United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Madhya Pradesh is a central state in India. There are 48 Districts, 313 developmental block and about 55,000 villages spread over 3 lakhs square kms. The population of the state is about 4.8 crores, 83% of which resides in these villages. Providing the Basic Services & Amenities such as Drinking Water Facility, Electricity, Education, Health, Agriculture & Veterinary Services , Women & Child Development , Distribution of essential commodities through Fair Price Shops, Distribution of Old Age and Social Security Pension and Disposal of Revenue Cases such as nomination, partition and demarcation in these rural areas is a challenging task before the State Government. Earlier , people used to travel from the village to the Block or the District Headquarters to register their grievances. Sometimes, it used to get resolved while many a times it used to remain unresolved for months together. Further, there was no way to identify the problematic areas and to take corrective measures. Thus, the people used to remain dissatisfied with the Government machinery. The Government has introduced "PARAKH'' for the management of Basic Services & Amenities to improve the delivery of services in rural areas. "PARAKH'' is a hindi word and it means testing in English.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The project is aimed at improving the delivery of Basic Services/Amenities in the Rural Areas. With this in view, it is implemented in all 313 developmental blocks of the State resulting in the benefit to the Rural masses which constitutes about 83% of the State population. The initiative has helped the Government in establishing the sound monitoring mechanism. The collection of data on Basic Services/Amenities from the field i.e. from all the villages from the public every month through the designated nodal officers and its computerization has made the information available on finger tips. It has made the monitoring possible and improve the delivery of services and thus improve the quality of life. Further, it has helped in (I) Increase in Efficiency As the programme was designed to bring up the information as to what are those services that require immediate attention to increase the quality of life of the people. The system "PARAKH" has helped the administration in the analysis of this information , identify the problematic areas and rectify the problems. This has helped the administration to improve the delivery of services. (II) Improvement in Morale Before the implementation of the Project, the Government Officials used to earn the wrath of the Public & its representatives for non-functioning of the Services/Amenities. With the established mechanism in place, now its possible to identify the problematic areas and provide the services in the least possible time. This has enhanced their image in the eyes of the Public and thus improve the morale of the internal stake holders. (III) Convenience to Citizens Before the introduction of “PARAKH” project, rural citizens were used to inform nearest block level administrative unit of the government about non-functioning/non-availability of services in their village. The proactive mechanism adopted by the State Government under the “PARAKH” project has facilitated a point of contact on behalf of the government for collecting information from all the Villages on the specified day every month. (IV) Transparency in Governance As the complete data i.e. the Status of Complaints, the information collected by the nodal officer and the complete status in a village etc. are all available on the web for dissemination under various sections, it ensures that whatever is the situation at the field level, the same is reflected uniformly at all levels. Thus, it enhances the transparency in the system . The information is also made available to the public representatives during the review meetings. (V) Increasing the Accountability The officials at the block and district level are to visit on a sample of villages and check on the observations that they have received regarding the delivery of services in these villages. This ensures in creating more accountability to the agents of service delivery system. It also creates a pressure on them as these observations are being seen by the various officials at the block, district and state level. Similarly the accountability of the block and district officials has increased.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
In 2000, the State devised an 11 point programme, which consisted of monitoring of 11 basic services that are provided at the village level. The 11 services that were covered include Drinking Water Facility, Electricity, Education, Health, Agriculture & Veterinary Services besides improving the Functioning of Anganwadis , Distribution of essential commodities through Fair Price Shops , Distribution of Old Age and Social Security Pension and Disposal of Revenue Cases. Learning from the past experiences and to strengthen the existing monitoring system , the Government of Madhya Pradesh, recognizing the fact that access to minimum level of social infrastructure facilities must be an integral part of a strategy for improving the quality of life of the people and for eradicating poverty, has changed the focus from monitoring to management and introduced the Basic Services/Amenities Management System called "PARAKH" in Feb.’ 2007 for improving the delivery of the Basic Services/Amenities in Rural Areas of the state. The project is implemented by the State Government with the support of National Informatics Centre, M.P State Centre, which is a premier Information Technology organization under the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology , Government of India. The technical support is provided by the NIC to the state government in the implementation of the project. About 25,000 Nodal officers are designated to cover about 55,000 villages of the State of Madhya Pradesh. The collected information contains both quantitative and qualitative data. These officers are assigned to collect information from about 2 to 3 villages and the data is entered off-line at the block level in a software. The stakeholders in this project are Public, CEO Janpad , District Collector , Commissioner , Department Heads/Secretaries , Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister of the state.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The main objective of the project “PARAKH” is to ensure efficient delivery of the Basic Services/Amenities such as Drinking Water Facility, Electricity, Education, Health, It also aims to ensure timely distribution of essential commodities through Fair Price Shops and disbursement of Old Age & Social Security Pension. Proactive mechanism is evolved to collect the information about Basic services/Amenities from all the 55,000 villages of the State. For this purpose, the following are done : Selection of independent Nodal Officers The State established independent Nodal Officers who are not part of the system implementing the various services that are being monitored to be the watchdogs of the delivery system in the state. This enabled the Nodal Officers to report the data freely to the block. These Nodal Officers visit the villages assigned to them and write the details in the format that they are supposed to fill up. These formats are completed before the 22nd of every month. Data Collection & Capturing The programme was designed to capture information on some of the basic services that are needed to be efficiently delivered at the village level. It brings up the information as to what are those services that require immediate attention to increase the quality of life of the people. Comprehensive formats for assessing the benefits of the selected services were formulated for the purpose of monitoring. The Data is collected by 22nd of the Month. The data entries are completed by 30th of the month and the required reports for taking the follow-up actions are generated and submitted to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) & Development Officer at the block level. This is done through the Off-line software, which is provided to all the Block Head Quarters. Various Reports on Non-performing items are generated through the software and the same is given to Block Officials. The block officials take action on the problems that has been observed by the Nodal Officers and instruct the respective department to take corrective action. The same is submitted to the District Magistrate and the various officials at the district level. Similar exercise is done at the district level. Collectors are supposed to take the review meeting in the first week of every month. Also when these district and block officials visit the villages, they follow up the various observations that they have received. The Data is sent to the District Informatics Centre, NIC at the District Headquarters where it is consolidated using the NIC resources and sent to the State Headquarters over the NICNET where the State level data is consolidated and hosted on the web server at the Integrated Data Centre(IDC), NIC State Centre for the benefit of all the stake holders for the monitoring purpose. Follow-up Complaints received through Nodal Officers are taken note of at the Block level & redressed. Once the data is available on the web, the follow-up action taken on all the complaints including the one which is directly registered is updated on the web to disseminate the information to the masses. Monitoring mechanism The system has established a strong mechanism at the District and State level. Web Based System The system provides for Complaint Registration by Public, Dissemination of Statistical / Detailed Reports on, Infrastructure/Services , Complaint Follow-up , Uploading of minutes of the meeting, Monitoring of Complaints, review of minutes of the meeting and nodal Officers report.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Designing of Formats for Data Collection on Village Resources and status of the services/amenities, Development of Software and the training on its usage to Block level Officials , Designation of officers as nodal officers , Training of nodal officers on collection of data , Arrangement of required infrastructure at Block/District headquarters., Issuance of appropriate circulars from the top i.e. level of Chief Secretary are the key development and implementation steps.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Sustainability was the major obstacle. Thus, efforts are made from time to time to incorporate the stakeholders feedback and involve then in the project. Based on the their feedback from time to time, the formats are revised and new features are added to make the system more effective and sustainable. The feedback obtained from various quarters are appropriately considered at the highest level and the formats are revised and new features for the Public such as for registration of Complaints, retrieval of its status, Disseminating the complete information pertaining to the village, Retrieval of Statistical & Detailed information pertaining to Basic Services/Amenities, Public Forum for posting the views besides the modules for the administration such as for Uploading of Minutes of the Meeting, entering the Follow-Up, Monitoring of Complaints & the Meetings held are added in the system.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The Project involves the cost of development of the software, training of nodal officers in data collection, block officials in using the software for data entry and generation of various reports, visit by the nodal officers to the villages every month, network, computer hardware and video-conferencing facility. NIC is providing the complete technical support to the state government i.e. development of the software, training of block officials in using the software for various purposes, web space, the network and the Video-conferencing facility free of cost . The other things are arranged by the District Collectors using their own funds at their disposal.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Basic Services/Amenities to the rural masses have always been the top priority of the State Government. The advent of Information and Communications Technology has made it feasible to collect and analyze the data of this voluminous nature even from the remotest corner. It has made possible effective monitoring at all levels. It has made possible better planning and improvement of the delivery of Services. As the people have become aware of the established monitoring mechanism they are increasingly using the same and thereby establishing community ownership of the same. This has also enabled in mobilizing the community for improving the services available to them. The ownership of the community and the mobilization of the community members for the same increases the sustainability of the services and also the Management Programme established in the state. The appointment of the Nodal Officers independent of the departments providing services has brought more credibility to the Management Programme. The earliest possible response to the problems identified has enhanced the success of the Programme. This has improved the recognition of the Nodal Officers among the village community. This in turn has helped to sustain the enthusiasm of the Nodal Officers. It has integrated with the regular administrative structure, thus making the system sustainable in the state. The general public is the beneficiary and since it is in place for almost seven years and has already shown results, the sustainability is reflected. As “PARAKH” is looking at the necessary services that are needed by the people, there is a gradual increase both in the demand for the same and at the same time in the continuity of the service. This will continuously help the service providers to improve the delivery of services. The project was started in the year 2000. To incorporate the stakeholders feedback received from time to time and citizen centric schemes, the project is amended/re-launched in the year 2002, 2005 ,2006 and 2007. Looking in to the inherent benefits of the project, the State Government of Rajasthan has recently studied the system and is replicating the same.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The Proactive mechanism being adopted by the State Government in collecting the information every month from all the villages about the services/amenities has helped the administration in identifying the problematic areas. The use of ICT has enabled the administration to capture, analyze and monitor this information and take effective steps in solving their problems. The programme provides an excellent feedback mechanism which in turn depicts administrative transparency in implementation of various schemes and programmes beneficial for the rural masses. This has enabled concurrent monitoring at various levels and thus enabled in improving the delivery of services. Presently, with the kind of ICT infrastructure we have, up to the Block level , this sort of mechanism will work well in improving the management of Basic Services/amenities in Rural Areas of any State.


Institution Name:		Government of Madhya Pradesh
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Anurag Jain
Title:		Secretary to CM & Dept of Information Technology
Telephone/ Fax:		0755-2441062
Institution's / Project's Website:		2441101
E-mail:		jain.anurag@mp.nic.in
Address:		Room No.533,Mantralaya, Vallabh Bhawan , Bhopal (M.P)
Postal Code:		462004
City:		Bhopal
State/Province:		Madhya Pradesh
Country:		India

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information