NEW DELHI, October 16 — The Ministry of Panchayati Raj on Friday completed the nationwide rollout of 'Gram Manchitra', an advanced geospatial Geographic Information System (GIS) application empowering over 2.55 lakh Gram Panchayats to formulate evidence-based spatial Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP).
Developed in technical partnership with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) leveraging its 'Bhuvan' high-resolution satellite imagery layers, Gram Manchitra enables village-level planners to visualize local catchments, school networks, rural roads, and community water assets before allocating 15th Finance Commission untied and tied development grants.
The application functions in seamless interoperability with the Ministry's e-GramSwaraj accounting gateway and the 'Meri Panchayat' citizen mobile app, establishing radical grassroots transparency by allowing rural citizens to inspect physical asset locations, expenditure tranches, and contractor details directly on geotagged maps.
The constitutional architecture of local self-government under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act 1992, the 29 functional matters listed in the Eleventh Schedule, the powers of Gram Sabhas under Article 243A, and geospatial technology applications in rural public administration represent standard high-yield questions in UPSC Civil Services (GS-II: Local Self-Government & Panchayati Raj).