പി.എസ് സി ജീവനക്കാരോട് പ്രയിപെട്ട പി.എസ് സി ജീവനക്കാരാ ചില പത്രങ്ങളില്‍ കണ്ട വാര്‍ത്ത വായിച്ചപ്പോള്‍ തന്നെ ഞ്ഞാന്‍ കരുതിയതാ ഇതെഴുതണമെന്ന് .നിങ്ങള്‍ എന്തിനാ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിനെ ഭയപ്പെടുന്നത്.
അത് നിങ്ങളെ പിടിച്ച് തിന്നുവൊന്നുമില്ല.അത്കൊണ്ടു ഉണ്ടാകുന്ന ഗുണങ്ങള്‍ ആലോചിച്ചിറ്റുണ്ടോ.ഉണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ കോടികള്‍ ചിലവെഴിച്ച് നടത്തുന്ന പി.എസ് സി ഓഫീസ് പേപ്പര്‍ലസ് ഓഫീസാക്കി മാറ്റുന്ന പദ്ധതിയെ നിങ്ങള്‍
എതിര്‍ക്കുമായിരിന്നോ?

സൂചിക ഉപയോഗിക്കാം നല്ല സേവനങ്ങള്‍ നല്‍കാം

സംസ്ഥാനത്തെ എല്ലാ തദ്ദേശ സ്വയംഭരണ സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളിലും ഓരോ ദിനവും ജോലിഭാരം കൂടികൂടി വരുന്നു.ഇതൊക്കെ ചെയ്യാനുള്ള ജീവനക്കാരുടെ എണ്ണം വളരെ കുറവും.
ജനങ്ങള്‍ക് നല്‍കുന്ന സേവനങ്ങള്‍ കൃത്യവും.വേഗത്തിലുമായിരിക്കണം.എന്നാല്‍ നിലവിലുള്ള സംവിധാനങ്ങള്‍ ഇതൊക്കെ പരിഹിരിക്കുന്നതിന് അപര്യാപത് വും.എന്നാല്‍ ഐകെ.എം. നിര്‍മിച്ച 13 സോഫ്റ്റവയറുകളും കാത്ത്
ആകാശത്ത് കണ്ണും നട്ട് നാം കാത്തിരിക്കാന്‍ തുടങ്ങിയിട്ട് നാളേറെയായി.എന്നാല്‍ ഇപ്പോള്‍ ചെറിയ തോതിലുള്ള പുരോഗതി കാണാന്‍ സാധിക്കുന്നു.സേവന സിവില്‍ രജിസ്ട്രേഷന്‍ മിക്ക സ്ഥലങ്ങളിലും ഇന്‍സ്റ്റാള്‍ ചെയ്ത് കഴിഞ്ഞു.
സുലേഖ നമ്മുടെ ഉറ്റ മിത്രമായി കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. സുചികയും നമ്മടെ കൂടുകാരനായികൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു.സൂചികയുടെ ഉപയൊഗങ്ങളെ കുറിച്ച് നമുക്ക് പിന്നീട് ചര്‍ച്ച ചെയ്യാം.



കൂടുതല്‍ വിവരങ്ങള്‍ അറിയുന്നവര്‍ എഴുതുക ashrumiracle@gmail.com

BELLANDUR panchayat takes the It ROute to progress




Bangalore:: Bellandur Gram Panchayat in Karnataka has something new to talk about. It expects to play host to a Pakistani delegation visiting its offices and taking a look at the unique technical system built to meet the requirements of the people.

Already, the panchayat has attracted attention from different parts of the country. “Delegations from Kerala, West Bengal, and Lakshadweep have visited the panchayat and people from several districts in Karnataka have come to study the Bellandur model,” said K Jagannath, former Panchayat president and the man behind the computerisation initiative.

When Bellandur Gram Panchayat transformed itself into the first computerised panchayat office in the country in 1998, the biggest gain was transparency and speed of use. Today, the residents do not have to run around for weeks if they urgently need some legal documents from the panchayat office. Any information required by them is available within seconds.

All this is possible because of technology and the Internet. The online initiatives by the panchayat involves interaction with different government bodies and posting queries.

The technology measures have transformed the lives of the simple villagers. “Providing information and documents to villagers, correspondence to higher offices and such daily chores were time consuming and laborious for us. So in 1993, we started technology upgradation with a simple typewriter and moved on to a computer soon enough,” says Mr Jagannath.

Initially, it was just a means to store letters. But today, it holds a full-fledged database on the panchayat. This includes information on each of the residents along with all the minute details on land records, property tax records, birth and death records, ration card details, and voters lists. The five villages under the Bellandur panchayat have a total of 2,500 families.

The information and documents are available at a minimal service charge of Rs 50. These measures have increased the revenues of the panchayat from Rs 60,000 in 1993 to Rs 2.75 crore today, said Mr Jagannath.

Two major changes have taken place in the village in the recent past. One was the decision of the Bangalore Development Authority to build an outer ring road through the village and the other was to name the two sides of the ring road as the IT corridor. This has pushed up real estate prices and now a major share of the income of the villagers in Bellandur accrues from real estate and rents. According to Mr Jagannath, 150 new apartment complexes are coming up and 30 new families are moving into the area every month. In fact, Mr Jagannath hopes that the IT companies planning to set up shop on the IT Corridor will further the village’s technology adoption programme.

The panchayat’s information system is handled by young girl graduates who are residents of the village. Residents include software professionals who have migrated to the US, and those who own software companies in India.

The Bellandur Welfare Association provided the necessary funds for the computers and the training. The panchayat got Compusol, a city-based software company, to provide the software part to maintain accounts and other documentation. What is commendable is that the panchayat did the entire project on its own initiative, with no directive from the government.

The tampering of documents has come to an end, which Mr Jagannath believes is a major achievement. What is even better is that they are able to stop tax leakages to a great extent. “Property taxes could always be evaded by bribing a tax collector. Today with all the documents stored in the system, around 80 per cent of the tax leakage problem has been solved,” he says. There is still 20 per cent evasion, but that happens mainly in the case of NRIs, he adds.

Bellandur Panchayat also has the distinction of being the first panchayat in the country to beam the proceedings of the panchayat meetings and its AGMs to all its residents via television.

Currently, the panchayat members are working on ways and means to introduce a smart card for each resident. This will help in accessing any information required at any point of time, something that not even the citizens of Bangalore can boast of. “We are talking to a couple of companies regarding this,” says Mr Jagannath.

Kerala for IT cells in all departments


14 May 2009

The state of Kerala has decided to establish an IT cell in all the government departments in a month. High level discussions are being held to brood on the feasibility of the the huge IT deployment in departments including revenue, police and agriculture.

The state government had earlier appointed a consultant Sadasivan Pillai, who has recently submitted a detailed project report (DPR) on establishing an IT wing in several departments of the state. Later three high level meetings were held in Thiruvananthapuram by the state IT Secretaries Ajay Kumar and K S Anil Kumar.


The IT deployment will take place at three tier level, first at the state level, second at the district level and third below the district level. These IT wings will enable the implementation of IT projects in their respective departments. Besides, implementation of e-governance projects like SPARK and IGSG will also be facilitated through these IT cells.


The State IT Mission will extend its technical support in the functioning of these IT cells, who will be responsible of the time bound completion of all given IT projects in their respective work sphere.

Kerala evolving new vistas in e-governance

By B. Prathapan (THe hindu may 26 2000)

KOCHI, MAY 25. E-governance could well be the next area in which a `Kerala model' evolves, if the success of a pilot project in Ernakulam district panchayat in developing a Panchayat Level Information Network is any indication.

This Kerala model will have implications on the future of e- governance of the global South because of its path-breaking induction of ``open source code'' software as against the proprietary models and grassroots participation of the people.

``Open source code'' software is a programme whose source code is available free-of-cost for developers to work on better versions or to develop new applications.

The Panchayat Level Information Network Project progressing in three grama panchayats -- Asamannur, Chottanikkara and Kunnathunad -- is using Linux as the basic operating system (OS). Linux has already attracted notice worldwide from the way it has made even Microsoft look up.

The Relational Database Management functions in the project are handled by PostgreSQL which is an open source code software touted to be equal in efficacy to the costly Oracle and MS-SQL. It also makes use of GRASS for GIS (Geographical Information System) applications and Glib/Gtk+ for GUI (Graphical User Interface) development library. The project uses Glade as GUI application development tool.

The pilot project, being implemented by Project EIID (Ernakulam Industrial Infrastructure Development Project) which was set up under the People's Plan Programme, contends to be a low cost alternative, taking e-governance directly to people at the lowest level, when compared to the high-cost conventional models.

The project which is now getting a close look from the State Planning Board is touted to be a perfect `Kerala Model' just like the one in social development which is characterised by low GDP, but high quality of life indices and acclaimed the world over.

A Planning Board team is expected to visit the three local bodies soon.

According to the Project EIID coordinator, Mr. M. Krishnadas, the induction of ``open source code'' software reduces the cost of adoption of e-governance drastically. The cost reduction helps in taking it to grassroots level at marginal cost, thus ensuring that the benefits of technology induction reaches people on a large scale.

A cost comparison of technology induction at the local body level shows that the use of open source code software helps cut cost drastically, according to Mr. Jomi John of Project EIID. While the cost of using proprietary software was estimated at Rs. 9.56 lakhs for the introduction of e-governance in a typical local body, it was found to be as low as Rs. 90,000 in using open source code software.

The annual recurring cost was estimated to be nil in the case of open source code software while it was pegged at Rs. 72,000 for proprietary software.

In the alternative model, the grama panchayat is the depository of all local-level information. Thus the grama panchayat is empowered to become the backbone of governance. Such an exhaustive database obviates the need for each department to duplicate the effort of collecting and processing data.

Moreover, the existence of such information in an integrated database makes it possible for higher decision-making authorities to get a more complete picture. The database generated is relational with every individual linked to his assets and his social relations. It helps induct ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) principles even while ensuring single office accountability in service rendering.

The data generated covered the domains of the local grama panchayat office, the village office concerned, agricultural office, veterinary office, schools and primary health centre. It was estimated that a typical database would hold records regarding 40,000 individuals, 9,000 households, 1,000 institutions, 25,000 agricultural holdings with particulars of crops and 30,000 revenue sub-divisions of land.

As the data available in Government records were found to be outdated and sketchy, the primary data was generated through survey covering every household of the grama panchayat. The data collection was made easy by the formation of locality-level neighbourhood groups.

While the project helped generate several work-days at the data collection and data entry level, what is significant is that it has provided a platform for open source code software development efforts.

The Ernakulam district panchayat president, Mr. C. V. Ouseph, said the project aimed at delivering the various services of the local bodies to citizens through neighbourhood kiosks. Smart cards would be introduced to facilitate this.

Taking the cue from the project, the Ernakulam district panchayat has proposed to set up an information laboratory to promote development of open source code software.

The achievements on the software side so far include the development of Linux networking skill for the personnel involved in the project. The project has developed a replicable client- server model for Local Resource Database using PostgreSQL on Linux network. A Gtk interface has been developed for PostgreSQL and GUI utility for data entry.

Another major success of the project has been the successful development of a Malayalam phonetic keyboard overlay for GUI in Linux environment. The capability to print Malayalam true type fonts in Linux environment has come as a bonus. A report generating tool for PostgreSQL was designed and developed. The work resulted in authoring several reusable modules for GUI development and for PostgreSQL interface in Linux environment.

It is pointed out that the success achieved by Project EIID has immense significance on the cost front alone in a State which has decided to introduce e-governance in all the nearly 1,000 grama panchayats. With a fully functional open source code laboratory available soon, it would not be difficult to extend the model to urban local bodies also.

Panchayat computerisation a disaster: study

By P. Venugopal the hindu july 18 2004

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JULY 17. Contrary to the media hype over the last few years, the panchayat computerisation project of the Information Kerala Mission (IKM), for which the Planning Commission had given Rs. 30 crores way back in 1999, is a "complete disaster", according to an independent field study conducted in May, this year.

C. K. Raju, former Associate Professor at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration, M. Arun, a member of the Free Software Foundation of India, and R. Dinesh and Joseph C. Mathew, software professionals, conducted the field study.

They visited the panchayats which were being projected as `big success stories' and found little merit in IKM's claims.

The employees of the Vellanadu panchayat (described as the `first fully computerised panchayat in the country') have not heard about eight of the 12 software packages, which, according to the claims of the IKM and the Government, were `fully functional and operational' from January 2003. They told the team that they had information about four applications that had been installed in their office: the first for issuing birth and death certificates and accessing pension details, the second for maintaining accounts, the third for entering attendance details and the fourth for issuing receipts.

"As on May 29, 2004, `Sevana', the package for registration (of births, deaths, etc.) is the only software that can be said to be somewhat functional," the field study report says.

The report further says that even this package was not found user-friendly and that `numerous bugs' hampered its response. The Vellanadu panchayat employees told the team that they expected to get the software corrected soon. The IKM had claimed as early as in 2000 that this software was complete. The panchayat employees were yet to decipher the complexities of the software.

Besides Vellanadu, the IKM had selected four other panchayats in Thiruvananthapuram district -- Vilavoorkal, Madavoor, Amboori and Kattakkada -- for the pilot deployment of the computerisation programme and it was officially inaugurated on September 17, 2001 by the Minister for Local Administration, Cherkulam Abdulla.

The team found that the sole computer installed at the Madavoor panchayat was not working, so far as the software developed by IKM was concerned. It was being used as a word processor to type out letters, etc.

The avowed objective of the IKM's project was to network all local self-government institutions in the State with the State Planning Board to ensure efficient monitoring of the planning and scheme implementation process. Five years of much hyped endeavours of the IKM have taken the programme nowhere even in the pilot panchayats, although several crores of rupees had been spent on it. The team suggested a detailed probe to `demystify' the functioning of the panchayat computerisation programme in the State.