Decreasing Digital Divide and Deepening Grassroots Democracy: The Digital Gram Sabha Revolution

India’s ever evolving experiments and experience with democracy and development, over last seventy five years, have yielded phenomenal dividends in socio-economic fields. Despite these achievements, India still faces issues of rural areas not being able to reap equal dividends, resulting in acute urban migration.

In this perspective, one is reminded of father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi’s vision and prophetic words of caution, that  India can never be a true republic unless “Every village will be a republic or Panchayat having full powers”. Actually, sometimes this glorious vision of Mahatma Gandhi is misinterpreted to show that he meant going back in history, to restore and recreate the isolationism of independent village republics of the yore. Actually, this is as far from truth as man is from the planet Pluto.  What is missed mostly, is that the Mahatma’s grand vision strongly espoused  self-governance at the village level, wherein each village should have the autonomy to manage their own affairs, including education, sanitation, dispute resolution etc. In essence, Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj was an inclusive vision of a throbbing democracy with local government institutions functioning virtually in a self-governance mode for  finding socio-economic self-sufficiency. As per that vision, the Gram Panchayat should collaborate with other stakeholders  not for necessity but for accelerating the regional and national  growth. It meant taking the democracy through decentralized governance to the door step of every rural household. In other words, due to vastness, variety and diversity of India, it was necessary that the villages were empowered to manage their own affairs in a self-rule mode, fostering self-reliance and attaining true independence to decide and determine their destiny at the grassroots level. 

The first four decades of functioning of  Indian democracy showed that both democracy, and development, were not going the full distance and were not deepening the impact enough to change people’s lives; and for this reason, the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional Amendments (1992) were made to empower the Rural Local Bodies(RLBs), specially at the Gram Panchayat levels; these amendments were aimed towards strengthening the implementation of Article 40 of the Constitution of India which declared the vision as  – “the State shall take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.”

Three decades, since the enactment of these pathbreaking amendments, and   gaining experience of undertaking decentralised governance, have reinforced one’s belief that  Indian democracy is now beginning to deepen and taking strong roots; it is  now becoming truly representative at the grass roots levels as the gram panchayats are now becoming true agents and catalysts for change.

Three decades, since the enactment of these pathbreaking amendments, and gaining experience of undertaking decentralised governance, have reinforced one’s belief that  Indian democracy is now beginning to deepen and taking strong roots; it is  now becoming truly representative at the grass roots levels as the gram panchayats are now becoming true agents and catalysts for change.

The application of digital tools has greatly improved the functioning of the Gram Panchayats ever since the launch of the Mission Mode Project called the  e-Panchayat, which initiated the process of automating the internal functioning of the Gram Sabha. This programme, and its successive avatars including the eGramSwaraj, GPDP (Gram Panchayat Development Plan – Plan Plus), Panchayat Nirnay, PRIA Soft, Swamitva and Meri Panchayat have helped improve governance in panchayat; but this has largely left untouched the elected representatives’ enablement on how to use the digital tools to improve their own people’s representatives roles. In this, the pioneering and path breaking effort to conduct the first digital panchayat gram sabha meeting by the Tatarpur, Haryana on 24^th April,2025  needs to be appreciated.  Afterall, this endeavour will also show to the world how  a software superpower like India is leveraging digital tools to not only strengthen democracy and democratize decision making at the local levels, but will also demonstrated how India is beginning to take first steps in creating an fully open government involving and integrating  virtually each of the 1.4 billion people in India;  and  imagine what doors this effort can open to realise the untapped potential of each of the over six and half lakh villages, and each of the individual inhabiting therein. And if India can take this effort to its finality, it could become one of the best practice cases to demonstrate how  a representative democracy at the macro level can be synthesised and synergised with the direct democracy at the micro level ,and also bury the debate of urban-rural divide and digital divide affecting the development  India for good.

India’s national programme of Digital India not only aims to use digital technology to deepen and decentralize democratic functioning, it  also addresses the challenge of socio-cultural and economic divide. India has a unique characteristic of having  one of the highest teledensity of 85.69% – with rural density of 59.19% ( March 2024)- but also of one of the lowest rate of data use.

The deployment of digital technology for development is not only making interventions like the UPI (covering over 350 million users including the illiterate population) as one of the world’s best practice areas,  such digitally inclusive initiative has impelled people to imagine infinite ways to tap this potential to improve rural governance. After all good economics without good governance is an avoidable road to take Moreover, such measures would help in achieving the vision of Constitution makers including of Mahatma Gandhi in  deepening democracy, empowering citizens, and making governance participatory, inclusive and transparent at the grassroots level.

Of course, this surely is long road to travel but easy availability of this low cost, and already rolled out technology and tools has made the tasks much easier even for common people. As they say, the longest journey begins with the first step, and in this, one must appreciate the first baby step the Tatarpur GP in Haryana’s Palwal district, has taken in conducting India’s first ever end to end Digital Gram Sabha. And what could be more symbolically appropriate than the decision to conduct this Digital Gram Sabha on the national Panchayati Raj Diwas of 24^th April, 2025. Through the conduct of this Digital Gram Sabha, the effort was made to break a fresh ground to showcase a transformative model for a change in mindset; and prove that  when technology is democratized, governance becomes a living, breathing reality, much like the experiment of introducing online railway booking and digital banking had shown several decades ago.

The conduct of  the first ever digital Gram Sabha meeting can claim to be truly inspired and motivated to  follow footsteps of the Digital India campaign of the Prime Minister, who frequently conducts several important meetings like the Pragati, Cabinet and NITI Ayog meetings digitally. He is also known to be the first Chief Minister to have conducted public interactions with the Panchayats digitally, to resolve issues and grievances of people in the rural areas. That initiative actually broke a fresh ground to digitally involve the rural  elected representatives and the people of the Gram Sabhas.

The vision to digitally empower Gram Panchayats stemmed from the need to publicly show the process of active people’s participation in India’s journey for an inclusive development; the process involved digitally registering the voters as member of Gram Sabha, submitting issues through message/ voice note in local language, deciding agenda based on specific issues submitted by the  voters, sending meeting notification and getting interest in involvement with local issues through attendance which was  recorded, ensure proper verification through face authenticating for attendance, digitally verifiable compliance with quorum requirements and video conferencing and recording such gram Sabha meeting; this process  would also ensure not only a digital record of decisions derived after detailed deliberations but would also keep a record for fixing responsibility for implementation responsibility/ action and also for completing the action vis a vis the decisions taken in the Gram Sabha meeting – much like the way the  Parliament and State Assemblies and its Committees monitor the decisions taken in the Cabinet and proceedings of the Parliament and State Assemblies. The other offshoots of the meeting would be to enhance transparency and accountability and in a way make the functioning of the Gram Sabha fully compliant with Right to Information (RTI). It would help in improving governance in terms of delivery of citizen centric services –  be those emanating from the State specific Acts or through government schemes.

The initiative was intended to build on the digitally competent citizenry that was developing in parallel due to increasingly use of digital endeavours such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Adhar registration, Direct Benefit Transfer mechanisms etc. and increasing delivery of  public good and services on mobile applications. In other words, the technology was being used for empowerment and not for exclusion as non-digital Gram Sabhas suffer from the allegation of limited participation. If the digital gram Sabha meeting could be transmitted live like the Zero Hour transmission of the Parliament/State Assemblies, the public participation would be phenomenal and rural governance would earn limitless legitimacy and public support. 

The conduct of digital gram sabha would achieve important milestones like :

• • Enhance Transparency and Accountability: Make decisions, resolutions, and public spending more visible and trackable.

• • Increase participation of villagers: Submission of issues and suggestions at any time and from space or location.

• • Build Digital Literacy: Cultivate and further consolidate digitally competent citizenry in rural India.

• • Boost Service Delivery: Use technology to streamline the delivery of public services at the grassroots level.

As stated, the initiative was propelled  by a vision of reducing the digital divide. ensuring that technology becomes a tool for empowerment, not exclusion, in rural governance.

Tatarpur: A Blueprint for the Digital Future of Panchayats

The success story of first ever conducting of Tatarpur’s Digital Gram Sabha (GP in Haryana’s Palwal district) is a tremendous testimony to how the grassroots governance can be transformed when vision meets execution.

Empower Panchayat, an initiative of the Vaktavya Foundation Trust, has powered and transitioned Tatarpur’s journey from conduct of the traditional Gram Sabha meetings, usually held under a tree in an open courtyard with limited participation, to real-time, digitally-enabled, citizen-driven and transmitted live to public in an open government mode.

Highlights of this revolutionary model included:

• • Digital facial registration of the voters as member of Gram Sabha

• • Voter submitting issues through voice note in local language

• • AI generated agenda basis public consensus on issues

• • WhatsApp meeting notification and getting RSVP details

• • Face authentication for recording attendance and for ensuring  digitally verifiable quorum

• • Video conferencing of gram Sabha meeting

• • AI generated minutes of meeting within minutes not hours or days or months

• • Appending digital signature of Gram Prashan and Panchayat Secretary on Minute of Meeting

Thus, Tatarpur GP didn’t just conduct a digital gram sabha meeting—it redefined the core functioning of a grassroots democracy- that is not distant from your doorsteps or dreams but is available to you virtually in real time and local governance comes full public view that can seen  real time or later when time permits , thereby ensuring participation with some measure of permanence.

Building a Digital Democracy at the Grassroots

Taking inspiration from how PM Modi’s Central Cabinet and other above mentioned that  meetings are organized with precision, documentation, and transparency, similar motivations were sought to be applied to Gram Sabhas’ functioning, and these were tried in the conduct of digital gram sabha meeting of Tatarpur, and included the following features:

 

Digital face registration of the voters as member of Gram Sabha

• • 650 voters were registered out of total 801 voters with EPIC number in just three days ( nearly 70%- WRITE CORRECT PERCENTAGE) which itself is record of participation at that level

• • The voters who were not supporting the Gram Pradhan also registered themselves showed up  on the day of gram Sabha  apprehending the exclusion from collective community decision making process.

Voter submitting issues through voice note in local language

• • 100+ issues received in just three days with fair share of participation from women specially noting the patriarchal mind set of society in rural Haryana.

• • Only  issues affecting the village community were raised against the general apprehension that mostly people will come demanding individual benefit under welfare schemes or complaining about exclusion from entitlements .

• • Suggestions were also received form improving the income of Panchayat showing the generation of own source income generation is becoming a regular concern of the Gram Panchayat for addressing resource crunch.

AI generated agenda setting becoming a basis for arriving at a public consensus on issues

The issues were divided in as per the Empower Panchayat tool based on classification of 29 subjects.

• • Basic Amenities – Health, Housing, Education, Food, Sports, Entertainment.

• • Earning Opportunities – Access to Foundational Infrastructure, Fund, Raw Material and Market.

• • Foundational Infrastructure – Land, Water, Electricity, Communication and Transportation.

• • Social Protection – Welfare of Women, Child, Old Age, SC/ST, OBC, Physically/ Mentally Challenged and Poverty alleviation.

Following four issues were included in agenda as per suggestion of the Empower Panchayat Tool

• •  Mounting Garbage is due to increase in tenants in Panchayat and is posing water and air pollution risks to the village community

• • Damaged road connecting village with main road is impacting transportation of both public goods and services besides affecting people’s movements.

• • Transgender community is allegedly causing public dissatisfaction by asking unreasonably high amount of support contribution and creating naissance if not paid.

• • Use of infertile and grazing land for public welfare and whole village communit

 Prompt issue of WhatsApp meeting notification and getting RSVP

• • People were pre-informed about the inclusion or deferment of their respective issues in agenda

• • People were requested to do RSVP for the meeting to get indication on possible turnaround for the meeting.

• • The WhatsApp group of Gram panchayat was used for circulation of agenda.

Face authentication for genuine attendance and for digital verification of quorum

• • Easy application made men and women mark the attendance by just face posing  on camera

• • Gram Sabha witnessed a phenomenal 50% attendance of women  and most  of them showing no hesitation in raising Ghoonghat to mark the attendance

• • Quorum is digitally validated before the meeting proceeds.

Video conferencing of Gram Sabha meeting

• • The Gram Pradhan summarised the discussion and decisions taken in keeping with the open government thinking of running a transparent panchayat.

• • The voice based summary of the meeting promptly got converted into generating the formal written recording of minutes of the meeting   instantly

• • The Gram Pradhan and Panchayat Secretary digitally signed the minutes for ownership and accountability

• • The Minutes along with Agenda and video recording were uploaded in panchayat Nirnay App of the Government as well.

• • Published and digitally endorsed  Minutes were also shared through WhatsApp group and Digital Gram Sabha App for complete transparency.

Empowered community resolved the complex issues in few hours

The hypothesis of Empower Panchayat that most of the issues do not get formal consideration and requisite  support from state and central government funding and resources was validated. The power of combining representative and direct democracy helped in solving these long pending issues in just 2-3 hours.

• • Garbage Management: The population of  migrant tenants inhabiting the village is more than the double than of  local  gram sabha members due to proximity of industrial area. This puts a heavy load on the sanitation system that barely has resources hardly to manage wastage generated by the local people. A decision was made to levy a uniform garbage collection fee from  the landlords who have given room to tenants. Displaying the spirit of community ownership to address a mounting public health and sanitation problem, the  Avon Tubetech Pvt. Ltd. came forward to contribute a tractor along with a trolley to support the garbage collection and waste management at the local community level. The suggestions were asked on the tax to be levied to self-sustain the garbage collection and disposal and these would be put up  for discussion in next gram Sabha meeting.

• • Road Repair: In order to immediately address public grievance, the repair work in patches will be undertaken  immediately on  damaged roads, while severely degraded roads will need to undergo full reconstruction.

• • Support for Transgenders: In keeping with the government’s policy since the enactment of Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, the gram sabha took into account the need  to protect their rights and welfare and then as a goodwill gesture, the gram sabha unanimously agreed/ voted to offer a minimum of ₹2100 to the transgender individuals for related social events where they are socially involved. What would gladden one’s hearts would be to know that it was the community that unanimously agreed to pay double the amount that was proposed by village pradhan. This also proved the sensitivity of the rural society that was openly expressed and endorsed in the gram sabha.

• •  However, the gram sabha noted with concern the complaints in some  cases of harassment and threats issued by the community. The gram sabha decided that such cases would be reported to the police for necessary action as per the law. The gram panchayat laws are equally enforceable as the law of state and central and state government. This decision completely belies the common belief , that rural society in Haryana is not sensitive to the needs of the excluded communities and that only traditional panchayats such as the khap decide on every issue. One would not find any khap panchayat addressing this issue with so much sensitivity , care , social responsibility and social conscience.

• • Solar Power on Unused Land: The Gram Sabha noted the issue of frequent power cuts in panchayat and also the parallel national efforts under the Solar Mission for generation of  renewable and clean energy. It was decided to use the vacant grazing land and barren land totalling 24 acres for setting up a solar power plant— a step with a twin purpose of contributing to a national cause/mission but also to create an opportunity to generate own source of revenue for the gram panchayat. The decision falls under the constitutional power of gram Sabha. The revenue generated from this will be used to address the funding needs of  the panchayat problems like road repairs and subsidising electricity to needed from its own resources.

Unlike the commonly held view, it was community  which decided to solve the  local problems leveraging their own resources instead of procrastinating  the action for  want of funds from the government or issuing petitions and raising complaints again and again.

What is indeed heartening is that without a call to conduct the Mahila Gram Sabha, women participation in the digital sabha was nearly 50% and don’t forget that Haryana is often viewed negatively in confining women to gender segregated roles. The women raised the community issues far more passionately than men. Many women had their face covered due to prevalent socio- cultural practices but were equally comfortable to mark their attendance through face authentication mode of the app.

An interesting lesson to learn that despite branding of rural community as fractious, there was not even a single decision that was passed without  unanimous endorsement and no dissenting note was recorded- unlike what one sees in majority of decisions reached in the vidhan sabhas and parliament.

 The experience of the Empower Panchayat initiative at the Tatarpur Gram Panchayat clearly demonstrated that for the Gram Sabha meetings to be digitally inclusive and successful, it is critical to involve and include people and engage them for meaningful outcomes and outputs at the local community level that are also owned up collectively. Here’s how:

Community Mobilization:

• • Use local influencers, teachers, and youth groups to create awareness.

• • Conduct door-to-door campaigns explaining the benefits of digital engagement and online participation.

Digital Literacy Training:

• • Organize workshops for villagers, especially women, elderly, and marginalized communities.

• • Train them on how to log into meetings, raise issues, and track outcomes.

Multiple Language Support:

• • Interfaces should support regional languages and dialects.

• • Voice-based systems for easy integration and involvement of the  illiterate citizens should be implemented.

Establishing Digital Facilitation Booths:

• • Set up Digital Booths in Panchayat Bhawans with volunteers to assist citizens.

• • Provide smartphones, tablets, and internet connections for those without devices.

Voice and Video Issue Submission:

• • Allow people to record their issues in their native language or send video messages.

Year-Round Engagement:

• • Gram Sabha need not be an annual or bi-annual event.

• • Digital platforms should allow continuous submission and tracking of issues.

Feedback Mechanisms:

• • Post-meeting feedback should be collected online.

• • Citizens should be able to rate responsiveness and transparency.

Empower Panchayat provided a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform that can be replicated nationwide. This is not just digitization; this is democratization through technology.

This model ensures that every citizen has a voice that can resonate year-round, not just during elections. Local self-governance for 100 Crore people doesn’t wait for state and central government support to resolve it’s issues.

Conclusion: A New Era for Rural India

Tatarpur’s  first  historic Digital Gram Sabha meeting and its open and  publicly endorsed and participated proceedings were unprecedented where both the recordings but decisions  were also put within minutes in public domain in real time. Such public records have not been put for public scrutiny ever before at the panchayat levels. This event and endeavour surely stands as a beacon of imagining infinite possibilities for developmental interventions and offers unimaginable paths for developing  India’s villages. It exemplifies how reducing the digital divide can deepen democracy and empower every citizen.

In the vision of Digital India championed by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Modi, the last mile continuing connect is the first priority. By leveraging platforms like Empower Panchayat, by investing in digital literacy, and by enabling year-round engagement, India can create Gram Sabhas that are as dynamic, transparent, responsible, accountable and efficient as some of  the Central and State assemblies.

The future is clear:
Where a mobile phone becomes a citizen’s constant voice calling for continuing improvements across governance parameters.

Where a Panchayat Bhawan becomes a digital democracy hub.

Where governance moves from files to fingertips.

Where rural India leads the next big revolution—not just politically, but digitally.

And as Tatarpur shows us, when a community comes together, solutions follow—naturally, powerfully, and permanently.