The
reason being on the basis of public complaints, his shop has been suspended for
one year and a hefty fine imposed even though he claims his side of the story
was never heard of.

The officials have their own problems. The time limit to dispose off cases at
times, fall far short than required. Further, location of Lokvani centers
affects the Kiosk owners and the public alike. The centers run within the tehsil
compounds are doing better than those placed in remote locations. The Lokvani
center: Sitapur-2 within the DM's office compound in Sitapur tehsil is doing
better than others.

Personal agendas and vested interests of the officials also determine the
pace and flow of Lokvani services. Kiosk owners have their own grievances such
as non-issuance of ID cards, non-inclusion of their names in the Lokvani Society
and so on. Then there are cases of fake complaints that puts additional burden
on the Lokvani networks. One interesting fact about Lokvani is the villagers
mostly use the system. This is revealed by the fact that almost 80% of
complaints are from village and rural areas and the rest 20% from town areas.

Then there are technical and related issues that pose some real challenges to
the project. Power cut is one major issue even though the centers do have UPS
and generators. Internet connection is only through dial up basis, provided by
Reliance and BSNL. Broadband or SWAN services are yet to take shape in Sitapur
though officials claim things are in the pipeline.

The Bright Future

The target of Lokvani is to bring down the number of complains to a minimum.
But what about revenue downfall of the kiosk operators as good governance shall
make Lokvani centers non-functional. “We do not want to see that. So we are
looking for alternatives and services through Lokvani in due course,” says
Rajskekhar, additional SDM, Sidhauli tehsil. The alternatives chalked out are,
setting up Lokvani kiosks at Nyay Panchayat levels to deal with legal issues;
setting up single window system to provide services such as birth, death, caste
certificates to the users.  Recently,
a decision has been taken to set up Kiosks in 200 Nyay Panchayat offices.
Already around 70 such kiosks are almost ready to be operational. Incidentally
certain centers have almost become non-operational such as the Kamlapur-1 and
Misrik-1 centers. This is either due to lack of interests of the people and also
due to Kiosk owners' lack of seriousness.

Lokvani has already crossed its threshold. The thrust in making these centers
functional and viable lie greatly on the Kiosk owners and the public.

Syed S Kazi

The author is program coordinator, DEF

mail@dqindia.com