The Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department in Karnataka has been at the forefront of technology adoption, implementation and use of technology for delivery of services for quite some time. Highlighting the role and importance of digital technologies, Atheeq L K, Additional Chief Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, Government of Karnataka, spoke at the Future Ready Bharat – Digital Governance Summit, Karnataka.
Talking about the Panchatantra software, developed by the National Informatics Centre in 2010, Atheeq L K, Additional Chief Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, Government of Karnataka, said that the software is a very comprehensive accounting suite of various services implemented at the Gram Panchayat (GP) level. “Through Panchatantra, accounts of all the GPs were computerised and annual accounts of the GPs could be generated under it,” he said.
Another software which he talked about was Gandhi Sakshi Kayaka (GSK), which was developed in 2014. It is a web- based user-friendly works monitoring system.
Also Read | Journeying towards self-reliance & sustainability
The additional chief secretary said that in the last 2-3 years, the Karnataka government has worked towards putting in place version 2 of these softwares. “What we really do is not just implementing software or developing a technology for its sake, the principles that we have adopted now going forward is to capture the data in the process of its creation and to automate governance itself,” he said.
Talking about Panchatantra 2.0, he said, “In this, we have tried to automate and digitalise the day-to-day functioning and the governance of GPs. The objective is to enforce, ensure accountability and transparency.”
The department also launched an updated 2.0 version of the GSK. The highlight of GSK 2.0 is the spatial mapping of a project at the proposal stage itself. For example, if there is a proposal to develop a road, then the stretch has to be first spatially captured using a mobile app by walking or driving along its path. Also, the GSK 2.0 mandates capturing the physical progress of each stage of work in real time and making payments to contractors online. This will help authorities identify if the same road is proposed for redevelopment and check the menace of fake bills.
Talking about technology being a pre-condition, Atheeq said, “Technology is a very important precondition, it’s a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. For it to become sufficient, you need to empower the community to demand answers from the technology.”
Also Read | Technology making industry sustainable with real time benefits
“As we go forward, we need to use mobile technology effectively, reduce the amount of time we spend on keying in the data entry and at the same time, bridge the digital gap,” he further said.
Talking about the problem of successor predecessor syndrome, Atheeq said that they have a program called Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Scheme, in which Munish Moudgil was the commissioner of MGNREGA. He had developed a series of services but the successor did not use most of the modules. “In government, we have a serious problem of successor-predecessor syndrome. The successors often do not carry forward what the predecessors have done,” he said.