डिजीटल पंचायत कार्यशाला (Digital Panchayat Center)
Digital Panchayat Programme in Theni
We inaugurated the Digital Panchayat Centre in Theni on 28th June 2012. About 12 Panchayat Presidents and few others represented the Panchayats in Chinnamanur and Uthamapalayam Taluks in Theni District. After the inauguration, they shared that the DPP would give them more opportunities to interact with the outside world and also pave way for escalation and speedy resolution of issues in the Panchayat.
Following the decision made during the inauguration, it was decided that the Digital Panchayat Centre be established at the premises of Magalir Munnetra Sangam, the Local partner in Chinnamanur. Following the decision, Lokalex donated Rs.10,000 towards renovation August 2012 and the centre was ready for operations from end August. Then it was decided that MMS will collect data from the remaining Panchayats in Chinnamanur and Uthamapalayam Blocks in Theni and follow the process to set up another Digital Panchayat Centre at Uthamapalayam Taluk.
With constant support and motivation from Lokalex, MMS organised for a 3-day Training for women on Basic Computer Skills. (Agenda and contents attached with font). Mr. R.Ramasamy from Lokalex facilitated the training in Octt 2012. We have trained 2 staff of MMS as Trainers and they will take forward the training program.
Apart from this, enormous effort has been put by MMS to invite the Panchayat presidents to visit the centre to look up their websites and share their inputs on improvisation of the websites created. But the motivation levels of the Panchayat presidents prove very poor that there are only very rare or no visits by them to the Digital Panchayat Centre.
It is also planned that MMS completes the data collection from the remaining panchayats to have a digital space for all the village panchayats in the two Taluks in Theni District.
In addition, the Anamalayanpatty Village Panchayat President and Vice President, showed greater interest in the status of sanitation in their village and requested Lokalex to support them to overcome the issue. As a follow up, we visited the Panchayat and decided that Lokalex should support them in constructing a 20 seat community toilet complex for women, who practice open defecation due to non availability of alternate solution. In this regard, we have decided to deploy the environment friendly and sustainable solutions. It was also decided to develop the strengths of the
community by training them on various skills like mud block making, eco san pan making, construction if toilets based on the UDDT technology, etc in the village. As a first step, we have trained 7 women in making compressed mud blocks and they are in the process of making.
We have also shared the Panchayat data with Satyendra for creating a website for Anamalayanpatty. Once it is created, we plan to post more updates on the toilet project and make people understand the usefulness of the internet technology in reality. We are sure this will have a good effect on more Panchayat presidents to show interest in the project.