JAMMU, FEBRUARY 28: Jammu and Kashmir government has launched ‘Jan Bhagidhari’ to encourage participatory democracy to ensure rapid development in the Union Territory.
The government has launched an intensive public outreach campaign to raise awareness about the schemes being implemented for the empowerment of the common masses.
The campaign included targeted delivery of health insurance among the rural population, quantifiable panchayat wise self-employment, and installation of the functional tap water connection to each household besides a slew of public programmes to facilitate Jan bhagidhari by making government working more transparent and participatory for the general public.
One of the major initiatives to further public participation in the overall development process in the UT, the J&K government launched the ‘Janta Ki Scheme-Janta ki Bhagidari’ campaign. The program focused on improving public access to the BEAMS-EMPOWERMENT portal. It is a simple way of viewing details about all ongoing works in an area to inform and solicit people’s participation in the development process and corruption-free governance.
The idea is to make the working of government institutions more transparent at the grassroots level and enable people to keep a check on the progress of development projects. Every citizen can now access details about the type and extent of work under execution in their area or any part of the Union Territory at the click of a button. This technologically advanced utility will ensure the quality and timely completion of development works.
The information available on this one-stop platform www.beamsjk.gov.in can even be utilized for timely feedback and suggestions by the public for improving expenditure outcomes in the spirit of ‘Jan Bhagidari’ thereby enabling them to directly participate in the development of their area.
As of date, the portal hosts 33099 works being executed in the Union Territory at a cumulative cost of around Rs 12200 crore with micro details of up to village level.
Jammu and Kashmir is the first in the country for taking lead in enforcing reforms in expenditure management and an account of each penny has been made available in the public domain.
Another initiative of the government, Budget, Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS) is an online computerized web-based application for preparation and authorization of budget. It enables the online flow of resources and the departments can allocate funds to their field offices through this system. It supports reliable, accurate, and better monitoring control for budget planning and expenditure audit besides real-time reconciliation of accounts in comparison to manual budgeting process which lacks transparency.
The government has taken a string of other e-initiatives in addition to BEAMS and EMPOWERMENT to achieve greater transparency and accountability in its functioning. Some prominent among those included PROOF (Photographic Record of On-site Facility), which is a mobile app for monitoring progress on all the works allocated to different departments. It gives the public a pictorial view of works along with their geographical coordinates including latitude and longitude besides user comments on work progress.
JKPaySys (JK Payment System) is another e-initiative of the government to enable online submission of bills to treasuries eliminating unwarranted delays and corrupt practices. Further, as a result of sustained institutional reforms in the UT and a sharp focus on the completion of works in a time-bound manner, there is a substantial impact on the ground in terms of the completion of projects.
To date, a total of 21943 projects have been completed across the Union Territory including 9229 projects completed during 2018-19 and 12637 during 2019-20.
The primary objective of all these remarkable initiatives is to ensure public participation in the overall development process in the UT. These steps are aimed at strengthening the institution of Jan bhagidari (public participation) making it an integral part of transparent and accountable governance.
The J&K administration is earnestly working for the past two years to make the entire governance structure transparent and accessible to the public in a total hassle-free manner.
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