Product - mGramSeva - iFIX

Owned by Chandra Kiran (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jan 04, 2022
31 min read

Introduction  

This document contains Product Requirements and specifications of mGramSeva.

mGramSeva app is majorly used to capture revenue and expenditures of GPWSCs. This will also help in brining about financial transparency to DWSS department on handed over schemes.

iFIX is designed and developed in 4 important parts.

  1. mGramSeva

  2. iFIX Adapter

  3. IFIX Core

  4. Reference dashboard

 

About mGramSeva

  1. Manage Gram Panchayats Master Data

    1. Manage Gram Panchayat Administrator

      1. Scheme handed over to GPWSC - RD

      2. Scheme with WSSD - WSSD

  2. Manage GP Level Settings

    1. Electricity Meters etc..

  3. Manage User Access 

  4. Manage Receipts

  5. Manage Expenditure

  6. View Reports

  7. Integrate with iFix Adaptor

    1. Manage Internal Transaction to Head Mappings

    2. Post to iFIX

      1. Save Reference ID

    3. Reconcile Transactions

    4. Fetching data from other systems

      1. Rural development system

      2. Banks

      3. Origami

      4. PFMS/Treasury

      5. PSPCL

Abbreviations

Abbreviations

Description

GP

Gram Panchayat

HH

Household

FY

Financial Year

PSPCL

Punjab State Power Corporation Limited.

IFMS

Integrated Financial Management System

PFMS

Public Financial Management System

GPWSC

Gram Panchayat Water Supply and Sanitation Committee

 



Why mGramSeva

  1. No visibility in the financial information(revenue and expenditure) of the GPWSS run schemes.

Objectives

  1. Digitize the revenue collection process for water charges pertaining to schemes under GPWSC.

  2. Digitize expenditure information of schemes under GPWSC

  3. Pass the digitized fiscal information into the reference dashboard via iFIX.



Success Metrics

  1. 70% of GPs  from Anandpur Division should start using GPWSS system in month 1

  2. 90% GPs should start using GPWSS System by month 3

Potential Risks

  1. Not having adoption at ground

    1. Revenue collector not having a smart phone.

    2. Possible poor-connectivity issues in certain villages?

Users

  1. GPWSC committee 

    1. Sarpanch/Secretary 

      1. View the dashboards by month/by billing cycle to ensure collections and expenditure rightly collected and spent. 

    2. Treasurer

      1. Generate bulk demand for each billing cycle in addition to viewing the dashboards for each billing cycle.

  2. Revenue collector

    1. Revenue collector is responsible for collection of revenue under each billing cycle. 

      1. Visiting each HH, raising bills, entering meter details for HH with metered connection, collecting the amount and handling collected revenue back to treasurer/committee will be part of Revenue collectors job.

Types of roles

  1. Collection Operator

  2. GP Admin (Consumer creation)

  3. Revenue (Bulk Demand) Processing

  4. Expense Processing

  5. GP Dashboard 

 

Feature List

 

 

Feature Group

Sub - Feature

Remarks

Login

Select Language



Login



Forget Password



Cards listing based on roles (Landing Page)



Tenant Selection

Select Tenant



Switch Tenant



Generate Bulk Demand

Generate Bulk Demand



Bulk notification



Household information (New/Edit/Search)

New Connection



Search Connection



Edit Connection



View Household information



Billing

Raise Water bill (Metered)



Generate Bill (Acknowledgment screen)



SMS Notification



Bill PDF



Exception cases ??should this be handled.



Bill sequence number (Config)



Revenue of

Collect Payment



Generate Receipt



SMS Notification / eMail



Receipt PDF



Online Payment interface (navigated from SMS)



Payment gateway integration



Expenditure

Add Expense



Update expense detail



Dashboard

View collection & Exp dashboard



Sort & Filter Revenue table



Sort & Filter Expenditure table



Master

Revenue and Expenditure Heads

State

Scheme Master

State

Electricity Connection

Tenant

Boundary (Hierarchy Type, Boundary Type and Boundary)

State

Gram Panchayat

State

User Role

State

User

 

Rate

Tenant

Billing Cycle

 

Integration

PSPCL

NA

 

Out of scope : 

  • Penalty Calculation (P2)

  • Advance Payment (P2)


Links to Screens

Application Flow 


Registration, Login and tenant selection

 

Step

Description 

Screens

1

Registration:

Users will be invited to the GP system via SMS. SMS will take the user to a language selection screen followed by a password setup screen.

Users will have 3 languages to select English,  Hindi and Punjabi.

GPs linked to the user's mobile number are shown on this screen.

Password Validation

Once the password is set, the user can log into the system.

2

Click on ‘Continue to login’  to proceed to the login screen.

Enter phone number and password to login.

For users associated with single GP, home screen will be shown with NO Dropdown for GP selection

IF a GP is added/removed to a user at a later point of time, the same will be added/removed from dropdown.



3

For users associated with multiple GPs, the home screen will be shown with Dropdown for GP selection.

Drop down will contain a list of GPs linked to the user's mobile number in alphabetical order.

Show GP Code along with GP name

4

Users who want to reset their password or forgot password will come on forgot password screen by clicking on “Forgot Password” Link on login screen.

Enter phone number and continue to receive a link to reset password.

Phone number should NOT be new. It should already be existing (linked to any GPs) in the system



How will users change of phone number be entered?

 

 

New Connection & Modify connection

 

Step

Description 

Screens

1

Home Screen:

Users will see maximum 9  cards on home screen

  1. House Hold Register

  2. Create consumer

  3. Update Contact info

  4. Generate Water Bill

  5. Collect payments

  6. Download bill and receipts

  7. Add Expense record

  8. Update Expense record

  9. Dashboard

Validations: Depending on roles users will be able to take respective actions.

2

Consumer Creation

Users can create new HH/Consumer/Connection in the application using this option.  

UX after submitting the page - Confirm with Antriksh

Data Elements: 

  1. Consumer name*

  2. Father/spouse name*

  3. Phone number*

  4. Connection ID*

  5. Street number/street name

  6. Property type *

    1. Residential

    2. Commercial

  7. Service type*

    1. Metered Connection

    2. Non-Metered Connection

  8. Arrears

    1. Total Amount

    2. As on -  Date/Bill Month

Validations: 

  1. Same phone number with multiple connection IDs are allowed.

  2. Show error message when <user>  tries to create a second connection with the same connection ID, even if it is with a different phone number, name and address.

 

3

Edit Consumer information

Edit contact info (Home Screen) -> Search connection -> Consumer detail Screen

Connection ID is not editable. Rest all fields are editable.



4

Closed/Inactive connections



 

 

Generate Bulk Demand

Step

Description 

Screens

1

This screen will be used by <role> to generate Bulk demand for non-metered consumer types in the GP.

Once Demand is generated for a billing cycle  all non-metered consumers will get notification that a bill is generated.

*Metered connections will get bill generated messages only after meter reading is entered. 

Data Elements:

  1. Service Category

  2. Service Type

  3. Billing Year/FY

  4. Billing Cycle

    1. Monthly

    2. Bi Monthly

    3. Quarterly

    4. Half yearly

    5. Yearly



Validations

If the demand is already generated, it should generate only for those HH for which demand does not exist for the given cycle. 





 

2

Online Payment



An SMS with payment link is sent to HH(Non-metered) as soon as demand is generated. This link will contain payment to current month plus arrears if any.

For metered connections,SMS is sent only after revenue collector visits the household enters meter readings and generates the bill.

 

Billing

Step

Description 

Screens

1

<User> Can search for HH by mobile number or connection ID



Use Cases

  1. Mobile number or connection ID exists

  2. Mobile number has more than one HH

  3. Mobile number or connection ID doesn’t exist

  4. Both mobile number and Connection ID entered

    1. Correct mapping

    2. Incorrect mapping

2

Screen when HH mobile number has more than 1 Connection.

Each card will show following details

  1. Connection ID

  2. Owner Name

  3. Household Address

  4. CTA - View Details

3

After searching for HH by phone number or connection ID <user> lands onto this screen.

Show below details of the user

  1. Consumer Name

  2. Fathers/Spouse Name

  3. Phone number

  4. Connection ID

  5. Door Number

  6. Street Name/Street Number

Under this Aggregate information of the user is shown by the selected time range Financial year?

  1. Total amount paid

  2. Months paid for/ Months Demand is generated

  3. Units consumed

    1. For non metered connection this will be NA

  4. Months not billed

    1. Number of months in the selected year the household is not billed.

  5. Months unpaid

    1. Bill is raised but payment is not collected

  6. Net Due

    1. Amount to be paid against the bills raised

Below the aggregate information month wise billing information will be shown to <user>

Each card will have

  1. Month

  2. Amount

  3. Status & Actions (Mapped)

    1. Paid - Amount is collected

      1. Download Receipt

      2. Download Bill

    2. Unpaid - Bill is raised but amount is not collected

      1. Collect Payment

      2. Download Bill

    3. Unbilled -  Demand is generated but bill is not raised (Metered connections)

      1. Generate Bill

  4. Actions

    1. Generate Bill 

      1. Non metered connection - Generate bill option won’t be there as bill is already generated while demand creation

      2. Metered connection - User will be taken to generate a bill screen where meter readings will be entered.

    2. Download Bill

      1. Users will be taken to the download bill screen. A notification will be sent to HH with link to PDF

Is this possible? Are we storing month/cycle wise bill information for previous years too in the system?

  1. Collect Payment

    1. User will be taken to payment collection screen for respective cycle

  2. Download Receipt

    1. User will be taken to download receipt screen.Notification will be sent to HH with link to PDF

4

To generate bill for metered connection <role> will come onto this screen where

  1. Service category - Do we need this?

  2. Property type- Default

  3. Service type - Metered - Default

  4. Billing cycle(Month)

    1. Drop down can show list of months for which demand has been generated but not yet billed

  5. Previous meter reading (Number validation)

  6. New meter reading (Number validation)



Clicking on generate bill will generate bill for HH

Notification will be sent to HH

<role> will have the option to download the bill on his device.



5

HH information-> Generate Bill->Collect payment

HH information-> Collect payment

Payment information

  1. Bill ID number - Format

  2. Billing - Need to confirm whether payment will be collected for each month individually or will there  be only one bill generated which includes previous month bills as arrears?

 

Expense Record

 

Step

Description 

Screens

1

<user> Can record expenses from this screen.

Following details are captured while entering expense record 

  1. Vendor Name

  2. Type of expense (Expenditure heads)

  3. Amount

  4. Bill Issued Date (Calendar Selection)

  5. Bill Paid

    1. YES

      1. Amount Paid

        1. Partial

          1. Bill Due Date

        2. Full

    2. NO

      1. Bill Due Date

  6. Attach Bill



2

User gets to this screen from two flows

Home screen -> Click on Dashboard -> Expenditure Tab

Home Screen -> Update Expenses 

Dashboard will be filtered by date

Data fields

  1. Total expenditure - Bill raised in selected month or amount spent in selected month (Applies to all fields)

  2. Amount paid

  3. Amount unpaid

  4. Total Bills

  5. Bills paid 

  6. Pending Bills

  7. Electricity Bill

  8. O&M and Misc

  9. Salary.

 



 

Dashboard

 

Step

Description 

Screens

1

<role> clicks on dashboard on home screen to view GP dashboard

Default dashboard shows collections and expenditure table by each billing cycle in selected year(Financial/Calendar?)

Each cell represents net collection and expenditure for that billing cycle (Cash/Accrual?)

 

Masters 

 

Master

Description 

State/GP level

Revenue and Expenditure Heads

The various types of revenue and expenditure heads are configured in this master. This is similar to the chart of account COA master in finance. 

Data Elements:

  1. Head Code 

  2. Head Description

  3. Type (Revenue/Expenses) 



State 

Scheme Master

The Scheme information under which various GP/s are grouped within for executing a project to build various types of assets to enable water supply to Households.  

Data Elements:

  1. Scheme Name

  2. Scheme Code

  3. Scheme Based (Ground Water/Surface Water/Others)

  4. No of GPs

  5. Division/District



  1. Water Capacity

  2. Asset Details 

  3. Asset Type

  4. Total Cost 

  5. Population 

  6. LPCD

State

Electricity Connection

List of electricity connections that a GP owns. To enable auto expense recording with respect to electricity expenses, the system would be integrated into the PSPCL system to pull the bill and payment information.

  1. Account No.

  2. Billing Cycle ??



Note : The integration approach will define other attributes that will need to be added as part of master



Boundary (Hierarchy Type, Boundary Type and Boundary)

The jurisdiction details of the State and GP is defined in this master. 



Hierarchy Type : Admin

Boundary Type : 

At State

At GP

State 

Zones

Circle 

Division

SDO

Section

(GP)

GP

Ward (?)

Boundary : Refer the work plan sheet

State/GP

Gram Panchayat

The Detail pertaining to the Gram Panchayat is defined in this master. 

Data Elements :

Code

Name

Address

District/Division

Section

Scheme



User Role

This master details various roles that defines the access rights to the user who has the respective role mapped. 

Types of Roles 

  1. Collection Operator

  2. GP Admin 

  3. Revenue (Bulk Demand) Processing

  4. Expense Processing

  5. GP Dashboard 



User

The various users of the application are created in this master. 

Data Elements:

  1. User id

  2. Name

  3. Mobile Number

  4. Gender

  5. Date of Birth

  6. Address

  7. Roles

  8. Jurisdictions



Rate

The rates that are applicable for the various combinations of the HH attributes are defined in this master. For a given Tax head(Charge),  the rates and type of calculation are defined by connection/Prop type and Service type of the HH. 



Billing Cycle 

The Billing  cycle against which the demand is generated. The cycles for every year based on the billing cycle type is defined in this master at every GP. 



 

FAQs

  1. Billing cycle? Monthly/bimonthly?

    1. Monthly

  2. Revenue collector for multiple GPs?

    1. Yes. Revenue collector can have access to multiple GPs

  3. Multiple roles in each GP?

    1. Role based access restrictions is possible

  4. Cash based or accrual based dashboards in the GP system

    1. Cash based accounting system is implemented

  5. Is the expense source recorded?

    1. Right now users will be able to add expenses manually. PSPCL integration is in roadmap.

  6. Calendar year or financial year for collections cycle & review?

    1. Financial year is followed.

  7. Multiple electricity meters under the same GP?

    1. Yes this is possible.

  8. Until what level do we need access to the dashboard?

    1. All mGramSeva dashboard permissions are given based on accesses.

  9. How many water connections are meter based and non meter based?

    1. By GPWSC, we have received this data.

  10. How many connections are Residential and commercial? What are the tariff rates for residential and commercial? 

    1. By GPWSC we have received this data

  11. Based on the new mandate, the funds from 15th Finance commission can be used to pay the electricity bill if there is a shortage in collection. How is this recorded? 

  12. Apart from cash and cheque mode of collection are there any other modes of collections?

 

 

 

Reference Dashboard

  1. Manage User Account and Access

    1. View Role Wise Aggregated Dashboard

    2. View Role Wise Disaggregated Dashboard

      1. Drill Down to Next Level

      2. Filter by Heads

      3. Filter by Date Range

      4. Filter by source of funds

    3. View Transaction List and Details

      1. View Transaction List for given head for a given day

      2. View Specific Transaction Detail

    4. View Exceptions and Notifications

 

 

Why Reference Dashboard

  1. DWSS department doesn't have enough visibility on fiscal information of GPWSC run schemes.

  2. A reference dashboard containing revenue and expenditure information of GPs along with scheme information collected from systems like IFMS/treasury, eSamikshya would help in getting greater visibility into the system.

Objectives

  1. Data collected from GPWSC system and other systems should flow into Reference dashboard via iFIX

Users

  1. DWSS Department Officials

 

Charts



  1. Fiscal Overview

 



Why do we need this/What problem will this solve?

  1. Fiscal overview gives a snapshot of Financial Status of the selected administrative entity.

  2. For any period of time, users can see the collection and expenditure trends & make inferences further on actuals vs expected, outstanding amounts (bills and receipts).This also has a month-on-month view and cumulative view.

  3. It gives a view of how arrears are getting accumulated over time. 



Individual Views on Charts



Consolidated Actuals

  1. Actual Collections

    1. How much amount is collected in that particular month.

    2. If the time range selected is less than a month, then show only a point on the graph when hovered show collections only for that time period.

  2. Actual Expenditure

    1. How much amount is collected in that particular month.

    2. If the time range selected is less than a month, then show only a point on the graph when hovered show collections only for that time period.

 

Consolidated - Expected

  1. Expected Collections

    1. How much amount is expected to be collected in that particular month.

    2. If the time range selected is less than a month,

      1. Assuming demand is generated on the first of each month, when selected time range includes first of a month, then there is a point shown on the graph.

      2. If selected time range doesn’t include first of the month, then no point will be shown since there is no demand. 

  2. Expected Expenditure

    1. How much amount is expected to be spent in that particular month.

    2. If the time range selected is less than a month,

      1. Whatever bills are generated in that selected time period, will be shown. 



Collections

  1. Demand

    1. Same as expected collections mentioned above

  2. Actual Collections

    1. Actual Collections mentioned above

Expenditure

  1. Billed

    1. Same as expected expenditure mentioned above

  2. Paid

    1. Actual expenses mentioned above.

 

Cumulative Views - Cumulative views should add up data of previous month to new month and so on. 

Ex. Demand generated for each month is constant - 100Rs. Plotting a graph would be a horizontal line. In the Cumulative view, plotting a graph would be an inclined line. 



Why this is important - In normal views, arrears and pending expenditure piling up would again be a horizontal curve, whereas, in cumulative views, when filtered till date, gives an exact picture of all pending arrears and bills to be paid.   

 

 

iFIX Core

  1. Manage Application Registration

    1. Developer who is integrating their application (e.g. departmental application like GPWSS or Treasury or dashboard) creates a new account at developer.ifix.org Portal and raises a request for application by filling up the following details

      1. Personal Details

      2. Department Details

      3. Nature of Application being asked

      4. API Access Required

        1. Posting

        2. Querying

        3. ….

      5. Heads under with the Postings will be done

      6. ….



    2. The application is reviewed by the iFIX Administrator who accepts and rejects the application with appropriate comments. 

    3. Email is sent to the registered email address to inform the user accordingly. 

    4. If approved, the user can download the access key and reference iFIX Adapter which can be modified to enable the integration.

    5. Also gets access to iFIX API Documentation

  2. Support Integration and Testing

    1. Developer is provided test environment to check test postings

    2. Once completed the developer requests for moving to production.

    3. After checks, approval is given by the administrator. 

    4. New key for production is generated.

  3. Manage Posting of Fiscal Events

    1. Events start getting posted into the iFIX Platform

    2. Postings can be viewed on the developer dashboards.

    3. For every API call an unique acknowledgement code is generated and sent back to as a response for the developer to store.

  4. Manage Reconciliation

    1. End of day reconciliation happens between the iFIX Platform and source system to ensure no transactions have been missed.

    2. If transactions are missing, then they are identified and posted to iFIX.

  5. Identify and Raise Exceptions

    1. Sink systems can register into iFIX to listen to fiscal events. 

    2. They can configure call backs on the Developer dashboard to listen to these events.

    3. iFIX will provided the following times of Events 

      1. Standard Events - Daily End of Day Report on various heads at different levels - State, Zone, …… 

      2. Intelligent Events 

  6. Provide Query Interface

    1. iFIX will provide Query APIs to aggregated - Daily, Weekly. Monthly data on various heads...

 

iFIX Adaptor  

  1. GPWSS Adapter

    1. Manage Mappings of Internal Transaction to various Head

    2. Transform Internal Data to iFIX Fiscal Event Format

    3. Post to iFIX and Store iFIX Acknowledgement ID

    4. Manage Reconciliation with iFIX

    5. Expose Transaction Level Query APIs for iFIX to call

    6. IFMS Treasury System Adapter

      1. Post Chart of Accounts and Department Access to iFIX

      2. Post Budget Allocations and Adjustments to iFIX



    7. Reference Dashboard Adapter

      1. Listen to iFIX Daily Events and store in internal database

      2. Real Time Query to iFIX for Transaction List and Transaction Details

    8. List of other systems that we need to integrate with and associated adapters.

      1. …..

 

 

 

APPENDIX I



PRD Questions

  1. Should we have digit Branding for GP App? “Powered by Digit” YES

  2. Will it be GPWSC|Punjab instead of mSeva|Punjab?

    1. mGramSeva | 

  3. Can a GP member change his phone number? How will the system get notified?

  4. While creating a consumer record, if the connection ID is entered wrong(human error), how will this be corrected?

  5. Will phone number of consumer be editable? 

    1. In this case, search by connection ID and Phone number(New & OLD) have to be handled

  6. How will download receipt work for multi cycle & partially payment cases?

    1. Ex. user hasnt paid Rs1500 for last 10 months(monthly billing rs150). Agrees to pay 500. Will 3 months be marked as paid? If yes, How will receipt of these months look like? Since individually receipt is not generated in consolidated billing. - Will check the apportioning logic with team. 

    2. Is a separate status of partially paid needed?

  7. Cards for billing cycle shows up automatically on each new cycle? Or upon demand generation?

  8. Expiry of payment link in case of non metered connections?

    1. User gets SMS upon demand generation but doesnt pay for 2-3 months. 

      1. Older links expiry time?

      2. Once payment is made, What will these links point to?

  9. For demand generation in metered connection, is billing cycle required? or Billing dates are required? How will billing dates be transformed to cycles for dashboard?

    1. Need to confirm, even in case of metered connections, rates are flat or logic driven. 

    2. What if meter reading entered is wrong and huge bill amount is sent to user?

  10. Logic for Bill id and receipt id generation?

  11. To drive adoption can we send SMS notifications to Sarpanch,Secretary on reminder of revenue collection for new demands and pending collections? Ps

  12. Are we going to do Digit version or ERP version of Bills and receipts?

APPENDIX II

GP System - Requirement Gathering 



Weekly Call with APS Division on 8th June 2021



Question raised

Response/Clarification from Mr.  Harjit

Does accounting at GP level follow the 15-digit classification standard?

No.

The 15-digit classification standard happens at the State level. Every financial transaction at the State level involves interaction with the treasury (receipt and expenditure both) and thus follows the 15-digit classification standard. But GPs do not follow that accounting standard.

What accounting standards do GPWSCs follow?

No accounting standard per se. They maintain cash books manually and often would have just a crude receipt and expenditure entries[i]. 

Separate cash books are kept for different revenue sources – revenue collected (by water charges) under the DWSS scheme and expenditure incurred under that

Does DWSS have a record of GPWSC finances?

DWSS does not ask for monthly account statements from GPWSC, unless the State government asks DWSS to seek these statements from GPWSC.

What funds of GPWSC are to be audited by DWSS?

Money released by the State treasury via the DWSS or any other administrative department to the GPWSC will be audited.

 What is not audited – internal resources generated by the GP

Does DWSS audit GPWSC books?

No audits of GPWSC books have been conducted by DWSS in the last 3-4 years. DWSS has asked the State for it since the Department needs to assess why certain GPWSCs aren’t performing well but no progress on that front.

Exhaustive revenue sources for GPWSC

Water charges

Sewerage charge (in around 100-150 out of 12000 villages where sewerage facilities exist)

Exhaustive list of expenditure items for GPWSC-run schemes

Electricity

Repair and O&M

Salary – pump operator, bill collector

Miscellaneous and routine maintenance

Expenditure on which items for DWSS-run schemes

State govt mandate – minimum 75% of revenue collected has to be deposited for electricity, 4% for paying the bill collector*, balance – on O&M expenses plus on capital outlay (laying water pipes, etc.)

 *Where DWSS has staff shortage hence has outsourced a bill collector

 15th FC has tied funds so grants have to be utilized for expenditure accordingly

For an individual GPWSC-run scheme under DWSS, who maintains or has access to the financial data?

DWSS maintains and has data for the GPWSC-run schemes (99% of them)  



Funds flow mechanism from 14th FC

Directly transferred in account of the Sarpanch, not via DWSS

Funds from mechanism from 15th FC

15th FC grants mechanism separate system in place - work number generated and payments made

Finances are maintained by BDO, Panchayati Raj Institute

DWSS recommends what work needs to be taken up for the funds available under the grants, no role in passing bills for payment or anything

All purchase and expenditure done for GPWSC at the level of Panchayati Raj Institute with consultancy of BDO officer

Electricity bill if paid from internal revenue sources of GP, no permission needed from BDO, if it is to be paid from the FC grant money then bills have to be raised with the BDO

Can there be multiple GPWSCs in one GP?

No.

1 GPWSC can cover multiple GPs if there is a multi-village scheme

Each GPWSC is a committee for a GP but if there is a multi-village scheme, for instance, under one scheme water is being supplied to 3 villages, then while individual GP will form separate GPWSC, only one scheme level is committee will be formed (Sarpanch of one of the villages which will be the nodal place for the scheme will be the Chairman, and those of others will be Treasurer and Secretary).

Fund calculation and utilization power then rests with the scheme level committee

 1 scheme, 1 village, I GPWSC - clear

 3 villages, 1 scheme - Funds will come from DWSS just to that scheme. Funds can however go separately for one or all of these villages also but the audit will happen at the scheme level. 

Revenue collected by each GPWSC is deposited in one scheme level account.

 Expenditure will be made from that single account because 1 bill is generated (1 pump operator, 1 bill collector)

 

Frequency of billing cycle

DWSS collects quarterly

GPWSC collects bi-monthly (but can differ across GPWSC)

 Quarterly reason – staff shortage plus practice since a long time so citizens are used to the quarterly billing cycle. However, Govt guidelines are for bi-monthly collection

 At GPWSC level, no hard and fast rule for revenue collection cycle, discretion of GP to fix billing cycle, electricity/water charges, how to utilize funds

Exemptions in billing or subsidized rates for some connections

GPWSC can exempt some households from paying bill dues

 DWSS has no provision for providing any exemption to anyone unless the court directs so

Flat rates or consumption-based slab rates

Flat rates only where metered connections don't exist. 

GPWSC rates are not notified so even when metered connections exist - no clarity whether flat rate is applied or variable rate for bill calculation

Rates vary from village to village for now

If flat rate then no problem in bill calculation

But if variable rate (consumption based slabs) then configuring on app will be difficult

Does DWSS get a statement of accounts of each of the villages under the GPWSC scheme?

For single or multi-village level GPWSC schemes, DWSS does not get a statement for each village individually. Since a single scheme level account is maintained, village-wise revenue and expenditure will be difficult to track.

The bank statement might not reflect revenue and expenditure heads since many transactions might take place manually (revenue collected utilized for meeting various expenditures without the bank statement reflecting it), the only source to track expenditure and revenue at each village level are the cash books which will maintain all those transactions under revenue and expenditure heads.

Cash books however won't necessarily match with the bank account statements since the latter does not record transactions on a daily basis.

What is the fund flow mechanism for externally aided projects received by the GPWSC?

Funds are directly transferred to the Sarpanch’s Account in the nationalized bank

Funds allocated for the purpose of the project, Project Completion Report to be submitted at the end of the project



Utilization - we are asking in the next meeting



 

 

[i] According to The Punjab Panchayati Raj Act - Gram Panchayat Water Supply and Sanitation Committees Department of Water Supply and Sanitation (B&R-2 Branch), dated the 2ndAugust, 2006 – 

Powers and Responsibilities of GPWSC: 

(vii) Open and operate bank accounts, receipt and expenditure of funds for performance of its roles and responsibilities, maintain up to date and accurate books of accounts and make available records for audit/inspections.  

(xx) The activities of the GPWSC shall be done in a transparent manner providing key information to all members in the village community.

(xxiv) The GPWSC shall submit periodic progress reports and such other reports as may be prescribed from time to time by the Department of Water Supply and Sanitation.

Under the Operation and Maintenance Responsibilities, the GPWSC is expected to:

Prepare the Income and Expenditure statement of Operation and Maintenance to be publicized in the community through handbills/display in public places to ensure transparency and accountability.



GP System - Requirement Gathering - Weekly Call with APS Division on 15th June 2021



  1. Actual data - list of GPs, GPWSCs and scheme level mapped GPs for APS division

  2. List of administrative hierarchies and how schemes are mapped to the former. Are there differential tariff rates for different consumer categories - for instance, a different tariff rate of water charges for lower income groups?

    1. Exemptions are not provisioned. 

    2. Penalty - depends on the GPWSC

    3. Rebate (If paid in advance for 6 months or 12 months) at DWSS. GPWSS will be based on committee 

  3. Please provide us with an exhaustive list of expenditure - currently it is divided into 4 groups which are Electricity Bill, O&M Expenses, Salary for Pump operator and Other Maintenance/Misc expenses. But we need more details on the actual list of what expenses are incurred under O&M and Maintenance/Misc expenses (Object heads)? Please provide us the screen shots of the cash book for the expenditure recorded. 

    1. Electricity

    2. Salary/Wages

    3. Repair of Motors

    4. Repair of pipeline

    5. Disinfection of water  

    6. Others 

    7. Miscellaneous expenses



  1. Is there any penalty for late payment? Exist in DWSS. GPWSC - not sure.

  2. Metered connection - flat v/s slab rate? How are the rates charged at APS division? Any policy guidelines for this? No metered in DWSS, May exist in GPWSC. 

  3. Is the GPWSC revenue and expenditure details reported to DWSS dept for Audit purpose? If so, in which format are the accounting details submitted? - No format at present. Format for DWSS will be shared.

  4. How is the expenditure mapped to each village for the multiple village schemes? 

    1. 76 schemes for 95 villages at GPWSC. 

    2. 103 schemes for 295 villages at DWSS. 

    3. Village level (GPWSC level bank account will exist for other grants) but the W&S rev is deposited into SLC bank account. 

  5. How are funds transferred to GPWSC for externally funded projects? Who all are involved (ideally funds come from Centre to the States as Loans and Advances - AAAD accounting system)? Ex- Some GP funds can be used for W&S works and gets work done thru GPWSC, the fund is transferred to this account. And DWSS department too transfers funds for certain schemes into GPWSC. When scheme related work execution is planned for execution with approval. 

  6. For externally funded projects, what happens if funds remain un-utilized at the end of project completion date? If there is shortage of funds, then what is the mechanism to get the required funds?  - Will be taken back to DDO account (Only for balance funds and interest earned) not for own Revenues. 

  7. Can you please share the format of the Project Completion Report?

  8. Is PCR submitted only after completion of the project or is the GPWSC expected to periodically give updates on the progress on the project? Are the reports accessible to DWSS?  JE(Technical convenor)  will submit the report.

  9. For unutilized amounts (both for 14th and 15th FC), what are the directions for use of funds for meeting expenditure? Returned back if it is for a specific purpose. In the case of 14th/15th, it needs to be confirmed. 



Action items for APS : 



  • Policy copy to be shared

  • Performa for schemes information

  • Screenshots of expenditure types. 

  • PCR formats 

  • 14/15th FC process for returning funds 

  • Fines and incentive approach for recording revenue. Net or actuals?

 

 

GATE MOM

 

Question raised

Response/Clarification from the team

If the user doesn’t receive the SMS, is there a way to register manually?

Need a way to do this

Clarification on Scheme vs GP as tenant

Summarized by Ghanshyam

  1. Tenants will be GPs. We will follow geographical hierarchies.

  2. Will have mapping of GPs to scheme.

  3. For expenses they will make entries from cash book at GP level 

How are we onboarding tenant

No User interface. Will be done from the backend only.

Separation of Fathers name and Spouse name while HH Creation

Have separate fields. Refer Digit modules for the same.

New Tile on Home Screen for consolidated PDF

This needs to be added. 

What are we giving in Update contact Consumer info tile on home page?

  1. Updating mobile number is allowed

  2. We need to have an effective date when details, that impact bill are getting updated (for ex- non-metered->metered, residential -> commercial) . 

If phone number is changed for contact info how will search function?

  1. Search will happen using UUID and is already taken care of.

  2. If we are allowing HH to change something that will affect the bill itself then we should have an effective date from when this new information is effective.

  3. Any changes made should be given as a report for them to Audit.

  4. Downloading receipt after information is changed, will show new information in receipt. 

  5. Privacy issue - masked name and number - take a call after digit has implemented it. Not a key issue for today. 

Whenever connection iDs are present have both old and new connections

Yes. Noted

Instead of generating demand manually can we do a bulk demand generation for all GPs for their respective billing cycles?

Open Issue

  1. We need to have a scheduler as well to generate demand automatically.

  2. Bill generation dates for different GPs can be in different months but billing cycles need to be the same across Starting fiscal year. This way penalty can be avoided

  3. Viraj -> Rao - Ask WSSD If they can do the same bimonthly billing cycle.

  4. PRK to check and update how it is done in chennai -  example of 2cr bills raised in march & 2 cr raised in April

  5. Quarterly cycle can also solve the issue

  6. Make a one Pager & state our recommendations along the billing cycle. To-Do

Expense

  1. Move type of expense to top

  2. Vendor name should start showing predictive text from registry

  3. PSPCL - if requirements are not clear this week, Do it for V2 (3 weeks later). Don’t jump the proposed release date.

  4. In Multi GPs case, We should ensure expense bill doesn’t gets entered more than once 

  5. Pre-populate scheme name during expenditure entry

  6. To restrict users adding expenses under multiple GPs

    1. Allow SLC to login only into 1 GP and make entry

  7. ‘Add another expense’ link after expense is added.

  8. Initial entry for expenditure - they will enter expense bills of the current fiscal year.

  9. Add “bill period” for expense entry.

  10. Need to simplify the expense page. Currently it looks complex.

Cashbook for expenditure

  1. Just like PDF for billing book, have cashbook PDF for expenditures

  2. Date entered, vendor name, expense etc just like offline register and share as PDF

  3. Expenditure dashboard should be like a simple cash register which can also be printable.



Dashboards

  1. Every dashboard should have “As of Date”

  2. Current financial position should be highlighted. 

Feedback screen

  1. Give text box also. Let them write some feedback

  2. Use one kind of icons (faces or stars, but not both)

Share

  1. Whenever bills/receipts are generated Revenue collector should be able to share via whatsapp

Bills

  1. Be careful about using colors

  2. After collaborating with sattwa, need some considerations on using whitespace on the bill.

Timelines

  1. If need to do rollout by 31 Aug Sathish P to come back with requirements

  2. Data has to be on the dashboard by 30 sept.

Adoption

  1. Collect ground data on phone usage at GPs

  2. Set up success metrics on transactions and GP users (Bills issued, payments made online etc)

  3. From KK, get more detailed sense of adoption.

    1. Need plan in next 15 days

    2. Jojo to connect Rao and KK

  4. We should allow inputs in punjabi and hindi (Not a blocker for v1) - should be solved at platform level

    1. Check Tarrento’s Anuvad

Infra

  1. Ghanshyam to estimate costs of set up and hosting. Team to talk to Ajoy on feasibility of hosting within PMIDC

 

Notes from Jojo

Screen 2:

Default checkbox to " remember me" (add functionality) - V2

Screen 3:

  • Replace " You're "  with " Your"

  • Why does the user need to go back to login? Why not have a continue button instead?

Screen 5:

  • Need to make a place for a 1-line text that explains what each tile does. For eg: Collect Payments - Search for households in  Gram Panchayat

  • Also try and develop more contextual icons (Andrew can do this) - Done - Walkthrough will cover this

Screen 6:

  • Why not expand the width of the dropdown to accommodate the GP name in 2 lines? - Done

  • Also, is it possible to format it in way where the name comes on 1 line and the GP number in the next line in smaller font in italics? - Done

  • What is the sorting order? If it is alphabetical, it will differ by language. You could use the GP number. Please think about this and give a specific instruction in the prd. - Done

Screen  7:

  • Select the order and default language based on your interaction with the social team. I doubt it will be english. Either way, please make a note of this in the prd.

  • On this screen, can you show the role of this user and the GPs the user is linked to. 

  • This is good to have. V2

Screen 8:

  • Capture gender

  • Phone number - in the earlier screen you had "+91 - " as the default. Please maintain consistency.

  • Email - It might be a good idea to have reference text in grey in the input field (You should do this everywhere you can)

Screen 9:

  • Please provide guidance text on password requirements

  • Ideally, each condition should be shown separately - Done

  • When a requirement is met, it should turn green

  • Keep is simple

  • Instead of " New Password" Make it simpler. Eg" Set A New Password"

Screen 10:

Phone will not have a capital P

Screen 11:

Why are we following a link-based system? Why not just get an OTP and enter the OTP to reset the password? Please simplify this. - Done

Screen 12:

  • Format for mobile number " +91 - " Done

  • When an input is made in 1 field, do the other field grey out? If not, they should.

  • What is " Name of Household" ? If its the same as Owner, then use the can terms.

  • Let the form field reflect the format of the connection id - Done

  • Someone on the page you need to say what this page does " To search for a household bill, enter the phone number associated with the household, the connection id or .....Please enter only one.- Done

  • Keep guidance text in each field. Done

Screen 13:

  • Why " My Bills" ? Please replace the heading with something more relevant.

  • " View Details" or " View Household Bills" (or maybe something better)

Screen 14:

  • What the difference between Consumer Name and Owner Name? Consumer name is constant across

  • Please confirm terminology for Cycles not Billed, Cycles unpaid, etc.Done this has been removed

  • In the details, should we have a link to show audit train of any information that was changed) V2

  • In the table view, I think it needs to be clearer for which time period this detail is being shown

  • Billing Cycle needs to have Month and Year

  • Next to the Download Receipt  & Download Bill buttons, can we also have a small whatsapp icon to share the receipt via whatsapp? (Check apna.co for reference) Done

  • Add old + new connection ID Done

  • If we make a change to the bill period and bill date, it will have an impact on this screen. 

Screen 15:

  • Previous Meter Reading and New Meter Reading need to indicate which month we are referring to (Not sure, but check) not required

  • Please have the required number of boxes to enter digits (You need to check with DWSS) To DO

Screen 16:

  • Along with Download, also have an option to send this bill via WhatsApp. Done

  • Button should read - Proceed to Payment or Collect Payment? Collect Payment Done

Screen 17:

  • Should we have connection id along with Consumer Name and Month/Year? Connection ID is added

  • Should we have Online and another Payment Method here? Ideally, we should have a QR code option, that someone can scan phone to phone. Adding this. Need to check if it will depend on payment gateway generating a Q/R

Screen 19:

Have a WhatsApp option along with Download Receipt. Done

Screen 21:

  • Might be good to mention the name of the Gram Panchayat here

  • Generated will have a capital G Done

  • Date form 2021-22 instead of 21-22 Done

  • We can use this screen to show a record of all Bills Generated month-wise with details on:

1:08

  • Generated one,

  • Month of Bill Generation,

  • Period of Bills,

  • Number of Bills Generated/Out of total households

  • Each one should be clickable to the one-view detailed screen of the breakdown of each bill

Screen 23:

  • Have guidance text and a Rs. symbol Done

Screen 25:

  • When a connection is marked as inactive, we need to record and show this detail whenever the record is displayed

  • Marked inactive by

  • On

  • Outstanding amount as of <inactive date> to DO

  • Marked Active

Screen 29:

Vendor Name - let the system learn (predictive text)

Will give feedback on collection and expenditure reports/screens separately.

Additional Functionality

  • Depending on the field, I am hoping the appropriate keyboard pops-up (alphabet and numeric). This information needs to be in the PRD

  • Auto-generate bills

  • Once we do this, we should indicate on the home-screen that X bills have been raised and sent to X/Y households. Click here to see details

  • Bills for (Y-X) households still needs to be raised.  Click here to see details.

  • It might be worthwhile thinking about a place where the GPWSC can view " All Bills Raised" by month

  • Have a cash book as a pdf for each month and total at the GPWSC level

Look at https://apps.apple.com/in/app/khata-book-udhar-bahi-khata/id1488204139

and

https://apna.co/jobs/jobs-in-ludhiana

 

PSPCL MoM 

 

It was not a technical meeting, Met with XEN Harjinder PSPCL

 

Few points

  1. 15 days grace period to pay bill

    1. Surcharge 2% for first 5 days, 5% for next 10 days

    2. Interest 1.5% on arrears from month 2 onwards

  2. At any point there is only 1 Bill for a connection. All old bills are added as arrears in new bill

  3. Billing cycles can be both monthly and bimonthly and automatically shifts for a connection as per load. 

    1. <10KW - Bimonthly

    2. >10 KW -  monthly

  4. All meters are manually read and bills are generated.

  5. Asked to contact punjab IT cell chief engineer for any technical details. 

 

 

 

GP as a tenant

 

Single Village Scheme (SVS)

Multi Village Scheme (MVS)

Users

  1. Users will be onboarded from backend through MDMS.

  2. No selection of tenant while logging in



  1. Users will be onboarded from backend through MDMS.

  2. Selection of tenant is mandatory while logging in.

  3. Users can switch between tenants as required.

Schemes

  1. Each GP will be attached to Single Scheme



  1. More than 1 GP will be attached to a scheme  

Revenue

  1. Revenue collected will be at GP level



  1. Revenue collected will be at GP level

Expenditure

  1. Expenses will be entered at GP level



  1. Expenses will be entered by SLC members (Since expenditure is made by SLC & not by GPWSC)

    1. But we don’t have a distinction of SLC/GPWSC member for users while onboarding

    2. So, GPWSC members will have access restrictions to expense entry screens

  2. Expenses will be made under a tenant(GP). 

    1. As the GPs are tagged to a scheme, only one scheme level entry is shown (on dashboards)

  3. Ensure Expenses are entered by SLC only once and not by individual GPWSC members for MVS 

Dashboard

  1. GP Dashboards will be scheme wise, though GP is the tenant

  2. For SVS this doesn’t make any difference



  1. GP Dashboards will be scheme wise, though GP is the tenant

  2. GPWSC users under MVS will see the scheme wise dashboard though they dont have access to data entry and expenditure of other GPs under same MVS

  3. SLC users will see scheme level dashboards.

Outliers



  1. Users part of multiple SLCs

    1. Logging in into one GP will show scheme wise report of that MVS, switching to GP of other MVS will change the report to new scheme

  2. Users part of 1 GPWSC and 1 SLC (3 GPs)

    1. S/he will have views of 2 schemes 

Reference Dashboard for GPWSC

  1. In the hierarchy, the last level of disaggregation is at schemes. (During asset handover process, GPWSC is formed for schemes and not GPs)



Problems





  1. For the case where there is 1 GP and Multiple GPWSC’s (Assets), Since collections are happening at tenant level, scheme wise data is not available.

This case doesn’t exist theoretically. As far as XEN, Social Team are concerned each GP has only one GPWSC.

 

For GPWSC as Tenant

  • All Things remain the same

  • Additionally,

    • The problem where GP has more than 1 GPWSC can also be solved.

  • But GPWSC doesn’t fall in the geographical hierarchy and will be difficult in future to use mGramSeva for different purpose.