e-Panchayat - Panchayati Raj Act

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 marked a new era in the democratic set up of the country as it created Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) as tiers of self governance below the level of States in the federal set up. It is also a landmark in the decentralized development as it envisions people’s participation in the process of planning, decision-making, implementation and delivery. These Constitutional provisions provide for devolution of powers and responsibilities to different tiers of PRIs with respect to preparation of plans and programmes for economic development and social justice and their implementation in relation to 29 Subjects listed in the Eleventh Schedule.

The Article 243 G (of 74th Constitutional Amendment Act) mandates powers and authority to enable PRIs (Panchayati Raj Insitutions) to function as institutions of self government, and prepare plans to implement schemes including for matters listed in 11^th schedule.

Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in India are an indigenous concept of local self governance which promotes decentralized governance by participation of the ordinary public in their own governance.

The Panchayats, the rural local governments of India, serve more than two-thirds of the population of the country. Improving management functions of those bodies for better delivery of services is very important for the well-being of the rural people. The ePRI Mission Mode Project holds great promise for the rural masses as it aims at streamlining the delivery of government services to them through Panchayats

One important way of improving functioning of those bodies is through appropriate applications of e-Governance measures, which is one of the Mission Mode Projects conceived by the Government of India in the year 2006.

PRIs offer India’s rural villagers an opportunity to participate in village planning processes, to engage with the various developmental schemes being implemented by the Government and to interact with their elected representatives directly to ensure that their interests are being effectively served and their money properly spent.

However, several constraints are faced in that process. First of all, there is insufficiency of number of staff, of whom the quality does not often match their responsibilities because of local recruitment and other reasons.
Secondly, those are new institutions in its current form in most of the states and there is yet to be established good administrative practices backed by appropriate rules, manuals etc. to guide functioning of those bodies.
Thirdly, the elected functionaries of those bodies have much less experience and capacities of holding public office as compared to their counterparts in the higher levels of government. Also, such problem is much higher at the lowest tier, i.e., the Gram Panchayats, which is the most important tier of local government. At the same time, while a strong bureaucracy exists for the state government for guiding the elected representatives in conforming to rules and procedures, a weak bureaucracy that exists at most of the local bodies, particularly at the lower tier, does not have that advantage.
All those require taking appropriate steps by the state governments & the voluntary sector in improving governance. One aspect of such improvement is adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based interventions, i.e., adoption of e-Governance measures for improving governance. 

Actually the planning process has till now been scheme based but it has been understood that planning has to be need based.