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GENERAL INFORMATION
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Name
of Initiative
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e seva (services) of West Godavari District, AP, India
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Initiative URL (if available)
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Submitted
by
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Country
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India |
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Organisation
Name
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Government of Andhra Pradesh, India |
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Organization
URL (if available)
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http://www.westgodavari.org |
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Organisation's
Vision/Mission
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The District is a sub province unit of administration in India and is headed by a District Collector. The District Collector and Magistrate is responsible for the overall socio-economic development of the area. The mission of our organisation is to create a just and equal society wherein everybody has access to the best available opportunities and everybody gives out their best. |
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PROJECT INFORMATION
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| 1.
Why, when, and how did the project begin? |
Technology is a major factor in all round development of society. Mass production technologies of industrial revolution triggered economic development in the world. Information Technology, though, at a nascent level now, has already permeated into various disciplines because of its all pervasive nature. Low capital requirement of this technology and adaptability for deploying human resources gives us an opportunity to innovate and lead.
The project e Seva (e services) began in the district West Godavari which falls in the province of Andhra Pradesh in India. The project is a tool to bridge the digital divide in the rural areas and has used Information Technology for providing access to various C2C (citizen-to-citizen) and C2G (citizen-to-government) services to the people living in rural areas. Under this project web enabled rural kiosks termed e Seva centres have been established at the mandal (a sub district unit of administration) level. The unique thing about these centres is that they are run and managed by the women self help groups and have been able to position the rural women as information leaders to help bridge the gender divide. The project thus provides Information leadership to these groups and helps them act as change agents and makes it possible for them to grow in strength and stature with the project. As a result, the women self help groups are drawing strength from the project and on the other hand buttressing the project with their existing strengths, a win-win situation for the twosome.
Information and communications technology have acted as an agent in enabling this change and is an attempt to replace the traditional form of governance and its accompanying deficiencies with a modern, more open, transparent and responsive service delivery system.
The e Seva Centres runs on a district portal that allows access to various citizen centric services. These services range from the issuance of various certificates to getting information about various programmes and also go to the extent of networking citizens to each other and allow them the flexibility and convenience of mutually beneficial transactions. The horizontal portal is eventually put on the global World Wide Web and thus allows vertical integration with the expanding frontiers of universal knowledge and information bank.
The initiative began in the year 2002 and has been gaining grounds day by day.
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| 2.
What are the goals of the initiative? |
The project is an effort to strengthen the women self help groups in the district and through them allow access to various government services to the citizens in a user friendly and transparent manner. The initiative uses the tool of Information Technology to further this objective. Huge socio economic gaps in the rural areas have deprived the citizens especially the women to share the fruits of development. Lasting and sustainable development can therefore be achieved only if these marginalized communities are mainstreamed. The project visualized that the lack of empowerment was primarily due to information gaps and once the right access is ensured, a real change in the outlook of these communities can be made possible.
The project offers host of services to the citizens living in the rural areas. The project allows citizens to file their grievance and applications for various government programmes in these centres. Every grievance is acknowledged and transferred online for bringing in field level action These areas range from getting a loan under self employment schemes to applying for an old age pension or asking for subsidized agricultural inputs. One fundamental reason for the rural-urban divide is the lack of well developed markets in the rural areas hindering efficient sale and purchase of goods. The project has been trying to fill in these information gaps and allows the citizens the facility to post their products for online auctions at any of the centress. As part of that, a marriage bureau has been operationalized so that prospective brides/grooms can place their bio-data eliciting suitable offers and gradually as things move along, a huge record of eligible wed-seekers is created making search for life partners easier and cost effective. In a country likre India where women suffer the most on account of this, it is a big help.
The Centres through the portal expects to provide a virtual meeting place for the citizens to discuss issues relating to the district/villages, its problems and prospective solutions. The citizens can now freely interact with each other to post their ideas. This acts as an online forum for them to ventilate their grievances, air their opinions and cause necessary social change. It also provides opportunity to conduct opinion polls on the important topical issues leading to improved decision making. The digitized inputs on computer enabled education are being made available in these centres so that the analytical and thinking abilities of the rural students is enriched opening to them the advanced frontiers of knowledge. The Portal through the kiosks also enables the administration to pass down important social communications and advocacies for broadcast to the communities.
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3.
Who participates in the initiative?
[Please
identify participants, beneficiaries, and implementation partners. Provide
specific demographic (age, income, rural/urban) information about your beneficiaries.] |
The district West Godavari has a total population of over 3.8 million out of which over 70% i.e., 2.1 million lives in rural areas. The district has over 22000 women self help groups which have been formed over the years to achieve the twin objectives of gender empowerment and rural economic growth. The women population in this district which is over 1.8 million has previously been subjected to exploitation and comparatively inferior treatment vis-à-vis their male counterparts. The project therefore envisaged a strategy that can catapult this women’s movement to a different plane and allow their evolution as information leaders.
Although the computerized package and the district portal have been developed locally, the project has established computer kiosks in various far flung rural locations where in the citizens can walk in and access various services. What is however significant is that these kiosks are owned and run by the women self help groups. The women self help groups who are being trained to handle the computer and the package have therefore been positioned as information intermediaries and helps in improving their relative bargaining power over the men. Most of these self help groups come from the poorest segments of the society and the project helps them achieve economic independence. While on the one hand, the kiosks run by the women groups act as a tool for their socio economic empowerment, the citizens on the other hand coming from the poorer economic strata of the rural areas are the major beneficiaries of this project. |
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| 4.
Please identify the project’s most important partners and
explain their role in the project and in helping to mainstream gender. |
The project’s most important partners have been the women self help groups, the government departments, the local political representatives, the local banks and the citizen groups. All these cross sections of the society have joined hands in bringing the project to the stage where it is. The women self help groups which has been the symbol of gender empowerment in this district have shown the way and have come forward to take up the responsibility of running the kiosks. Although this association holds lot of economic promise to these women but it is nonetheless the fact that it is also fraught with lot of risks both economic and social. This initiative purports to break the age old traditions and beliefs that women are inferior to men and therefore subjects these groups to hostile reactions from the vested interests. The government departments are the major partner in this project primarily because most of the services rendered by these centres are of the G2C type and unless these departments take pain to agree to shed the power and clout they wield over the citizens the objective of bringing these services into the public domain would not be achieved. The local political representatives have also played a major role in agreeing to this changed relationship of power moving from their hands directly into the citizen hands. The local banks have come forward and financed these units while the citizens have also reacted favourably to the initiative mainly because it reduces their movement to government offices and allows them to access services through the centres run by their own peers. |
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Please describe the management structure and processes of the project,
with particular emphasis on transparency and accountability. |
The project is an initiative taken by the district administration and has a flexible management structure. The project is being directly monitored and headed at the level of the District Collector, the members of the district self employment agencies and the district computer centre are also copartners in this management team. The district training centre provides the training and consultancy support to the project and also undertakes the responsibility of assessing the competencies of various stakeholders. The district computer centre has a pivotal responsibility in improving upon the project design and also helps in evolving new features and services in the district portal.
One of the objectives of the project has been to improve the transparency and accountability in government operations and to demystify the entire process that governs them. The project is a method in achieving the citizen centering of the various services being offered by the government and also helps in fixing the responsibilities of the various government departments to follow the citizen charter while delivering these services. It also helps in fixing up the accountability of the various departments with respect to the time they take to react to such citizen requests. |
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What tools and processes did you use in monitoring and evaluating the results
of the initiative? |
The project is being regularly monitored at the district and sub district levels to see that it meets the desired objectives. The project is being monitored on two levels, one to see that the technology part of the project is working fine while on the other the beneficiaries of the project viz the women self help groups perform to the expectations. The success of the project hinges upon the commitment shown by the groups and also by the extent of their capacity building. The project therefore has a periodic system of assessing the strengths of the groups managing the kiosks. One of the indicator that is being used is the monthly turnover that the kiosks are able to do in financial terms. A kiosk doing better business provides a clear indication of its popularity amongst the wider cross section of the people. The project also employs the subsidiary methods of eliciting citizen response through surveys and media perceptions. |
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| 7.
What results and/or immediate outcomes has the initiative achieved,
and what impact has it had on the beneficiaries, participants, and community? |
The project has had a tremendous impact in furthering the gender and digital unite in this district. On the one hand, it has been able to buttress the women self help groups while on the other hand it has been able to provide the civic services to the citizens in the user friendly and hassle free manner. Ever since the project has been started it is generated tremendous goodwill both for the administration and for the self help groups.
With almost over 80 kiosks operating in the district the project has been able to carryout more than 300000 transactions relating to various C2C and G2C services. These centres have been able to deliver 1,20,000 certificates while an amount of over Rs 50 millions have been collected as electricity bills without any hitch.
All these centres are doing good business and are becoming self sustainable. They are earning anything between Rs 6000 to Rs 15000 per month and are providing tremendous ease to the citizens to access government services.
We have so far received over 5000 different grievances from citizens through this project out of which over 4000 of them pertaining to various problems have been redressed.
The project has helped in the creation of a knowledge and information economy thereby bringing in more opportunities and prosperity to the impoverished areas of this district. The project has helped villages become knowledge hubs so that they can gain symbiotically from each other and derive benefits from the global networks. |
| Describe
how the initiative reflects each of the Gender and ICT Awards' criteria
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| 8.
Strategic use of ICTs. |
Under this project web enabled rural kiosks termed e Seva centress have been established at the mandal (a sub district unit of administration) level. The fully computerized e seva centress are on a district wide network connected through the dial up circuits and interact with the district server that act as a remote access server. In order to save on the networking cost, project has developed a unique synchronization tool that allows the kiosks to work offline and allows the databases to be periodically synchronized in minimal time.
The e Seva Centres runs on a district portal that allows access to various citizen centric services. These services range from the issuance of various certificates to getting information about various programmes and also go to the extent of networking citizens to each other and allow them the flexibility and convenience of mutually beneficial transactions. On the one hand, the project allows the citizens to pay their bills while on the other hand helps them to know the prevailing market rates for making an informed choice. The horizontal portal is eventually put on the global World Wide Web and thus allows vertical integration with the expanding frontiers of universal knowledge and information bank.
The project dispels the myth that Information Technology solution is anti poor and is an unaffordable luxury to nations like India. It makes one realize that information technology is only a tool that influences the objective and if the objective is to make the system more transparent, open and accountable, there is no way it can be anti poor. Most of the rural areas suffer on account of lack of right information regarding the markets, products, agriculture, health, weather, education etc and all this has been addressed through connectivity and information technology, bringing in a sea change in the conditions of the rural communities. |
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| 9.
Mobilizing awareness and participation and/or building capacities.
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An Information Technology project in order to gain wider acceptability requires the active and willing participation of various stakeholders. The various stakeholders in this project viz. the women self help groups who come from the lowest socio economic strata have to be rigorously trained not just on the usage of computer but also on the processes which governs the entire project. Besides the initial training, continuous skill upgradation programmes are being taken up to keep them live and updated on various aspects related to the project. The entire project also depends upon the back office computerization of the various government departments. Government employees at various levels therefore also needed sensitization and exposure to the Information Technology needs of their departments and to the project concepts. The capacity building of the self help groups was also followed by a strategy to create mass awareness about the project. |
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| 10.
Contributing significantly to the promotion of gender equality and/or
women’s empowerment. |
While the option of running the centres with any of the social groups existed, the project made it a point to rope in the women self help groups to run the centres. The intention was to bridge the gender divide and to create communities of interest for allowing the women become information intermediaries and in turn the leaders.
The centres being run by the women self help groups provide a virtual meeting place and a focal point for synergizing and pooling in their efforts. Most of the women self help groups are engaged in productive, low cost enterprises for improving their income levels. They are also involved in thrift and therefore need to maintain proper accounts. Instead of individual groups maintaining their own accounts, they have now got in a position to use the project computer for maintaining their internal lending records and also to enter into online transactions with their banks. Some of the banks have also proposed to put the ATM counters in some centres which would further facilitate these groups.
Although lack of transparent and accountable methods of service delivery in various government programmes impinges upon the wider cross section of the society, there is no gainsaying that women have to bear the brunt of this problem. The project by providing user friendly civic services has therefore helped the large rural women folk to gain socio economic independence. |
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| 11.
Please describe processes or mechanisms that are in place to ensure
the project’s sustainability. |
The design of the project is as such that it allows all the stakeholders to get adequate return on their investments. All the centres are being run on commercially viable lines and user charges are collected for the services rendered by the centres. The equipment provided to each centre has also been given on finance through the banks. An upfront subsidy has also been given in the beginning to minimize the burden on the women groups. Once the centre is established, the groups are in a position to not just meet the incidental expenses but are also in a position to repay their commitments and to make adequate returns for consumption and ploughing back into the project. This therefore ensures that each stakeholder gets adequate returns which would sustain their interest in the continuance of the project.
The design of the project is also from the ‘demand side’ rather than the ‘supply side’ as far as the citizens are concerned. Most of the services being offered in the project do not require publicity for their acceptance as the citizens were in any case availing these services before as well albeit with lot of hassles and harassment. That’s the reason why the citizens have accepted this project with folded hands and would not settle for anything lesser in future. The pressure from the citizens would keep the administration on their toes and would ensure its long term sustainability. |
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| 12.
How can your project be replicated elsewhere? |
The design of the project is fairly simple. On the one hand, the project has been able to spread the need for IT solutions and back end computerization amongst the various government departments while on the other hand has been able to provide access to various government services to the citizens through the kiosks run by the women self help groups on commercially viable lines. The additional burden on the government through this project is therefore almost minimal and the investment of the project is shared across the wider cross section of the people. That is the reason why the replication of this initiative should not be a problem anywhere else. The project has only taken two months from conception to commissioning because of involvement of multiple stakeholders.
The fully computerized e seva centres are on a district wide network connected through the dial up circuits and interact with the district server that act as a remote access server. In order to save on the networking cost, project has developed a unique synchronization tool that allows the kiosks to work offline and allows the databases to be periodically synchronized in minimal time. This has huge potential for replication in hinterland elsewhere and should be considered as the USP of this project. |
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13.
What are the key lessons learned from the implementation of the
project? *
(Please include information on unexpected outcomes, both good and bad.) |
There is a big learning lesson in this, it means anything is possible provided there is will and the persuasion to tag along partners by giving them stakes in a seemingly public non commercial activity. The paucity of funds and limited understanding of IT solutions are a major constraint in implementing projects of this nature. This was resolved by involving multiple stakeholders and explaining to them the monetary and other benefits accruing to them out of the project. The project is an example of how big tasks are easily done if broken down into small doable tasks and assigning them to various stakeholders at the right time. The project also establishes that women are next to none and can achieve desired results even in developing countries.
Only case of worry had been the resistance to change shown by the vested interests who would not like to disturb the applecart. This had to dealt with lot of firmness.
The project recognizes that information is government’s biggest equity and it’s important that it uses it for greater public good. Keeping citizens as the central focus has been the guiding principle in this project. Computerisation may improve the internal efficiency of an organisation but it holds no meaning unless there is utility to public out of the improved efficiency. The success and wide acceptability of the project is a result of this focus.
The biggest challenge for any computerization exercise is meeting of minds of the system designer who may be external to the organization and the system developer who is internal to the organization and knows the nitty-gritty much better but lacks skills. The insiders possessing computer skills with some professional support can develop a better model in limited time than external consultants. There is a hidden lesson in this.
The fourth lesson has been the transparency and financial propriety with which the project was executed. The possibilities of sabotage and backbiting minimize due to that. The resistance of employees and their associations can also be tackled by firmness and strict resolve. |
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How might your initiative benefit from a multistakeholder partnership?
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The projects of this type require lot of support and handholding especially during their evolution phase. Although the project is sustainable in its own right future upgradation and improvements are possible if multiple stakeholders and partners are tagged along. There is also the benefit of mutual sharing and learning from each other. The situation in the developing countries and the prevailing socio economic scenarios while on the one hand presents many challenges but also on the other hand presents multifarious opportunities to experiment and validate methods. A partnership in this regard would therefore be of mutual help. |
| General
Remarks and Additional Information |
| Remarks |
The project is a trail blazer for a developing country like India wherein huge socio-economic and gender disparities have for long being the source for all its problems. As we stand on the threshold of a technology era, it is important for us to look bac |
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| Attached
files |
genderawards.doc
, genderaward_photos.zip
, Administration_in_the_digital_age.htm
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