Himachal govt calls for mandatory implementation of SAMARTH portal for all panchayats

The Himachal Pradesh government has notified the mandatory implementation of the SAMARTH portal for all gram panchayats in the state, in a bid towards digitising rural financial governance and strengthening Panchayati Raj institutions. According to a notification issued by the Panchayati Raj Department, all gram panchayats will be required to use the SAMARTH portal with effect from April 1 for the management of their Own Source Revenue (OSR). The state has 3,616 gram panchayats.

The SAMARTH portal (https://samarthpanchayat.gov.in/) has been developed by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, to enable end-to-end digitisation of tax and non-tax revenues at the gram panchayat level. The portal facilitates online generation of demand, digital collection of payments, maintenance of panchayat-owned assets, and real-time monitoring of revenue performance.

The notification stated that the portal is aimed at ensuring greater transparency, standardisation and efficiency in rural financial administration. Under the notification, all activities related to OSR — including configuration of tax and non-tax revenue streams, registration of taxpayers, online demand generation, management of Panchayat assets for revenue purposes, and collection of payments from citizens — will be carried out exclusively through the SAMARTH portal.

The notification explicitly states that offline processing of these activities will be completely discontinued from the effective date. The notification has been issued with the approval of the competent authority and signed by the Secretary (Panchayati Raj), Government of Himachal Pradesh.