The Elephant that Seemed Impossible to Move
Public works, especially in rural areas is often accussed of being riddled with corruption. It is no different in Haryana either. The high number of complaints on CM window, the state’s grievance redressal portal, and the countless Right to Information (RTIs) applications filed against syphoning of funds and manipulation of records for public works, stand testament to it. There are three fundamental problems that have led to this situation —presence of a complicated offline work flow with little scope for laymen to exercise visibility, the cumbersome monitoring mechanism for the administration, and the difficulty in ensuring accountability which is a consequence of the two problems mentioned before. In order to deal with these, my colleague Manish Jaiswal, CMGGA Bhiwani, and I were asked to study the existing financial processes and the monitoring mechanisms in the Development and Panchayati Raj Department of Haryana.
Diving into the problem statement
Over the course of a month, we conducted extensive primary and secondary research. We gathered data from the state’s grievances redressal portal to understand the magnitude and the nature of the problem. We interviewed government officials ranging from those at the apex to those on the field, documenting their insights, challenges and apprehensions. We examined government records to understand the possibility of easy but effective monitoring. We visited construction sites to witness the quality of material used. We also conducted focus group discussions with the Panchayat and the villagers.
Retrieving the old records
Over and over we were being told that cashbooks older than 5 years were difficult to access, as they were either misplaced or destroyed. There was always a time lag between the withdrawal of funds and the update in the record. Across the state, there was no mechanism to check for the live status of a construction activity that tallied with the exact count of money that had been withdrawn or utilised. The same road and the same drainage were being constructed again and again, drawing funds from different schemes. The entire process was manual, offline and extremely cumbersome.
Moving towards the solution
During our study, we came across a software that had been developed in-house by the District Administration of Karnal. It was called the Village Integrated Monitoring System (VIMS). In parallel, the Government of India had developed a software, a suite of 11 modules with the potential for end-to-end mapping of all aspects and processes of rural public works. It would facilitate making of village level development plans, enable tracking of live status of financial transactions, bring the entire information on to the public portal , and construct a directory of village level assets. It was called the Panchayat Enterprise Suite (PES).
VIMS or PES?
I found that while VIMS was easy to use, there was one particularly troubling issue with it. It captured the cash flow of only those funds that were generated through the panchayat’s local revenue sources. This left a huge chunk of finances received from the centre and the state out of the loop. On the other hand the PES had one uniquely inclusive feature. It was designed such that once the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (an annual plan prepared & passed by the Gram Sabha on how the funds are to be utilised), were made online it could be accessed by any citizen of the country, and he or she could suggest changes or propose new projects for his/her village. The appropriate authority would then have to respond as the software wouldn’t move ahead otherwise. Each asset was Geo-mapped and each transaction voucher on the open portal.
Challenge accepted!
Our assessment of VIMS and PES was then presented to the Chief Minister in presence of the top officials from the Department of Development and Panchayat. While PES was more exhaustive there was much skepticism around it’s practicality. There was too much record to be updated, a persistent deficiency in manpower and the challenge of introducing a digital approach in a department where field officers had hardly been familiarised with IT solutions at work. An officer described it as ‘an elephant impossible to move, let alone ride’, which was justifiably so. After much heated repartee, a call was made — it was PES! In the meeting an open challenge was made and well accepted by the entire CMGGA cohort , where they pledged to put their best foot forward to see this through within their tenure.
A treacherous thought
It was decided that the state would concentrate it’s energy in implementing three basic modules of PES — Plan Plus (where all the development plans of the villages would be uploaded), Action Soft (where development plan would be broken down into actionable components for physical monitoring) and PRIASoft (where all the financial transactions would be mapped against every actionable work in a voucher generated online). The ultimate achievement would be to record live entries in the system. A thought that almost seemed treacherous in the current setup!
Pilot in Yamunanagar district
With great support from DC Yamunanagar, a pilot of the complete system was launched in the district. Much resistance was encountered, but remedies were served. Consistent on-boarding of gram sachivs by my colleague Karn Ailawadhi, CMGGA Yamunanagar, proved instrumental in making the pilot a success.
An IT lab was created especially for completing the back log at the district headquarters office in Yamunanagar. Often the record of more than 30 gram panchayats was being made online in a single day! Representatives of all banks were called by the Deputy Commissioner to ensure cooperation. By the end of January 2018 we had our results and were ready to move into phase 2, which was scaling PES to the entire state of Haryana.
Bringing together the top-down & the bottom up approaches
With learning drawn from the pilot we began working on the implementation strategy. PES workshops were organised at the district level where those at the apex were made to come to the ground and interact with the field officers.
This exercise was essential and extremely instrumental in closing the communication gap between those driving the project at the state headquarter and the ones implementing the same in the village.
Much learning was documented and a sense of ownership was created among those who were to drive the execution. It was together that a strategy was devised for effective implementation with a practical timeline.
The impasse encountered and surpassed
As the directions were delivered the Sarpanchs felt stifled. They had never seen such checks in the system before. For many reasons both legitimate and misinformed they became insecure. As a result, there were processions organised and demands put forward. Many came together in Chandigarh to express their apprehensions to the Chief Minister.
While some were dismissed, others were accommodated and the implementation timelines were re-invented. Although what remained non-negotiable was the fact that nothing in the system shall go unchecked, and the better mechanism for ensuring transparency had to replace the antiquated cumbersome systems.
Conclusion
Today, the department has taken complete ownership of PES. With collaborated efforts and consistent inputs from the ground, CMGGAs continue to facilitate on-boarding of stakeholders in the remaining districts while ensuring the quality of training provided in others. Despite the uproar in the entire state of Haryana, constant boycott of trainings by the Sarpanchs and the Gram Sachivs, a hard call has been made by the honourable CM. It is a new system into which the state machinery has been initiated, and with the right checks and sustainability mechanisms being supported by the Associates at every step, it will no doubt yield sweeter results in the times to come.
