Government of Bihar
Department of Social Welfare
State Society for Ultra Poor & Social Welfare (SSUPSW)
Draft Terms of Reference
Social Security Pensions Management Information System (SSP-MIS)
1. Introduction and Background
In Bihar, social security pensions are administered by the Directorate of Social Security under the Department of Social Welfare (DoSW). Currently, there are six pension programs in the state – three national programs under National Social Assistance Program (NSAP) and three state programs. The pension programs under NSAP are the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension (IGNOAPS), Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme (IGNWPS) and Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme (IGNDPS). The state programs are the Laxmibai Social Security Pension Scheme (state scheme for widows), Bihar Disability Pension Scheme and the Bihar Social Security Pension Scheme (state old age pension scheme).
All social security pensions (SSP) are implemented by various functionaries across the administrative levels that include at the State level DoSW and the Directorate of Social Security, 38 district, 101 sub-divisions, 534 blocks and 8442 Gram Panchayats. Currently, Bihar has about 50 lakh beneficiaries across its state and central programs.
The implementation of the program in the state faces the following challenges:
a. Lack of centralized digitized data of beneficiaries to serve as the baseline for identification and management of pensions
b. Lack of a system for generating a potential beneficiary waitlist using the ongoing socio-economic caste census or the existing digital Below Poverty Line data.
c. Lack of rules and mechanisms for automating prioritizing wait lists
d. Disaggregated manual records that impede the ability of senior management to track progress, track funds utilization and payment to beneficiaries on a real time basis for enforcing Right to Public Services.
e. Non-standardized information systems that hinder effective MIS.
To address the above challenges, the DoSW proposes to procure the services of a firm to design and develop a transaction based MIS system for implementing and monitoring Social Security Pensions (SSP) in Bihar. The proposed Management Information System (SSP-MIS) for the Department of Social Welfare is required to be designed as a complete end-to-end system that will provide all functionality to manage all internal administrative processes for pension delivery to the eligible beneficiaries across all the administrative levels of the state.
The MIS will also facilitate the downward and upward flow of data in the Department in the form of feedback/instructions from the HO to the district level, from the district level to the sub division level, from the sub division level to the block level and finally to the Panchayat level.
The development of the MIS is an activity under a project titled “Bihar Integrated Social Protection Strengthening (BISPS) Project” that will be implemented by the Government of Bihar with support from the World Bank. The objective of this project is to strengthen institutional capacity to deliver social protection programs and services and expand outreach of social care services for poor and vulnerable, persons with disabilities, older persons and widows in Bihar. The State Society for Ultra Poor and Social Welfare (SSUPSW) under the Department of Social Welfare is one of the implementing agencies of the project together with the Bihar Rural Development Society (BRDS) under the Rural Development Department (RDD).
2. Objectives
The following are the broad objectives of the work:
i. To establish a comprehensive IT application that provides functionality for an end to end record of all transactions and processes relating to implementation of pension programs. In other words, the SSP MIS is expected to replace as much of the manual processes relating to implementation and monitoring of the program.
ii. To develop and implement a comprehensive MIS to improve the effectiveness of the funds flow and disbursements of funds to the actual beneficiaries for all the pension schemes under DoSW. The MIS will be a result and an output of (1) above.
iii. To enable centralized data of SSP beneficiaries, thereby increasing the consistency and integrity of the data at various administrative levels.
iv. To make the relevant and accurate information on program beneficiaries and performance easily available to the department and to all stakeholders for better decision making.
v. To enable the department to effectively monitor the scheme and thereby taking informed decisions related to the scheme in the future.
3. Scope of Work
The following sections detail out the scope of work to be performed by the firm. The firm shall be responsible for the successful completion / execution of the activities listed in the following paragraphs, as well as implementation of the proposed solution, as specified in the RFP. Broadly the Scope of Work for the firm is as follows:
i. Initial Study and Analysis: The firm is expected to complete a detailed study of all the requirements stated in the RFP, the proposed architecture and the current process of pension disbursement and the stakeholders roles and responsibilities. The firm should also study the existing digitized beneficiaries data, its current status, database structure, data modeling and database schemas. The firm is expected to study the current Pension disbursement process and systems in the Jehanabad district and any other pilot implementation done in other districts (such as the e-district application in Nalanda) by DoSW in order to leverage the learning’s and experience gained in developing the MIS. The firm is also required to understand the role of potential key dependent programs in the state for SSP program implementation such as e-Shakti SSDG, State Portal, e-district, CPSMS and MSDG.
ii. Development of the System Requirement Specifications (SRS): firm shall develop the complete SRS as per the requirements stated in the RFP. The firm shall also interact with various stakeholders like departments, implementation agency i.e. SSUPSW, scheme administers at districts, sub divisions, blocks and villages, Pension Disbursement Agencies (PDAs) etc. to capture requirements that need to be addressed in the MIS. The firm should also incorporate these requirements (including process re-engineering requirements) and learning from the pilots undertaken by few districts like Jehanabad, Nalanda etc. The firm is expected to sign-off the SRS after approval from DoSW.
iii. Detailed Design of the MIS: The firm along with the DoSW team shall discuss any changes required in the current architecture and design (as stated in the RFP) in order to meet the requirements captured in the SRS. The design should incorporate the following (but not limited to):
a. Design of the Central Beneficiaries Database (CBDB) structure, data modeling and schemas. Design should also incorporate the futuristic needs while implementing the CBDB roadmap for cleansing and pruning the database.
b. Migration strategy of the existing beneficiaries’ data of all the districts to the CBDB. In case the digitization is going on in the department or yet to be done, the firm shall discuss with the Data Entry Agency and DoSW and work out a method for migration on a continuous basis till the data digitization is completed.
c. Articulation of the interfaces required with the external system to the MIS like PDAs, state administration, banks etc.
d. Develop User Interface (UI) for the MIS as prototype and demonstrate the UI to respective stake holders and get the final approval from them.
e. Design shall articulate module and sub-module level interfaces and traceability matrix shall be defined to ensure all the functionality described in the RFP and SRS are covered.
f. The SRS documentation shall also include presentations in the form of dummy screens that is user–friendly so that user can easily understand and validate the SRS.
g. The firm shall obtain the sign-off and approval of the design document from DoSW before going for implementation.
iv. Needs assessment, Preparation of Bill of Quantity with technical specifications for hardware equipment, Installation and Commissioning of the Hardware and Software
The agency is expected to conduct a need assessment (during Inception/SRS phase) for identifying and preparing the Bills of Quantity with detail technical specification for hardware equipment necessary for implementing the proposed system for final review and approval for procurement. The DoSW will procure the proposed hardware and IT equipment separately based on the proposed hardware lists by the agency. However, it is the responsibility of the agency to do necessary MIS installation, configuration, testing in the hardware procured. During this stage, the agency is expected to work closely with the Hardware Vendor to achieve the desired objective.
v. Development and Implementation of the MIS
a. After approval of the Design document by DoSW, the firm shall develop the complete MIS as per the design while meeting all the requirements stated in the RFP.
b. Creation of a baseline Database: The firm shall migrate and transform all the digitized data of the beneficiaries collected from all the districts into the Baseline Database for CBDB as per the strategy decided in the design. This baseline CBDB shall be used to kick-start MIS based pension disbursements. It is understood that the baseline CBDB will have deficiencies and may be incomplete. It will be the responsibility of the firm to articulate and document all the deficiencies and work out the action plan after discussion with DoSW. The firm shall provide all related help to DoSW/ SSUPSW to remove the deficiencies. A roadmap for the CBDB will be provided in the RFP.
c. The firm shall follow the complete SDLC processes during the development of the MIS including build process, release management and bug tracking mechanism. The firm is encouraged to use Open Source tools for these development support activities. Details of these tools shall be described in the Technical Proposal of the bidder. If there is any cost associated with these tools, the same should be indicated in the financial proposal. Installation and maintenance of these tools will be the responsibility of the firm.
d. The firm shall develop and release the coding standards and other development standards and ensure those are practiced.
e. After and during the development, the firm shall complete the unit and system testing. All the system testing and the results should be shared with DoSW. Development of the applications and testing shall be done on the Test Bed in the Data Centre.
f. Development and implementation of the DoSW Portal, which should contain (but not limited to) the following
i. The portal shall have information for the public consumption and provide specific services and information for different types of users like PDAs, banks, departments, department officials at the district, sub division, block and village level after login/ password.
ii. Latest Beneficiaries List (state wide)
iii. Status of all addition/ deletion/ modifications requests.
iv. Fund transfer status for all the PDAs and departments officials
Note:
1. Design, content and UI for the Portal shall be decided after discussion with DoSW and other users.
2. Hardware/ Software and applications proposed for the Portal should be described in the Technical Proposal by the bidder and the same shall be included in the BoM.
3. Development and maintenance of the Portal will be the responsibility of the firm.
4. DoSW Portal shall link and/ or integrate with the state portal or any other portals as required by DoSW.
vi. Hardware/ Software Integration for the complete system: The firm shall integrate all the hardware and software along with the applications software and complete the integration testing. The integration test results should be shared with DoSW for review and comments.
vii. Pilot in 2 Districts: The firm is responsible for completing pilot for the complete end-to-end system, including payments, in at least 2 districts. The districts shall be decided after consultation and approval by DoSW. The Pilot should cover at least 2 disbursement cycles. During the pilot all the feedback, bugs shall be captured systematically by the firm and resolution of bugs/ issues and incorporation of the feedback/ changes shall be completed, tested and approved by DoSW before releasing the MIS for the next disbursement cycle. The firm shall place minimum 3 technical people in each district during pilot phase for handholding support on functional as well as technical aspects of the solution.
viii. Documentation: The firm is responsible for creating and maintaining all the documentation required as stated in the RFP including User Manuals (both soft and hard copy), training manuals and operational guidelines. The manuals and guidelines shall be simple for easy understanding by different types of users.
ix. Training: firm shall provide training to the department end users, initially at the field level at blocks, sub division, district and state level for effective usage of the MIS. The firm should also provide modules and training for the “Train the Trainer” so that subsequent training can be done at the district level staff of the department on a continuous basis. Indicative training sessions are:
a. DOSW Head Office for the various users and system operators on the application software and specifically related to feeding information to the MIS, usage of the MIS and view/print all level reports.
b. Officers of DoSW/ Block Development Officers in the Commissioner with specific focus on using the MIS and its features including various MIS reports available on the system.
c. The Schedule of the above Training sessions would be mutually decided by the DoSW and the Firm.
d. The Firm will provide the computers with Screen etc required for each Training Session. DoSW shall provide the space required for this purpose and Internet Connectivity.
e. The Service Provider would also provide an On-line Help and Interactive Training module which can be downloaded by the users for using the application software.
Note:
a. Training content, modality, no of staff and training period shall be mutually decided between DoSW and the firm.
b. Indicatively around 200 personnel from across the districts need to be trained as per the details described above at the central site in Patna.
x. Final Acceptance Test (FAT): The Complete MIS system shall be declared “Go-Live” after completion of the Final Acceptance Test (FAT) and approved by DoSW. firm is responsible for developing the FAT Plan and approval from DoSW before starting the FAT. The FAT plan shall include the following (but not limited to):