‘mSeva’ initiative of Punjab govt gets gold award for excellence by Union govt

The man behind the initiative, Punjab cadre IAS officer and former PMIDC Chief Executive Officer, Ajoy Sharma, who received the letter of award on Wednesday told The Indian Express on Thursday that e-Governance initiative led to streamlining and enhanced collections of property tax, water and sewerage bills and in other civic services of the urban local bodies (ULBs).

The digital initiative, which is already operational at various stages across all 167 urban local bodies across Punjab has been replicated in as many as ten other states and in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The states which have followed or have initiated to follow Punjab’s digital model are Uttar Pradesh (731 urban local bodies), Odisha (114 urban local bodies), Bihar (141 urban local bodies), Haryana (89 urban local bodies), Meghalaya (11 urban local bodies), Sikkim (7 urban local bodies), Mizoram (23 urban local bodies), Manipur (27 urban local bodies), Arunachal Pradesh (19 urban local bodies), Tamil Nadu (142 urban local bodies), and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (142 urban local bodies).

As per Ajoy Sharma, who is currently posted as the secretary of School Education and Sports & Youth Services, the e-governance project was envisaged in 2010. A tender of Rs 150 crore was planned around seven years later to outsource it. However later, it was crystallized in house without going for the tendering process and saving outsourcing costs.

“We set a benchmark by forming a team from our existing manpower and resources. We tied up with Egov foundations for the initiative to streamline various services relating to the local bodies department,” said Sharma.

“Besides saving more than Rs 100 crore, we also strengthened the in-house capacity which will help in tackling future challenges as well,” Sharma added.

The more than twenty-member team of PMIDC manages, supports and innovates the ‘mSeva’ platform following the “train the trainer model team”, where at level one the support team leaders within the PMIDC team are trained. The team leaders in turn train the helpdesk support teams, and MIS (Management Information System) experts deputed at regional level and municipal corporations.

The ‘mSeva’ uses open source tools to provide digital services to all citizens. To name a few, it uses tools and components used by Google to “host micro services’, Linkedin “for data transition”, Netflix “to route traffic among APIs (application program interfaces)”, Uber to “to search and visualize data”, and Apple “to store data”.

The digital initiative by Punjab, for instance, comes equipped with a Real Time Monitoring Dashboard with a sub-head of State Urban Real-Time Executive (SURE). SURE gives an overview of total collections, target achievement and total applications.

For instance, the dashboard would give a number of properties assessed and total property tax collected. Similarly one can find details about trade licences, water & sewerage bills, and complaints received and addressed, all digitally.

Sharma said the manual collections of property tax and water bills was not foolproof and left a window for manipulation with officials delivering hand written bills. “With the digital initiative, however, the system has become foolproof and has resulted in increased revenue for the state, apart from providing services to people at their place. They need not physically visit the offices to make payments.”

As per a data sheet, by the end of March last year, over 12 lakh citizens had registered for the e-governance service, availing as many as 60 micro services and there have been over Rs 700 crore worth collections. Among the collections were over Rs 254 crore collected from more than 13.4 lakh properties assessed and added collections from water & sewerage and trade licenses.

Deepika Arora from Sirhind, who has used the ‘mSeva’ services for around three years now, said that paying property tax and water and sewerage bill from the comforts of her home has come as a boon for her. “Earler, we used to go to committee office, show previous receipts etc. Now, it is very simplified,” said Deepika, a B-Tech in Computer Science.

Likewise, Amritsar resident Atul, who is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) engineer, said, “Earlier, my father had to go to the offices of local bodies to pay bills. Now, using the digital platform, I can pay from Hyderabad only where I am working at the moment.”