The Hindu Business Line : Now, ePanchayats to empower rural areas in AP

TO usher in e-governance at the village level, the State Government, in league with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), has initiated a project - ePanchayat - that seeks to computerise gram panchayats and reach out Internet services to the villages.

This was stated today by the Deputy Director General of NIC, Dr C.S.R. Prabhu, and the State Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Employment, Mr J.C. Diwakar Reddy.

NIC, Hyderabad has developed a comprehensive Web-based software for panchayat raj and rural applications. The Commissioner of Panchayat Raj and Rural Employment has approved the sanction to computerise 475 major panchayats in the State, outlining the requirements for each panchayat at a cost of Rs 1.75 lakh apiece. This covers both hardware and software, including training costs.

As part of this initiative, State, district and panchayat level project implementation committees have been constituted which include the PR Commissioner, the Deputy Director General, NIC, and the district and panchayat level officers.

To empower panchayats, it is proposed to create a database, through initiating work for data entry.

The data entry of existing records and registers is being entrusted to local private agencies or rural eSeva operators after due diligence. The data is to be entered using local computers under the supervision of the panchayat level committee, with the guidance of the District Informatics Officers of NIC.

Following a State-level meeting in July, it was decided to involve the district level project implementation committee, headed by district collectors and NIC, Hyderabad, for procurement and installation of hardware required by the gram panchayats.

Each panchayat will get Rs 70,000 towards hardware costs and Rs 20,000 for data entry.

NIC Hyderabad will get Rs 15,000 per panchayat towards the cost of the relational data base management system and the operating software for the district data centres, and Rs 25,000 per panchayat towards training the gram panchayat staff and conducting workshops for project familiarisation.

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