West Bengal Gram Panchayats Complete eGovernance Project

AMD and the West Bengal Government have announced the successful deployment of AMD Athlon X2 dual-core processor based desktops for the Gram Panchayat eGovernance project. The project was aimed at enabling effective governance through PC penetration within the Panchayat Raj institutions. The deployment covers all 210 Gram Panchayats across 19 districts of the state to primarily bridge the digital divide and further socio-economic opportunities for its citizens and was initiated by the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development department of the Government of West Bengal.

The project was completed in association with the National Informatics Centre, Kolkata unit and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Kolkata. In addition, the project realised community action in all development initiatives in the rural sector by utilising Central/ State sector programmes.

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Dr Subir Roy, State Information Officer, National Informatics Centre, West Bengal unit, said, “We wanted a dependable technology partner for this project, so that we could implement a performance oriented and scalable solution. Our objectives have been met with AMD as our technology partner. Bringing in AMD helped us contain the deployment costs within the same investment envelope, thereby, reaching the benefits to a larger section of the population.”

A B Saha, executive director, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, West Bengal, said, “The aim of eGovernance projects is to bring about a positive change in the development of rural areas. Our software such as the Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS) is designed to provide effective and decentralised governance and elevate the standards of rural areas. In addition, AMD was a natural choice due to its architecture and reliability”.

Ranjit Kumar Maiti, joint secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development Department, Government of West Bengal and head, Computerisation Cell, West Bengal State Rural Development Agency, said, “With AMD’s help, we were able to implement a cost effective, innovative and standardised technology solution, which was extremely manageable and scalable. As a consequence, the PR&RD department was able to quickly and economically produce the required output, allowing us to provide higher quality services to our citizens.”

Ian Williams, corporate vice president, Asia Pacific Region, AMD, said, “The Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Department (PR&RD) of the West Bengal government is one of the progressive departments in the country, which endeavors to effectively leverage the benefits of ICT. Moreover, we at AMD completely support this cause of integrating technology into the public management framework in order to bring the benefits of ICT in rural areas.”

Ramkumar Subramanian, AMD India’s recently appointed sales & marketing vice president said, “The bulk of the Indian population resides in rural areas. The potential of technology lies in its ability to connect a vast network of individuals across vast geographies at relatively low costs. We are very happy to have managed the Government’s expectations by delivering technology to meet their needs.”

The project involved expansion of existing PC infrastructure to ensure that software such as the Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS), Integrated Fund Monitoring and Accounting System (IFMAS) and Rural Household Survey (RHS) could be installed and accessed quickly and efficiently by all Panchayati Raj institutions. A key mandate for this undertaking was to ensure that the planned infrastructure should not be impacted by rural environment conditions such as dust and power irregularities.