Bhubaneswar: To make delivery of G2C services (government to citizen) more accurate and quicker, the state government has initiated the development of Social Registry and Integrated Social Protection Delivery Platform (SPDP).
A national level workshop to this effect was held here Tuesday wherein experts from World Bank, Central government and various states shared their expertise and best practices in the field.
Inaugurating the workshop, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said, “SPDP is based on 5Ts (Teamwork, Technology, Transparency, Transformation and Time limit) principles of the state government and this will help in catering to citizens’ needs more efficiently”.
He said SPDP needs building up a social registry of the citizens with concrete and authenticated data base and emphasised appropriate and ethical use of the data incorporated in the social registry.
Outlining the objectives of the workshop, Finance Secretary Ashok Kumar Meena said, “The state has a wide variety of social assistance programmes which account for a large share of GSDP annually. These programmes are administered by concerned departments with their own data base and beneficiary registers.”
Development of an integrated social registry would make identification of beneficiaries more transparent, quicker and accountable. This would also reduce the costs involved in transmission of benefits and services to the targeted beneficiaries.
Meena further said the workshop was intended to capture the requirements of respective departments and other stakeholders for establishing a social registry. The practices adopted by some states within India and countries abroad would also be looked into for working out the best model for Odisha.
The one-day workshop was organised in two sessions including outlining and inaugural session and technical session. John Blanquest, an expert from World Bank, presented the practices of social protection platform being followed in some countries.
Odisha has been implementing direct benefit transfer (DBT) for the last three years. At present, the state DBT Cell is functioning under the administrative control of Finance department.
Meanwhile, an online portal- https://dbt.odisha.gov.in – has been made operational. So far 17 schemes of both the state and Union governments have been incorporated in the portal. Steps are being taken to bring more schemes under DBT fold, sources said.