Professional Documents
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Objective : To provide financial assistance to the families of SC communities for construction of house
without any time delay.
Beneficiaries of the Project:
1. Scheduled Caste people in Kerala
2. Scheduled Caste Development Department of Kerala
Client Department: Scheduled Caste Development Department, Government of Kerala.
Brief description of the Project:
The SC Development Department is giving financial assistance for construction of house to the families of SC
community. The houses are constructed by the beneficiaries themselves and the amounts are being released
to the beneficiaries in installments on the construction of the house reaching certain stages.
In the previous manual system for disbursement of housing assistance, the SC beneficiaries submit the
application form for getting assistance from Govt. in the prescribed formats along with necessary supporting
documents to the District Development officer (DDO) of SC Department directly or to the Scheduled Caste
Development Officer (SCDO) in the corresponding Block Panchayats/ Municipal Corporations/ Municipalities.
The application is verified and processed by the SCDO and thereafter at the District Office of SC Dept. to issue
the sanction order. The beneficiary then executes an agreement with the Department before receiving the 1st
installment of payment. After completing each stage of the work, SCDO conducts site inspections and Certified
Stage certificates are sent to the DDO for disbursing the next installments of the payment. The amounts are
being released to the beneficiaries in installments through the SCDOs in the Block Panchayats/ Municipal
Corporations/Municipalities.
In spite of best intentions there is delay in these disbursements, as allotments have to be secured from the
DDOs, bills written up in Block Offices and counter‐signed in District Offices, amounts drawn from Treasuries,
Demand Drafts taken from the Bank, given to the beneficiaries, who have to then take them to the Bank and
draw the cash. This process also entails considerable follow up by the beneficiary, who has to sacrifice several
days of work to finally get the funds.
The new e‐housing system is a web enabled solution. The beneficiary submits the application with necessary
supporting documents to the (Scheduled Caste Development Officer) SCDO. The SCDO verify the application
and supporting documents, conduct detailed enquiry on the applicant and site inspection, and if everything is
found in order, enter the details in the application in the e‐housing system, upload the scanned images of
supporting documents, and recommend the application with his remarks. The e‐housing system generates a
unique number to the case, with the number denoting the District, the Local Body, year and the number of the
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beneficiary, and forwards the application to the inbox of the District Office Clerk. The District Office Clerk
verifies the application online and checks the system‐generated draft sanction order online and passes it on to
the inbox of the Junior Superintendent. The Junior Superintendent verifies the application and draft sanction
order, and recommends it to the District Development Officer for Scheduled Castes (DDO) for approval of
sanction order. The DDO approves and issues the final sanction order, also instructing the beneficiary to open
a Savings Bank account in a convenient Post Office. This sanction order reaches the inbox of SCDO.
On receipt of sanction order, the SCDO shall give a printout of the order to the beneficiary and help him to
open a Post Office Savings Bank account. After account opening, the beneficiaries are required to execute an
agreement in the presence of SCDO. The agreement is generated through the online software and printed by
the SCDO and signed by the beneficiary and the SCDO. Based on the agreements executed, the SCDO
generates the first installment claim statement through the e‐housing system and forward it online to District
Development Office along with agreements executed. In the District Office, the claim statement first reaches
the District Office Clerk and from there to Junior Superintendent for verification and remarks. The Junior
Superintendent forwards it online to the DDO for approval. The DDO approve the claim statement online and
issue a Disbursement order Head Post Office‐wise.
The disbursement order along with Demand draft for the amount is given to the respective Head Post Offices
for crediting the amounts in the Postal Savings Bank Accounts of the beneficiaries. Similarly, for releasing
subsequent installments, the SCDO is required to verify the completion of the prescribed stage of construction
and furnish the verification certificate online to the DDO for arranging release of further installments through
the Postal Savings Bank Accounts of the beneficiaries. The SMS alert system in the e‐housing system sent
messages to the beneficiaries during the disbursement of each installment amount.
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The processes are highly user specific and are done by authorized users only. All the authorized users are given logins also. Encryption has been done in the
critical areas of the system.
PROCESS FLOW OF E‐HOUSING SYSTEM
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Role of C‐DIT in the project:
• System Study and Development of new web based system for disbursement of financial Assistance for home
construction
• Time bound implementation of e‐housing system which includes database creation of existing beneficiaries
and hands‐on training to the various levels of users.
• 24 * 7 telephonic support and query resolution for all stakeholders and Beneficiaries.
• Maintenance and Updation of the new system.
ii. Brief description of the key persons who are involved in this
1. Shri. Paul P. Antony, Former Principal Secretary, SC/ ST Development Department
2. Shri. K. Sasidhara IAS, Director, Scheduled Caste Development Department
3. Shri. Pranab Jyothi Nath IAS, Registrar, C‐DIT
4. Shri. Salim T.K, IT Nodal Officer, Scheduled Caste Development Department
5. Smt. Deepa N., Team Leader, C‐DIT
6. Smt. Rajitha K.S, C‐DIT
7. Shri Aneez M., C‐DIT
8. Shri.LixonDas R.S, C‐DIT
iii. Achievements of the project/ outcome of the project
• Disbursement of housing assistance to almost 16500 beneficiaries are done online through this system.
• An amount of Rs. 35.62 lakhs has been disbursed as on date through the system during the current
financial year.
• Opened Postal Savings Bank account for the beneficiaries.
• The beneficiaries can withdraw their amounts from their Postal SB accounts within no time.
• The e‐housing system is a web based software and hence can be accessed from anywhere and at any
time.
• This new system made the whole process transparent to the beneficiaries. The beneficiary can monitor
the present status of their application and fund details through the online software without going to the
department.
• The time for processing an application had been reduced drastically to one third of time taken earlier in
the manual system.
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• Reduced paper works in the SCDO offices and SC District offices which in turn reduced the amount of
human effort.
• The e‐housing system reduces the time delay in the disbursement process and simplifies the
disbursement mechanism of housing assistance. This enables timely disbursement of each installments of
housing assistance to the beneficiary.
• The amount is disbursed directly to the postal savings bank account of the beneficiary and hence
inappropriate utilization of the amount can be avoided.
• The e‐housing system improved the functional efficiency of the SC Department.
• Various reports which can be used for audit purposes and for fine tuning the policies related with the
housing scheme can be generated in minutes.
iv. Details of the challenges that you faced while implementing the project & how did you overcome
them
• To make the public aware of the new e‐housing scheme
• Handholding to the Departmental staff at the 14 District Offices, 155 block level offices and at the
Directorate