Better monitoring of the trusts with the online information portal

Citizens make informed choices and the authorities monitor in a better way with access to the information portal
- Preeti Gaur

The Minorities Development Department implements the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report as well as Prime Minister’s New 15 Point Programme for minorities. The main objectives of the department are to focus on inclusive growth and to attain justice & equality for all. The department has a mandate of protecting the constitutional rights of all minority communities viz. Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi & Jain.
Project Head
Ainul Attar
Joint Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Challenges
This project aims to enlist the information system of all the Minority Status gained trusts in the state of Maharashtra on a single platform. This includes different schools, colleges and other educational institutions under the trusts. This information would then enable the citizens of the state to know about the number of schools/colleges/educational institutions available at various locations in the state and avail the benefits of the same as feasible.
The department was also not able to keep a tab on defunct trusts.
The Implementation
The Minorities Development Department implemented an information portal developed with .Net and Oracle. It hosts complete details of minority trusts with the details of various educational institutes run by it along with the details of Board of Directors.
The Result
The project benefits in the following ways:
1.    Citizens get easy access to information of all minority trusts, educational institutions on one website
2.    Authorities are now able to keep a tab on defunct trusts.
3.    Validation of these trusts is possible online.
This information system can be further used to map certain benefits that are being passed on to the institutes/societies and keep a track of the same by the department.