e - S h a k t i S ma r t C a r d s

A G o v e r n me n t o f B i h a r i n i t i a t i v e



Case Study: eShakti Card
An Innovative Project which got accolades for its grass-root implementation and
innovative approach to meet the challenges of the MNREGA project.


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Group Names

ABHILASHA SINHA (EEPHRM-01-01)
POONAM DHIMAN (EEPHRM-01-010)
PRIYANKA KRISHNA (EEPHRM-01-011)
SAPNA GUPTA (EEPHRM-01-018)
SWATI CHANDRA (EEPHRM-01-023)

Introduction

Government of Bihar was eager to invent something new in the field of e-Governance to
mark its presence in the state of Bihar and also to escalate the growth of development. With
a raw idea of what Government wanted, a tender was floated for parties to provide shape
to their creative idea. Smaarftech (a subsidiary of Glodyne Technoserve Ltd) was able to
meet the expectation of Government in giving a practical layout to this innovative thought.
Rest became history with implementation of first of its kind , an e-Governance project
named e-Shakti. e-Shakti project had a great start in the year 2009. Patna was the first
Pilot district where pilot project was completed successfully in 2009. Many leading
newspapers including the Indian Express featured the story on the success of this project*
[Annexure I, 4
th
Jan 2010].
The project was rated as the best e-governance project in India and also won the PC Quest
Award for the Best IT Implementation Project in the country. Looking at the success of the
implementation, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, CEO UID project had recognized it the project as the
Role Model Project for the rest of the states where implementation was still due*.
[Annexure 1]
e-Shakti was A great initiative which led to the improvement of an existing MNREGA system

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MNREGA Scheme


MMNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005), ensures
livelihood security to all living in rural areas of India. It provides at least 100 days of
guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household, whose adult member
volunteers to do unskilled manual work. The member can apply for registration orally or in
writing to the Local Gram Panchayat. On approval the member is provided with the Job Card
within fifteen days of application, bearing his photograph. Permissible works predominantly
includes water and soil conversation, afforestation and land development works. The wages
are paid under the guidelines of as the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, irrespective of gender
biases. The shelf (duration) life of the project is recommended by the Gram Sabha and
approved by the Zila Parishad. At least 50% of the projects are allocated to the Gram
Panchayats for execution. The payment tof labour is done by the people authorized by the
Government and the Gram Panchayats.

The Challenges of MNREGA

It was There was a dire need of the time to regularize the system, as current the system was
rampant with malpractices such as irregularities in attendance and payments system. The
labor was on muster role; attendance and payments were managed manually, which
resulted in the exploitation of the initiative in the hands of officers bureaucrats who were
handling the Scheme. To ensure safety and security to the contract labor, the then Honable
Chief minister of Bihar, Mr. Nitish Kumar announced the e-Shakti Project (a Bihar
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Government Initiative) as ICT (Information and Communication Technology) intervention in
the related field. The project had the potential to not only to generate more employment,
but to also effect transformation in rural, economic and social aspects/ featuresrelations at
many levels.



The e- Shakti Project (initiative which was to bring the desired improvements in an
ongoing MNREGA system )

The e-Shakti initiative was started in 2009 to eliminate malpractices and corruption in
implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MNREGA) in Bihar. It was has been an initiative by the dDepartment of Rural Development
(DoRD), Ggovernment of Bihar, was inspired by Honable Chief Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar,
monitored by BeST, Nodal agency BELTRON and executed by Smaarftech for successful
implementation of MNREGA in the state.
Since there had been allegations that the MNREGA was beset with corruption and there was
no proper method of work measurement, taking attendance and disbursing wages; e-Shakti
came up with ICT (Information and Communication Technology) (ICT) which was put to use
to rideliminate MNREGA of such charges in MNREGA..
The state government decided to cover one one million beneficiaries under the e-Shakti
scheme for its pilot districtby March 31, 2010. Subsequently over the next four remaining
years, the project would be set up in the restmaining 37 districts to cover 24 million
MNREGA beneficiaries in approximately 39,000 villages spread over 534 blocks of Bihar.
[Annexure 2]
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The project facilitates registration process of individuals, which includes recording of
personal information as well as biometric information (photograph and all 10 fingerprints).
A separate bank account has also been opened for each adult member of the household.
e-Shakti Project was done in collaboration with Department of Rural Development
,Development, Beltron (Nodal Agency), BeST (Monitoring Agency) and Smaarftech (overall
implementation).



Aims and Objective
This project aimed at
bringing transparency & accountability in the system,
faster & reliable payment services to workers,
curtailing malpractices in project implementation,
effective pProject management with improvement in quality of implementation by
replacing paper work/ manual work for muster (covering every adult above 18 years
residing in rural Bihar) through technology.
With e-Shakti, the processes of registration, receipt, job demand, muster rolls,
work, attendance, calculations and disbursement of wages had been digitized. It was
also one of the largest projects globally to be hosted on a private cloud technology
platform. In addition, advance anti-duplication system had been deployed on the
project. [Annexure 32]



Project Implementation :Implementation:
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It started with creating awareness and sensitization about the project through extensive use
of approved IEC (Information, Education and Communication) materials like-posters
pamphlets, hoardings, project brief leaflets, FAQ booklet, use of loudspeakers, and door-to-
door campaigns.
The data collection for the project was classified into two forms, Textual data through
format approved by DoRD (Department Of Rural Development) and Biometric data through
Scanners (for finger impressions) and Webcam (for photograph).
Further, AFIS (Automated Finger Identification System) was used for scrutiny of information
collected. After Verification and validation by AFIS, both the data forms were merged. After
compilation of data, smart card, personalized polycarbonate plastic card containing
personal information, fingerprints and photograph) was published and distributed.
Panchayat Rozgar Sewaks or business correspondents could then use these cards at
worksites for marking attendance and payment of wages
To facilitate use of smart cards, the team useds handheld machines with updated software
applications, which is connected with servers through GPRS and gives printed receipt of
attendance and different transactions done. For the payment every smart card holder
requires a bank account (no frill account) which is connected with smart card system, and
wages are directly credited to the account with facilities like over draft account, remittance,
recurring deposit, fixed deposit, daily deposit and has a withdrawal limit of INR 1000 daily.
For the reparation of complaints, queries/information and problems in a specified time,
there wasis a 24*7 call center, that couldan be accessed through use of web application by
simply making a call on toll free number. [Annexure 43]

Challenge and Innovation Matrix
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SN The challenges (MNREGA) Innovation of e-Shakti
1. Irregularities in attendance Attendance through Biometric machine
and Smart Cards Data Collection through
webcam/ Biometric finger-print scanners
2. Irregularities in payments system Wages directly debited into bank accounts
of the smart card holder/worker
3. Exploitation of the initiative in the
hands of officers bureaucrats
Technological intervention such as
Handheld Biometric machines, which were
connected to servers through GPRS to
eliminate the middleman and officers.
4. Heavy paper work/ Muster rolls Direct cloud computing for assimilation of
data and anti duplication technology/
software.
5. Non Accountability GPRS and bio metric scanning for
complete and real-time accountability.
6. Data duplication Deployment of AFIS
7. No grievance redressal system 24*7 dedicated e-Shakti call centre for
query & complaint registration with ticket
number and resolution TAT.

Additional Tangible and non tangible benefits
1. Employement generation for implementation of smart card and e-shakti program
2. Assimilation and compilation of complete Rural Data digitally which can be used for
later schemes
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3. A sense of support from the government at the grass-root level.


Empowering the Iinitiative

Payment to worker through e-Shakti Smart Card psychologically empowered the initiative
for rural masses and strategically to its various stakeholders. Government wanted to open
the bank account of all the beneficiaries in order to transfer the wages directly to the
account. Team checked with several banks (PNB, Canara bank, UCO Bank, and Central bank
Of India) to explore the option of opening mass scale accounts. None of the banks initially
agreed to lend support but finally Central Bank of India, agreed to open bank the accounts
but with the condition of that it should be a No Frill Account.
e-Shakti was a mass scale project and hence there was a huge requirement of manpower to
create awareness , data collection and capacity building at remote areas therefore
SMAARFTECH also wanted to tied up with various a third party agencies for the availability
of manpower and volunteers to create awareness and capacity building in remote areas..
[Annexure 4]

Reaction of the Beneficiaries, Rrural & Ggeneral Mmass to e-Shakti

This was a much hyped project, and successful completion meant that this would create
more employment opportunities as well as help in overcoming the discrepancies of
MNREGA system, moreso an end of illegal earnings for intermediaries. Therefore, the
general public was both curious and anxious to know about this project. It was important to
meet the expectations that the project & gGovernment promised. Bihar is a multicultural,
multilingual, and religiously diverse state. The communal differences were evident and
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some anti-elements tried to leverage on this opportunity to ensure that implementation
was not smooth. Initially, the turnover was also low. Awareness and Sensitization Team
was especially constituted to help the general public get them familiarize them with the
new system. This team propagated the messages via mobile vans, loudspeakers, jingles,
pamphlets and helpdesks in remote areas.




Success of the Pilot Project-

e-Shakti project was able to successfully implement the MNREGA by
guaranteeing employment to poor,
a query & grievance redressal mechanism by
providing giving them banking facilities for receiving payment directly.
It reached to every section of the society covered under MNREGA scheme.
It was able to bring the required and much needed transparency in the system.
The turn around time between the work done and wage received was significantly
brought down by the new process. [Annexure 5]






The Analysis of the case Why such innovative project failed
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e-Shakti project was a great initiative, a successful pilot project to empower the rural
people. But no innovation is successful to sustain longer in the market unless it overcomes
its sStrategic, sStructural and Behaviouralbehavioral issues. e-Shakti was a Process and
Service innovation focused on Technology which required lot of gradual enhancement and
creativity at various stages to maintain its presence at national and grass root level.
But the government policies, intervention of Mr. Nandan Nilekani, CEO UID project Top
management support plays an important role for enhancing creativity and innovation. In
the case of e-Shakti project, top management was the government, who didn't support this
innovation for the longer time , after 1 year they lost their interest and started looking it
from profit motive perspective rather an innovation at growth stage. This became one of
the major reasons why this innovation did not got further leverage and hence
declined/collapsed.
"Resource availability" plays an important role on the innovation success whether counting
time, funds, people or technology. Since e-Shakti was first of its kind project in India,
manpower and technology was a challenge. Designing technology (Biometric machines,
handheld machines, Smart Card ) suiting to the remote condition (dust, pollution,
temperature) was a tough and gradual improvement process. Trained manpower on such
technology was not available and hence hiring -training staff took longer time, thus adding
costadding cost and time in execution .
Pilot project took longer time than expected and the company didn't focus on competitive
strategy and fails with time management part. So the idea was copied and another card by
the name UID, was launched. They missed the opportunity of being first mover to market.
Budgeting done by Smaarftech in bidding was mainly with the objective of getting the
project from government and mark its presence in e-Governance. They ignored many other
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factors which ultimately occurred in losses and constrained the operations. Organization
missed on doing the "feasibility check" with available resources.
Government & Organization had a planned process approach in moving with the
implementation but it was more on paper and reflected less on field. Hence gradually
becoming an unplanned process with just managing situations and circumstances to meet
the deadlines and targets.
In the top management committee, "Blue hat"officials initially had creativity, investment,
growth and development view but as the project moved and incurred financial as well as
time loss, their focused moved on the outcome rather R&D required for required to its
growthmake it move the growth ladder . There were government official wearing red hat
whose veto power left negative impact on the future of the project. People were more
oriented towards the public image as elections were supposed to held in near future and
they didn't want any problems in that part .
Task complexity was high with codification of solution almost nil/unavailable and high in
exception , the project demanded high R&D but so was not the case with huge budget
constraints.
Conclusion
The e-Shakti was dream project of Government of Bihar and if we take a look at its pilot
project phase, there is no doubt of its success but success which is short lived does not
foster growth in creativity. The project did not reached its maturity stage and declined
before that, leaving behind lots of query , surprise on its decline. The project still has scope
for revival and can come back in its full form if strategic issues at Organization and
Government is taken care of.
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importance is given to the strategic issues at the Government and Organizational level.
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Annexure 1














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Annexure 2
` Annexure 3

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Annexure 43
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Annexure 4








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Annexure 5

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Annexure 5
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