Bengaluru, Jan 24 (IANS): In order to make the village panchayats more accountable and to strengthen democracy at the grass-roots level, the Karnataka government has come up with a new software -- 'Panchatantra 2.0' (P 2.0).
The new initiative is being implemented by the Department of Rural Development and Panchayt Raj (RDPR).
L.K. Atheeq, additional chief secretary in RDPR, said the new software has a dedicated meeting management module. The software records the decisions and makes them immune from tampering.
For this purpose, a comprehensive digitally-assisted decentralised governance tool has been designed, he added.
The software also effectively deals with absence of representatives in gram panchayats. There is a provision that if elected members skip four meetings, they can be disqualified. Many claim that they don't even know about the meetings. The new software can send SMS alerts and generate meeting notices, sources said.
The software also addresses the issue of tampering of handwritten recordings of the proceedings of the gram panchayats. Now, the proceedings, records etc. will be immediately updated on the site with digital signatures, the sources said.
The software has registered 82,170 elected members, 5,494 presidents, 5,673 vice-presidents and 52,788 staff members.
Karnataka has 6,000 gram panchayats.