Capacity Building and ESMF

Component 2: Capacity Building for Gram Panchayats and ESMF –

Gram Panchayats capacity building ESMF component deals with mentoring and formal training to strengthen the institutional capacity of GPs. The achievements made under this component are:

▪ A total of 113630 mentoring days of hand holding support has been provided to GP employees and Elected representatives through 62 mentoring teams on planning and governance, financial management and procurement and rural engineering issues

▪ The  project  has  supported  the  development  of  the  Gram  Panchayat  Management System (GPMS) for online accounting and uploading of GP financial data and provision of services such as birth & death registration, issue of residential and income certificates and trade registration certificates

▪ The Environment and Social Management Framework (ESMF) has been developed in order to address the environmental and social issues that may arise as a result of the infrastructure development and service delivery activities taken up by the GPs. Since the GP activities are likely to be comparatively small in size, cover a range of sectors (water supply, rural roads, construction of ICDS centres etc.) and are likely to have only limited manageable impacts, a framework approach has been adopted. ESMF provides a set of procedures and mechanism to ensure that the environmental and social considerations are integrated into the planning and scheme execution process of the GPs through screening of activities during planning stage and mitigation measures at project execution stage.

ISGP  Project has developed two guidelines with checklists and screening formats for effective implementation of Environmental safeguards and it was issued in the form of a G.O. by the Panchayats & Rural Development Department which is applicable to Gram Panchayats across the state across all untied funds since 2013-2014.

The project has developed, tested and stabilized system improvement initiatives such as web-based monitoring, computerised accounting and its linkage with MOPR portal, Annual Performance Assessment (through independent firm) linked performance grant, web based monitoring system, GIS-based concurrent monitoring of activity and meetings, web based Grievance Redressal Mechanism for accountable and transparent citizencentric service delivery.

▪ The project has developed and circulated the Procurement Manual, GPMS Operating Manual and Internal Audit reporting format amongst all GPs across the state. A Mentoring Manual has also been developed for all GPs.

▪ The project has piloted solid waste management and safe drinking water initiatives linked with Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Rural) and Mission Nirmal Bangla and is implementing the system in 200 GPs.