SAMAGRA
SAMAGRA PORTAL
" A Common integrated platform to facilitate Proactive & Entitlement-based model of Governance"
Madhya Pradesh is the second largest State of the country. It has largest tribal population amongst all States. The State is consciously working for improvement in Human Development Indicators. Social Security is the largest sector in the State in terms of number of beneficiaries, geographical reach, number of institutions, engagement of human resources etc. It is also the most complex sector with involvement of multiple departments and local bodies.
Over 200 beneficiary oriented schemes with estimated budget of ~ 5000 crores, involving cash or kind benefits, are being run for welfare of masses. It was observed that several schemes being run by different departments were actually of the same nature and targeted same category of beneficiaries, but had different processes, application forms & entitlements/rates. In the absence of a centralized family & beneficiary database and/or automation in the service delivery of schemes, departments were working in silos & there was no avenue for online workflows, coordination & integration of processes & data. Decision making involved discretion, payment was through cash/cheque. All these resulted in delays, leakages and trauma to underprivileged.
The beneficiaries, who are mostly from weaker/underprivileged sections of society, found it complex & difficult to understand the processes, rules and entitlements of schemes and were not able to get the intended benefits as per their entitlements in a simple and hassle free manner. A person was required to have interface with more than one office & was subjected to repetitive verification of documents.
An innovative concept to launch an ambitious program involving rationalization and convergence of schemes was conceptualized to address these issues and shortcomings. It also aimed at simplification & automation of delivery processes involved in the implementation of over 200 schemes of various sectors like education, social security and health namely scholarships, pensions, marriages, insurance, ex-gratia, funeral assistance etc. The program was massive, challenging and christened as ‘Integrated Social Security Program’ of Madhya Pradesh.
Effective implementation of program required reliable and transparent mechanisms for ensuring sanction of benefits by a single office using a single & common platform. It also required a common integrated database of residents & families and an online application platform to facilitate identification of the eligible beneficiaries in a proactive manner & automation of process involved in sanction of benefits of schemes as per his entitlement.
This gave way to creation of an Online Samagra Population Register (SPR) consisting of integrated database of ~1.8 cr. families and ~ 8.0 cr. residents after extensive door-to-door survey. Family is an important unit for most of the Govt. schemes and hence SPR has in-built mechanisms for linking of family with its members. SPR also contains online registers of BPL Families, SC/ST families & PwDs and casual labour of unorganized sector that are potential targets for most of schemes. Attributes of families and residents are being verified and used by the designated authority of the concerned departments at the time of sanction of first benefit. Once verified, offices of all other departments use the information to sanction the benefits without any further verification and thus implement schemes through simplified and online interfaces. Facility of tracking & viewing history of benefits sanctioned to the individuals and his family has been provided to all offices and even to public for social audit.
This program may be considered to be first such initiative of its kind & one of the largest convergence and e-governance program being undertaken by any government as it involves digitization of information, rationalization, BPR and automation of processes, DBT by Financial Inclusion of all families. It covers each and every individual family and resident of the State.
2. Objectives of the Initiative: Main objectives of the Initiative are –
- Switch to Entitlement Based Model of Governance for running welfare schemes in a phased manner.
- Insulate resident from complexities of schemes, its rules, formats, processes. Minimize need of person to visit various offices for application/follow-up & eliminate need to repetitively provide documents for scrutiny.
- One time verification of important attributes of families and residents that decide the eligibility and entitlement and use of these verified attributes by all other offices to decide eligibility for schemes without discretion.
- Convergence, Rationalization and Simplification of various schemes of same nature being run by different department for overlapping categories of the residents.
- to provide a common integrated platform for implementation of all individual and family specific schemes in a hassle-free manner using a single and integrated application architecture and database
- Automation of processes and Online maintenance of live registers of beneficiaries of various schemes & their tracking, automatic updation of profile of family and residents on reporting of birth, deaths, marriages
- Financial Inclusion of target families/individuals and DBT.
- Proactive Governance: Propose the list of residents that are prima-facie eligible for schemes
- Globalization of budget, better financial discipline, Online & live tracking of fund utilization, transparent operations, minimization of discretion in decision making, process automation.
3. Implementation Highlights
- Door to Door Household Survey to capture detailed profile of all families and residents of State
- Creation of integrated & online Samagra Population Register (SPR). Mechanism for its updation & verification, Using SPR to create online registers of BPL, SC/ST /OBC families, online registers of casual labours working in unorganized sector (7 categories), online registers of PwDs with their disability related profile.
- Institutional mechanism notified for sanction of benefits of similar nature of schemes by a single dept. with simpler process, transfer of budget head by sponsoring dept. to nodal dept & globalization of budget.
- Creation of digital repositories of various types of certificates & verified information of family/individuals.
- Design and Development of Application platform that use SPR for identification of families/individuals for sanction of benefits under schemes eg. Social Security Pensions, Marriage Assistance, Assistance to PwDs, Scholarships, PDS (Food Security) etc.
4. Output/Outcome (in qualitative & quantitative terms)
- Convergence of schemes of similar nature, implementation by single office of the nodal dept, BPR and simplification of processes and application forms.
- Entitlement based approach of governance :
- The integrated and verified database of the families has all the attribute information required to confirm the eligibility and entitlement of any scheme.
- The database throws the list of the individuals entitled for a certain scheme. The concerned office can now proactively approach the individual and extend the benefits after completing the verification and bare minimum formalities.
- The person/family gets the benefits even if it was not aware of the scheme. Thus, in case of entitlement based approach, since the ‘probable’ eligible person is known, instead of waiting for the eligible person to stand in queue and apply for a certain benefit, the government machinery proactively verifies the eligibility and provides the services to the citizen.
- Currently benefits of PDS to over 1.16 crore Families and over 5.25 Cr. Residents, Social Security Pensions to ~33 lac, Scholarships and their education related assistance of over 400 Cr. to ~84 lac Students, marriages, national family benefit etc. is being been provided using SAMAGRA platform & SPR.
