Bhubaneswar: In a first the Naveen Patnaik led Odisha government will be extending its continuous monitoring processes through a governance atlas,  that shall be covering 6,794 gram panchayats (GPs) of the state, by October 2, 2023.

The project will be launched by the Poverty and Human Development Monitoring Agency (PHDMA), the apex monitoring and evaluation body of the state government.

To start with, in the first phase, the initiative will bring out a governance atlas of 4,056 panchayats by March 5, 2023, coinciding with the Panchayati Raj Dibasa.

“Governance atlas of all GPs is a systematic tracking of access, availability and utility of priority schemes, projects, programmes and benefits at household, individual, cohort, sectoral and institutional levels as well as capturing of people’s aspirations to trigger a robust reddressal mechanism.

The governance atlas will be shared with stakeholders for resolution and necessary policy actions and inputs, it added.

The PHDMA teams will be mobile in the field for the next one year. They will visit each panchayat and involve themselves in the process of narrative collection as a form of continuous monitoring, which is the ‘the Mycelium Way’, and prepare reports on what works for the people of Odisha, what should be worked on and what are their aspirations. The Mycelium Way refers to the wisdom of the people shared with PHDMA through immersing with them and listening to them.

These observations as reports known as ‘governance atlas’ will provide a detailed analysis of the progress of governance in the state and will help the administration track growth of individuals, households and communities.

Member secretary of PHDMA Roopa Roshan Sahoo said that the project is a way to participate in processes of poverty eradication towards human development through listening. “Deep listening will not be about hearing words but embracing, accepting and resolving. The compilations of governance realities through narratives, immersive observations and pictures on the ground will be the governance atlas of the state,” she added.

The project will not only nudge the institutional mechanism to address the existing issues but also keep track of progress happening on the ground and ensure capturing of positive deviance.