Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fed up with repeated glitches and pouring complaints from citizens, the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) is gearing up to replace the Integrated Local Governance Management System (ILGMS) with a more advanced and user-friendly software. The ILGMS was launched in 2020 to offer various services from local bodies online for citizens. According to official sources, the decision to introduce the new software was taken because ILGMS was found to be inefficient and was not handy to use for customers and officials.
As part of streamlining the online services, LSGD has constituted a local self-government e-governance committee, e-governance consortium and project implementation unit for launching the software at local bodies across state. Currently, ILGMS is being used by 303 grama panchayats in the state. The state government is planning to deploy the new software that would offer various services online without having to visit the offices, within six months. The newly formed project implementation unit will be headed by retired IAS officer Santhosh Babu who is also the chief mission director of Information Kerala Mission.
According to sources, the LSGD is planning to migrate the entire grama panchayats in the state to the ILGMS platform by March end and later integrate it to the new software which is being planned as an integrated platform for local bodies across state. “We encountered issues with the server capacity as the online traffic was more. We have decided to develop a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software which can be implemented at all local bodies within six months,” said a source.
The LSGD department’s plan is to introduce an integrated e-governance system for all local bodies both urban and panchayats. “Currently, ILGMS has only three online modules which offer services including basic file flow, financial module, marriage, death and birth module.We need a more efficient version which is workable for urban local bodies,” said the source. The project is being implemented by IKM using its Plan fund.