| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The project implemented in phases as below:
1. Identification of the Need:
The idea for the project was introduced while it was observed that the citizens had to wait for over 8-10 months for getting the land parcels measured from the Land Records local offices. Though the actual measurement of land parcel remains the manual process done through electronic totalling stations (ETS) machines, it was observed that majority of the time was spent in administrative approvals, allotment of staff for measurement and unnecessary delays in the manual paper based system. Citizens had to follow up at the department offices even for ensuring that their application has been accepted and then for getting the date of measurement on the field. This gave rise to the need of standard eGovernance solution for across the state.
2. Conceptualization of the project
The Software is designed through rigorous brain storing from domain group across the state and extensive process reengineering is carried out. Enormity of task was assessed, enabling factors were identified, project phasing was worked out, Data types were categorized as static data and dynamic data, geographical spread of implementation was considered, pilot Project was implemented in one of the blocks. Domain group of land Records Officials (Dy. Director Land Records, Tahsildars, Superintendent of Land Records, talathis and Circle officers) - Software functional requirement Specifications, Finalization of Process Changes, User Acceptance Testing of the Software and Assistance in state-wide rollout of the project.
3. Domain Group Consultations:
District and Block offices of Land Records (Dy. Superintendent of Land Records, City Survey Offices) – End user departments for the eMojni Application Software, Suggested the challenges faced by the offices in Traditional process and took active part in the process design phase (specially surveyor tour program design and FIFO principle).
4. Pilot run
Pilot for the statutory mutation process of the land record system was initiated in one block (Karvir Block in District of Kolhapur) was made on-line in April 2011. SCDLR and NLRMP cell officials held series of visits and meetings with District/ block administration and meetings at block HQ officials, the operators and the development team of the NIC.
5. State-wide roll-out : Physical/ Digital/ Human Infrastructure
It is the team work which has made implementation of such a big project possible and involved building up the ICT infrastructure in place across 358 blocks. The primary task was administrative approvals and monitoring the progress of the same for across the state.
The project involved interaction and participation from various teams like Connectivity service provider for across the state VPN Connectivity vendor (in all 358 blocks), Technical consultant for the Project implementation, Hardware provisioning by ICT vendor, Software Development and support vendor, etc. The e-enablement of the state offices was a herculean task in the project which was achieved through better coordination and vendor management by the office of SC&DLR.
6. Capacity Building
• State-wide training over VC for all Staff
• Block-level technical hand-holding by District NIC Offices
• Specification of Role & Responsibilities/ Functional and Technical Training
• Upkeep and maintenance of the hardware by CMS limited
7. Legal Frame work
Closure of manual land Application acceptance process
The key factor in introducing computerized eMojni Application software was to ensure citizen convenience and on time citizen service delivery in the Land Measurement cases.The physical application process in force was stopped as soon as the online eMojni application was introduced on 01/01/2012.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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E-Mojni is a part of overall National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) in the State of Maharashtra. EMojni is a component which was an additional component to NLRMP by the State of Maharashtra as per the requirement of the state.
Targeted beneficiaries of the Project
• Primary Beneficiaries:
o Citizens pan Maharashtra
o Government department/land acquiring bodies for development purposes
• Secondary Beneficiaries:
o Land Records Department officials – Field level surveyors, superintendent staff.
o Revenue Department officials from Government Department
o Officials of Settlement Commissioner & Director of Land Records (M.S.), Pune office
Stakeholders in the eMojni Application:
(1) Citizens / Land holders / Land Acquiring Bodies - Government Bodies,etc.- Primary Stakeholder
(2) Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records (SC&DLR), Govt of Maharashtra – Project Owner and Head
(3) Functional Domain Group –Group of Land Records Domain officials involving all level of officials and staff for Business Process Reengineering (BPR) for Application Functional requirement specifications
(4) NLRMP Cell at SC&DLR Office, Pune – Review, monitoring and administrative Guidance to state offices, Vendor Management and State level Procurements
(5) Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), Government of Maharashtra– Technical Guidance and Support on Project roll-out and Implementation
(6) State Data Centre (SDC) team, Mumbai –Data Hosting, Application Facility Management, Data backup
(7) National Informatics Centre (NIC), Pune – Development of Application Software, Maintenance and Support
(8) Hardware AMC and Support across the State Offices by CMS Limited
(9) PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd (PwCPL) – Project Management Consultant, NLRMP Maharashtra
(10) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) – for Provision of VPN based Broadband access to all 383 Field level offices
(11) Revenue Administration – Tahsildar and Collectorate for Administrative review and monitoring
(12) Office of Dy Superintendent of Land Records (Dy SLR) at the Block level for application acceptance, case allocation and disposal
(13) Functional staff at Block/village level – Field Surveyors carrying actual land measurement post application acceptance.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The eMojni–for Land Measurement System was an innovative step in the development of online service delivery model for the overall transformation of development and maintenance in the Land Records Domain. The process involved:
Administrative Functions:
• Approval for standardization of the application, processes and setting up the delivery channels.
• Amount of Act for provision of legal sanctity to electronic documents and thereby stopping the paper-based application acceptance for land measurement requests.
• In April 2011, the pilot project was completed successfully for one block in the State.
• The eMojni was an added component to National Land Records Modernization Programme. NLRMP in Maharashtra has 8 components compared to standard NLRMP programme of the states wherein there exist 6 components.
Infrastructural and Technological provision:
• EMojni software developed by NIC and is a web based solution implemented across the state offices. Software development, training and support was provided by NIC
• The Application is hosted at the State Data Centre (SDC) of Maharashtra State (Government Data Centre in the capital Mumbai). The facility management and hosting infrastructure is managed centrally by SDC team. The M-SDC is a cloud based SDC in the country.
• The Network connectivity across the 383 Offices was provisioned through Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) which is country’s one of the biggest service providers. The connectivity provisioned is a secured VPN over Broadband connectivity across all offices.
• Provision for opening 383 e-Mojnicenters in the Land Records Offices spread across all 358 blocks of the state was facilitated with all physical infrastructures, trained departmental staff, ICT requirements (computers and other necessary devices) and connectivity by the office of SCDLR.
• Upfront training is a major element towards changing the mindset of all level functionaries and setting up of the new system.
• The Data Entry operators, Surveyors, Dy SLR office Staff, were trained thoroughly on e-Mojni System, before operationalization in a Block.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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• Improvement in Service Delivery for Land Records at reduced cost: The cost saving has been a primary achievement for the Department as well as for the Citizen. Number of trips, wait time and follow-up costs has reduced tending to zero post implementation of eMojni; due to detailed system based acknowledgement. Ease of Services and Access: Access to the records is hassle free with limited direct interaction across departments due to single window services. The facility of single window services is available across 383centers thereby reducing the travel time, cost and efforts of rural population for application of measurement online
• Increased operational efficiency – internal to the department – The survey plan, case allocation and tour plan are generated by the system. Allocation of work is done by the application itself, it ensures that all surveyors are utilized in an equal manner. Officials can now rely on the ICT network for work allocation and travel plan. Speedy case disposal: Increased number of measurement cases and proper tracking of the number of cases registered, handled and pending etc.
• Service Deliver Assurance: As soon as the application is submitted at Deputy Superintendent of Land Records (Dy. SLR) office, they are provided with an acknowledgement mentioning scheduled date of measurement, Name of Surveyor, Contact details of Surveyor along with a true copy of the their payment receipt.
• The state level case monitoring, office monitoring, pendency resolving, etc. are done through state dashboard. This helped department to expedite the cases. The dashboard clearly depicts the pendency, office-wise and surveyor-wise work completion, revenue collection of Measurement fees, etc.
• Infuse transparency in providing the services to citizens: Transparency and accountability is a key challenge in maintaining and management of the land records data. Online system has brought about the transformation in the land records domain. The eMojni data is stored and maintained at SDC and is tamper proof with defined access control for any updation. The fees calculation and challan is also generated by the system. Computerized process followed in e-Mojnifor citizen applications which has helped to increase involvement of stakeholders, bringing confidence of stakeholders in new system, improvequality of services provided to citizens. A single and standard web based system is implemented across the state since 01 January 2014 and has recorded over 0.3 million land measurement cases.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Field Level Monitoring activities: During the implementation of the initiative, a committee of NLRMP cell dedicated to the roll-out of eMojni was formed and nodal officers were appointed to ensure timely completion of tendering process for Hardware, connectivity proposals and ontime software Development and UAT. The activities at all levels were monitored to ensure state rollout of the project.
1. Nodal officer for eMojni at NLRMP Cell
2. Domain group for the technical and functional assistance at the SCDLR office
3. District level monitoring and commissioning through administrative support from the Collectorate offices in each District
4. District level technical support was provided through District Information Officer (DIO) of National Informatics Centre (NIC) stationed at all the district collectorates.
Administrative and Monitoring Mechanism:A state level Monitoring was carried out by the Office of Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records (Maharashtra State) Pune.NLRMP cell also is taking care of the state-wide implementation of the following modules of the National Land Records Modernization Programme:
a. eMutation – Online Mutation of registered and non-registered documents
b. eMaps – Digitalization of all Cadastral maps in the State
c. eRecords – Digitization of all Records of Rights present in the State of Maharashtra (over 250 Mn documents scanning is underway) including creation of Modern Record Rooms.
d. Resurvey – Resurvey of Complete State of Maharashtra through Satellite imagery and Ground Station Control Point Networks.
e. eBhulekh: Integrated portal for all the historic and current Land Records documents for Citizens
Pilot roll-out of application:The project pilot was done in KarvirBlock of Kolhapur District in Maharashtra. This was done to ensure the success of the solution and also recognize the probable challenges that could be faced for the state-wide implementation of the solution.
Software and Application control:Every Software Module version was thoroughly tested for bugs/errors, and reported. Services were rolled-out only after the testing of delivered module and rectified version of Module. UAT of the application software was carried out by the Departmental Staff from Blocklevel and suggested compliance to local procedures.
Backup and service continuity:The complete infrastructure and facility management services for application central support are provisioned through State Data Centre. Timely Security audits and regular backup procedures are in place at the State Data Centre.
Training and Capacity Building: Training and capacity building was a continuous process involving Technical, Functional, Operational and Administrative sessions.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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1. The challenge for acceptability and eAwareness was overcome by rigorous training and workshops at district and block level with the support from NIC officials. VC connected 35 districts and more than 300 department officials. Continuous, extensive and detailed training plan was prepared by the department and training was provided to them.
2. ICT infrastructure and connectivity preparedness till Block level was a herculean task achieved through proper guidance and centralized support from the office of Settlement Commissioner (M.S.), Pune. Vendor Management was a key factor in implementation stage.
3. Technology related challenges like lack of IT infrastructure, network connectivity etc. across 383 offices in one go was a herculean task. The problem was overcome through on boarding various stakeholder teams like
a. VPN based Connectivity – BSNL India (Govt of India enterprise)
b. Hosting and Data Centre Management – by State Data Centre of State Government
c. Hardware Provisioning – CMS Limited
d. Software development and support by NIC Pune (Govt of India enterprise)
e. Project Management Consultancy (PMC) – PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd.
4. Deciding on extent of computerisation: Since actual land measurement (the Mojni) remains a manual process, which is to be done by the surveyor by visiting the field parcel of the applicant, the extent of computerization was a key to be considered in the whole process. All the bottlenecks and redundant processes were to be curtailed and the benefits on both (department and citizen) side were to be achieved. Department appointed a domain group (officials from the Land Record Department and Revenue Department of Government of Maharashtra) to discuss on various aspects of the project re-engineering. Brainstorming sessions took place with all stakeholders to decide on the solution and its features.Functional Requirement Specification (FRS) was headed by domain group and followed throughout the application development.
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