After moving towards e-Governance, now India is expanding m-Governance across the country. Around 54 gram panchayats in five remote blocks of the state will soon have SMS alerts on disasters, funds inflow and outflow, information about health camps and pulse polio campaigns will be sent to and from between the state departments, district offices and gram panchayats, block development offices.
In this regard, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has sanctioned INR 50 lakh for the pilot project. The project will begin in 54 gram panchayats in five blocks including Bandwan and Bagmundi blocks of Purulia and Sagar, Patharpratima and Gosaba blocks of South 24-Parganas. The project would be completed within nine months. Once the project is implemented, SMS alerts will be sent out to government officials and members of the gram panchayats about impending disasters such as a Bird Flu outbreak, or allotment of funds for a particular project, information about the date and venue of a health camp to be held, pulse polio campaign and the filing of reports through an SMS alert over the mobile. The state department for panchayat and rural development is working towards setting up Common Service Centres (CSC) at villages at the gram panchayat, block and district levels. About 1,000 CSCs, called Tathya Mitra, have already been rolled out in the districts.
