Madhya Pradesh, the second largest Sate in India, geographically occupies pivotal position in the country. The state consists of 50 districts, 313 development blocks and 55,393 villages. Being a large state, policy formulation & implementation, initiation & implementation of various developmental schemes & programmes, coordination & monitoring up to lowest level of administration involve challenges in governance & delivery of services to the general public. Availability of the right data is the key for good decision making for effective management. ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) initiatives of the state have thrown up several new possibilities for meeting out these challenges and for making the governance more effective & efficient.
All the departments (presently 53) are located in the Mantralaya (Secretariat Building). In order to achieve automation of processes & functions of the departments, appropriate ICT infrastructure has been created in the Mantralaya, which includes Computers, Local Area Network (LAN), Internet connectivity, Video Conferencing etc. To continuously update the level of awareness of employees, state of the art computer training centre has also been created in the Mantralaya. As per the needs of the departments, various Intranet & Web-enabled applications have been developed for Mantralaya. One of the primary objectives of deployment of ICT in the Mantralaya is to transform the State Government into modern professional & citizen-friendly entity that is dedicated to deliver services to the people. Use of ICT has helped in achieving significant difference in the manner the Mantralaya functions. The state targets to avail real throughput using IT in governance & usher in an era of less-paper governance.
¡ Computerisation of Office of the Hon'ble Chief Minister has facilitated efficient & effective monitoring of Public Representations & Issues, Implementation of CM's Announcements, File Movement and Management of CM Relief Fund.
¡ Computerisation of the Office of the Chief Secretary has led to effective monitoring of movement of mails and files, besides efficient monitoring of the implementation of the Cabinet decisions.
¡ Departmental Monitoring System (DMS) has been designed, developed & implemented to facilitate access & update various data related to CM's announcements, proposals sent to Government of India etc.
Anurag Jain, IAS Secretary to Chief Minister & Information Technology Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh jain.anurag@mp.nic.in
The DMS has enabled the departments to monitor the progress & take appropriate corrective actions if required.
¡ File Movement Monitoring System (FMMS): On an average, about 10 to 12 Lac communications are received in the Mantralaya every year. The FMMS has automated the maintenance of various registers pertaining to the movement of communications (Letters/E- mails/Files) received by Mantralaya at different levels. This has not only helped to reduce the drudgery of the dealing officers/Sections but has also provided a tool for effective monitoring & tracking of files in the Mantralaya.
¡ Performance Management System has been implemented for capturing the details related to effective implementation of various Developmental Schemes & Programmes of the selected Departments. The system has helped in effective monitoring by capturing key performance indicators in easily comprehensive form. The programme has helped in easily identifying the problem areas thereby resulting in better performance. The system also generates various Statistical & Detailed Reports at different levels, besides Graphs, PERT Charts & Thematic Maps.
¡ SAMADHAN ONLINE, conducted on the First Tuesday of every month, aims at sensitizing the officials at all levels towards redressing the public grievances with empathy. The programme was introduced in Feb' 2006 and is continuing till date. About 15 to 20 pending public grievance cases are selected carefully looking into the nature of the grievance and duration of pendency. The selected cases are transmitted online to the concerned officials in the morning for online submission of reports by 3 pm the same day. In the evening, at around 4 pm these reports are reviewed by the Hon'ble Chief Minister along with the complainant and the concerned officials through the Video Conferencing facility. This programme has not only resulted in dramatic decrease in the pendency of the public grievance cases from an average of around 50,000 to an average of less than a thousand but also the quality of disposal has improved.
Hon'ble CM, Madhya Pradesh reviewing SAMADHAN online Reports
¡ Basic Services/Amenities Management System (PARAKH) is designed, developed & implemented for management & monitoring of Basic Amenities/Services such as Drinking Water, Electricity, Education, Health, Aanganwadis, Public Distribution System, Agriculture & Veterinary Services, Old Age and Social Security Pensions etc. The web based system facilitates effective monitoring at various levels i.e. Hon'ble Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Departmental Secretaries & HoDs at the state level and Collector at the District level, to improve the delivery of Basic Services/Amenities in the rural areas of the State.
¡ Computerised management of the Budget for the General Administration Department, Payroll of about 2500 Employees, Processing of Medical Bills and Maintenance of Departmental Provident Fund (DPF) and Software for generation of Gradation List of State Cadre Employees in the State have also been implemented in the Mantralaya.
¡ Video Conferencing Facility is being regularly used by the Hon'ble Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Departmental Secretaries & Others Offices for reviewing the progress of implementation of various Government Schemes & Projects. On an average 45 sessions (each of about 2~4 hours) are being held every month by the Government functionaries up to District level.
Other ICT Initiatives/Projects of Madhya Pradesh
— Samadhan Ek Diwas, a G2C project, has been implemented in all the districts of the State.
— Computerisation in the departments of Commercial Taxes, Technical Education, Transport, Urban Administration & Development, Directorate of Treasuries & Accounts, Directorate of Land Records, Mandi Boards and the development of "KrishiNet" under Mission mode project.
— Initiatives for e-tendering, MP-Online (Citizen Services Portal), Headstart, Edusat projects etc. have also been taken up.
— The process of augmentation of existing 700 Node LAN to 3500 Node LAN with Gigabit backbone at Mantralaya is in progress.
— Establishment of SWAN (State Wide Area Network), State Data Centre & Common Service Centres (CSC) under Mission Mode Projects are in progress.
Awards and Accolades
— The State Government received the Golden Icon Award for the exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT based Best Practices for the project "Integrated Treasuries Computerisation" in the year 2007 and the Golden Icon Award for Best Innovative Technology for the project "Tele Bhugtan" in the year 2008 from the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, Government of India, during their 10th & 11th National Conferences on e- Governance.
— "India Tech Excellence Award 2007" (2nd position/Runners up) for the project "Application of IT in State Administration (e-Governance)" in the year 2007.
— "CSI-Nihilent Award" (winners) from the Computer Society of India (CSI) for the project "CHRIS", Runner up for delivery of G2C services for the project "Samadhan Ek Diwas" and Runners up for delivery of G2G/E services for the "Parakh Project" in the year 2007.
State is ready to carve a niche for itself in the field of e-Governance NIC, Madhya Pradesh is playing catalytic & significant role in architecting & implementing various e-Governance initiatives with the best possible technology support for achieving targeted goal of delivering efficient citizen services to the common public, not only in Mantralaya but also up to District level.