Concept

After the successful completion of election of local bodies all eyes are upon the local government and their functioning. We are still to witness whether local body live up to meet the expectation of the general public and deliver all the promises they made during the election. In order to assist the local bodies/government in smooth operation and functioning of the overall activities, we have proposed a ‘Janata Sanga Sarkar’ application by which local government can stay connected and communicated with their citizens. The application keeps the public updated regarding all the plans, policies and programs of local bodies. Meanwhile, public can provide feedbacks and suggestions along with the grievances if any, which in the long run helps to maintain a healthier and meaningful relationship between government and public. And the most important feature of this application is that the top governing body (say state or central government) can keep track of what’s happening in the local body by continuous monitoring of each and every activity takes place in the local body.

Introduction

The application will be web based, meaning it will need internet connection to access. For the easiness of the use, citizen will be getting access through the mobile application and governing body (local government) will access the system through web application. The public can get access to information, notices, upcoming activities, progress report and all other information from their mobile application and can raise question, give feedback and suggestions, share grievances through mobile application. Meanwhile, local bodies will access the system as web application which makes them easier to publish notices, publish policies and programs, share information and progress and communicate to upper level bodies. Thus this ‘Janata Sanga Sarkar’ application aims to bring an effective communication between government and public through transparent sharing of all sorts of information and upcoming activities/events.

Scope & Purpose

After the fall of monarchy, Nepal has adopted Federal Democratic Republic System practicing participative democracy. Participatory democracy emphasizes the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. Participative democracy strengthens when citizens are made more powerful by having their voice heard. Meaning, citizen are directly or indirectly involved in majority of the plans, policies and activities performed by the local government. Through the use of ‘Janata Sanga Sarkar’ application, citizens can directly communicate with their representatives and can have their say regarding government plans, policies and programs. The impact of which can be directly traced through the application. The application facilitates prompt sharing of information and feedback mechanism which helps in real time tracking of overall progress made by local government. The system also allows the federal government and central government to track the progress of local government and make their overall monitoring job less tedious. Sharing of meeting agendas and minutes helps the citizen to suggest and offer feedbacks regarding several issues being discussed in the meeting.
Following are the scopes and purpose of this application in short:

● Strengthen participative democracy
● Minimize the gap between local government and citizens
● Prompt sharing of the information, notices, plans, policies, programs
● Establish proper feedback and suggestion mechanism
● Real time tracking of progress made by government
● Proper monitoring by the central and federal government

Software Module

1) Suggestions and Reporting from Citizen:

The feedback and response module provides a platform for citizens to express their views regarding any certain actions or works that is taking place. It also provides a clear concept regarding the task performed, its progress, changes needed and drawbacks regarding the works performed if any from the citizens’ perspective, which as a result gives an overview towards the work that is being performed.

2) Information regarding the plans, policies and information:

Providing the information regarding the promises made by local bodies to the general public is one of the main feature of this software. It helps the general public provide a clear concept of the works that are to be performed by the local bodies. For e.g. : If the plan is to pave the roads of any village, the information regarding how long is it going to take place, who will be looking after the work, when is the work due, what policies will be implemented to finish the work without any hindrance will all be mentioned to update the public regarding the work.

3) Citizen Pole for Decision Making:

We propose to insert a platform for the citizens’ poll where citizens can cast their vote and participate in the various decision making functions through the relevant governing bodies. Local bodies can create an online poll asking citizens to select certain options as per their necessity and importance e.g. voting to expend certain budget in certain field out of many option, e.g. a poll created to spend a budget of 100000 in any one of the sector between health, education, sport as per their relevance.

4) Suggestions and Comments from Citizen:

We propose to design a platform in our software a space where citizens can provide suggestion to the relevant bodies on any sector which will work on the concept of “Hello Sarkar”. General Public can also express their concerns and comments upon the different plans, programs and policies formulated and implemented by the relevant bodies.

5) Budgeting and Planning:

We propose to design one platform in our software where the information regarding the budget allocated within the relevant body, tax collected within that body, proposed expenses under different sector under revenue module and also the budgeted expenses under capital expenses module. This can help bring transparency in the functioning of the local bodies and reduce the scope of unproductive expenses of those bodies.

6) Program & Contract Program Report:

On this module government bodies will prepare a list of programs to be brought into action, whereas publish report analysis of program which is operating to the general public. On this module, general public will have idea regarding what sorts of program will be conducted in their respective areas by their representatives.

7) Organizational Structure:

We propose to design one platform in our software which will cover the different organizational structure of the relevant bodies. All those posts shall be filled by the recruited/elected member. Each member’s detailed biograph shall be feeded into the software which shall compose the history, qualification, recruited date, family background and other relevant description.

8) Minute Reports:

This section of software shall be specially designed to help in implementation of “Right to Information Act”. All the detailed decision taken by the different meetings of the relevant governing bodies shall be documented and revealed to the citizens through this section. Our Software shall also provide the section in this same platform where the scanned copies of minute of meetings of different meetings shall be published.

9) Complain Box:

This section provides the platform to the citizen to make a complain against any governmental personnel or to make a complaint against any unethical circumstances prevailing in that local level area. In addition, citizen can also raise the concerns regarding the ineffective method or hindrance prevailing in the developmental projects in the local body. We propose to create a mechanism to make the bodies answerable to those complaints wherein those complaints shall be answered to the public within a week.

10) Member Tracking:

The sole purpose of this part of the module is to tract weather the field employee is correctly Functioning the objective of field operation. The employee sent to the field will be given strong direction of being tracked by GPS system from the mobile application provided from the office. The tracked employee will be seen through the web application in a map correctly.

11) Time Schedule:

This module will provide the information to the public about the time schedule of the particular day of Their representatives and the government servant. With the help of the module the public will be notified Prior to visiting office if their representative will be available.

12) Zinc:

This section provides details of all the logistic contents of Municipality / Ward, and related branches are kept in it; List of all logistic management items in the office can be viewed.

13) Attendance/Leave:

This module helps to make and attendance and leave information by the employee through the mobile application. The attendance can be made from the mobile being only at office. The employee can also track the leave status of weather the leave is approved by the concerning officials.