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The Information Kerala Mission (IKM) project was established as a Mission group in 1999 for implementing e-governance programmes in the Local Governments of Kerala.

ICT support for Local Governments became inevitable in the context of the Decentralised Plan Campaign in Kerala, which devolved nearly one-third of the State’s plan funds to Local Governments, and additional functions including planning based on local needs.

The IKM project started off with a detailed system study of the Local Governments.  The various functions were classified into 7 broad areas and application software developed for each of these, envisaging linkages between them.  The software modules developed based on these were piloted—primarily the Plan monitoring and Citizen Service Delivery software—in selected Local Governments in Thiruvananthapuram district.

But extending the pilots to state wide rollout did not take off due to the delay in finalising the procurement of equipment for Panchayats.  At the same time, the e-governance activities in Urban Local Governments (Corporations and Municipalities) took off during the 2003-2005 period, with the establishment of Janasevanakendrams.  Complete pilots in Grama Panchayats like Thalikulam and Thanalur during 2005-2006, in addition to the Vellanad Grama Panchayat taken up in 2003, also helped in firming up the application software.
The activities in Panchayats really took off in 2007 with the Government approving the procurement of hardware by the Local Governments availing the DGS&D rate contract.  Ensuring site-readiness in these 1165 Panchayats (999 Grama Panchayats, 152 Block Panchayats and 14 District Panchayats) had been a most intense activity during the past two years.  Even though it was the responsibility of the Local Governments, it had been achieved with the active follow up by the Local Self Government Department, Rural Development Department and Directorate of Panchayats.  Regular reviews and interactions by Information Kerala Mission personnel at the district and block level, with the Local Government leaders and staff helped in achieving this.  Now the infrastructure has been readied in more than 95% of these Panchayats. The deployment of application software is also progressing.

During 2007-08 (first year of 11th Five Year Plan) the entire projects under the decentralised planning of Local governments was captured electronically at the TAG level and used for appraisal and later approval at DPC level.  In 2008-09 it went one more step ahead with project formulation being done electronically using the Sulekha software at the 1223 Local Governments.

The Sevana software for Civil Registration (birth, deaths and marriages) and Sevana Pensions (for handling social welfare pensions) are the other application software widely deployed.  These are operational in nearly 700 and 200 local governments respectively.
The Hospital kiosk project for online registrations of births and deaths directly from hospitals and issue of certificates through the hospitals had been a programme that made substutional impact in service delivery.  This is implemented in selected Local Governments (39) where there are large numbers of registrations.

Cadastral Maps using GIS have been prepared with the ward boundaries for nearly 70% of Local Governments, and released fully in 5 districts.

The finalisation of database of Kerala Panchayat Employees Provident Fund (KPEPF) is in the final stages and is expected to be integrated with the salary disbursement application deployed in Panchayats soon.
More than 20,000 local government elected representatives and staff have been trained in the use of computers and the application software.

The tasks ahead includes customising the Panchayat accounting module as per the new rules to be finalised by the Government, finalising the revenue and other databases and completing the deployment of the software modules in all Local Governments.  Training needs to be extended to all the Panchayat staff. All these are anticipated to be completed by 2010.

 

Prof. M K Prasad
Executive Chairman & Director

07/02/2009