The Hindu 23.09.2009
IKM project wins CSI e-governance award
Special Correspondent
The project was implemented in all panchayats, municipalities and corporations in 2008.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The ‘Sulekha’ annual Plan formulation and monitoring system for decentralised planning, developed and executed by the State-run Information Kerala Mission (IKM), has won the Computer Society of India (CSI)-Nihilent e-governance award for excellence in the government to government (G2G) project category 2008-09.
The project has been developed by the IKM, in association with the Nihilent Technologies and the National Institute for Smart Government. It was implemented in all panchayats, municipalities and corporations in 2008. It is currently being used to capture the details of over 1.5 lakh project reports created by 1,223 local self-government institutions annually under decentralised planning.
The data is used to generate reports for appraisal of the projects by the 169 Technical Advisory Groups and then for approval by the 14 District Planning Committees (DPCs). The project-wise monthly expenditure details are also captured in the software and transmitted to the State Data Centre over the network and made available publicly on the web site of the Local Self-government Department, http://www.lsg.kerala.gov.in
Over the past one decade, the IKM has been striving to develop software that could help streamline the Plan formulation and monitoring system in the local governments. The project was started in the context of democratic decentralisation implemented in the State from the 9th Five Year Plan (1997-2002). The CSI had short-listed the ‘Sulekha’ project in the G2G category from a large number of projects nominated from all over the country. A team from the CSI had visited the IKM to get a first-hand experience of the project and the software.
The team had also visited Karakulam grama panchayat and the District Planning Office here and interacted with the users about the performance of the software and the project achievements. Subsequently, a presentation of the project was done by the IKM before the award jury at Hyderabad.
The awards for 2008-09 will be given away at Pune on October 9.