Plan Plus Software to Strengthen the Decentralized Planning Process

Published on April 7, 2010 by News Desk   ·   60 Comments  Print This Post

Akhil Sharma,,

New Delhi,,

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj in collaboration with NIC has developed a Software that helps in demystifying and strengthening the decentralized Planning Process. The software known as Plan Plus application software product is generic and open to customization by States, Line Department and Local Bodies. It is a decentralized Planning tool, which aids the various participants through the Planning process, so that informed decisions can be taken by the participants in preparing, vetting and approving the Plan. The interactive workflow starting from need assessment, identification of project, work, preparation of draft annual plans, approval by Technical Appraisal Committee and Final Approval by DPC is captured. The package also provides a holistic view of how funds from different central and state sponsored schemes could be converged to carry out works approved in a Plan.

It targets the various participants which include Rural Local Bodies, Urban Local Bodies, the Technical Approval Committees, the District Planning Committees, State Government Departments and Central Government Departments who will be responsible for preparing, vetting and approving the Plan. Rural (Panchayats) and Urban Local Bodies (Municipalities) can prepare their individual plans and converging these rural and urban plans could generate an integrated District Plan Document. Apart from these there will be User Manager at State and District Level, who will be responsible for creating and maintaining the User Account, State/System Administrators who will be involved in the State/System Administration activities. The users are expected to have a basic understanding of using a computer and familiarity with the usage of keyboard in local language and mouse

The software is a web-based software and captures the entire planning workflow starting from identification of needs, the plan approval process till the final approval by the District Planning Committee. The software is highly generic and can be extended to capture the plans prepared by line departments at the state and central level to generate the National Plan. The software :

• Facilitates decentralized planning process in local language
• Captures the planning workflow
• Converges the flow of funds from different sources
• Converges the rural and urban plans to generate an integrated district plan
• Brings about total transparency in the plan approval process
• Provides role based authentication and authorization
• Acts as a decision support tool through the use of supporting GIS and graphs.

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Tags:  Government Departments and Central Government Departments, Rural Development, Rural India