August, 2006

ICT in NREGA implementation

revolution the likes of which has never been seen before is sweeping the hinterland of India. The recent passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by the Parliament will finally ensure that the State is able to give effect to one of the Directive Principles spelt out in the Constitution of India. Section 39 under the Directive Principles of State Policy embodies the right to work in the following words: The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood. The NREGA was passed by Parliament in August 2005 and received the Presidential nod on 5 Sept 2005. The objective of NREGA is to enhance the livelihood security of the people in rural areas by generating wage employment through works that develop the infrastructure of the area. The choice of works suggested addresses causes of chronic poverty like drought, deforestation, soil erosion etc. Effectively implemented, the employment generated under the Act will also build up the long-term livelihood asset base of rural India. NREGA guar-

antees wage employment on public works to any adult who is willing to do unskilled manual work, subject to a guaranteed employment for 100 days per household per financial year. If employment cannot be provided, the applicant is entitled to daily unemployment allowance. Panchayats will play a very important role as NREGA has designated them as the principal authorities for planning and implementation of schemes under the Act. The Act is initially being implemented in 200 districts. This will require strong systems for the effective management and implementation of the schemes. The contemplated outlays are on an unprecedented scale and therefore transparency and accountability will be key issues. For successful implementation, potential beneficiaries need to be aware of their work entitlements and the essential elements of the Schemes. Besides their roles and responsibilities the implementing agencies also need to be aware of the legal implications, as employment has been guaranteed as a right. Productive assets have to be created so that the livelihood base of rural communities is built up to ensure long-term sustainability.

Possible Areas of ICT intervention An ICT intervention in the implementation of NREGA is important from the following perspective: (a) ICT will ensure transparency and help in information dissemination (b) An ICT tool is required because the size of the programme is very large, not only from the geographical and financial perspective but from the perspective of the size of the target group of beneficiaries as well. (c) ICT will facilitate online monitoring and evaluation of the programme. The timely feedback will help in timely corrective actions. (d) An ICT tool will help in social audits whereby the local bodies and citizens may actually audit the programme at their end. ICT will play a definite role in every phase of the implementation of the NREGA. The following could be the major areas for interventions. a) Communication & Mobilization i. Some of the ICT interventions that can be possibly used for communication & mobilization include community radio, television, public address systems, panchayat websites and the Internet to publicize the NREGA. ii. Information kiosks that have

www.nisg.org

Make ICTs Work for People

been set up in some villages and the 100,000 Common Service Centers being implemented by the Dept. of IT can be used as focal points to disseminate information on the scheme. b) Planning Phase i. Creation of a database of durable, productive, labour-intensive works at Panchayat level. Mapping out socially productive and durable assets/infrastructure which can be created in the respective zones/clusters. ii. Issuing of job cards, digitization of muster rolls, persons employed, their output, wage rates, working hours etc can also be available for verification by the Panchayats, peers and the community through the use of ICTs.. iii.The use of Smart Cards/Biometric cards can be introduced to identify and track every beneficiary in the region. c) Execution of Works i. Works Management System with authentic records of the attendance at the worksites with simultaneous updating of the employment records is necessary. Works identified in

a particular block to be taken up under the scheme must be available for viewing and measurement by all Panchayats within that block. ii. Work Flow Automation System may be introduced since the approval of works, allocation of works to an implementing agency etc. must be sanctioned by the Programme Officer or such local authority (including the Panchayats at the district, intermediate or village level). iii.Disbursement of wages and unemployment allowance. d) Monitoring i. ICTs provide for ensuring that the members of the designated rural household are only availing the guarantee of 100 days of employment and their wage employment rights are not being misused by others. Biometric systems like fingerprint recognition may be used as potential solutions to address this issue. A fingerprint recognition based time and attendance system at the frontend backed by a comprehensive computerized MIS at the back-end may be able to address the issue.

iii.The NREG Act makes it compulsory for the daily wages to be disbursed within a specified time limit. It therefore becomes necessary that this information is captured and available for public viewing through the MIS. Information such as data pertaining to households, number of days of employment provided, reports on the assets created, financial information like allotment of funds by MoRD to the States and eventually to the implementing agencies, tracking wages paid to the workers and all other aspects of implementation must be captured and made available to view for people in the hierarchy and the public at-large. This will also be required by the Right to Information Act. iv.Geographical Information System The use of GIS can greatly enhance the monitoring of the NREGS. Digital maps can be made available for viewing to show the assets that have been created under the scheme and provide for the assessment of the quality of assets created. e) Grievance Redressal System i. Citizens can register grievances at all Panchayat Levels and in offices of the Programme Officer and the District Programme Coordinator. This information must be made available online. ii. Citizens must be able to track their grievances online. The list of issues above is indicative and not exhaustive in nature. Other issues require policy, legislative or administrative initiatives. Some examples such as: 1) Number of households demanding jobs is far higher than

36

the number of households who have been issued job cards. In some cases the difference is as high as 1000 percent. For example: In Araria district, Bihar, job cards have been issued to 9103 households while 92,000 household have demanded for employment. Similar is the case in Lakhisarai district of Bihar where 2630 job cards have been issued and 29285 families have demanded employment. 2) On the other hand in states like Gujarat employment demanded is as low as 1 percent of the job cards issued. For example: in Banaskantha district 73,223 job cards were issued while only 729 households demanded employment. This shows that either NREG Scheme is not popular or enough alternative employment opportunities exist. 3) There are reports from Kandmahal district, Orissa, that Rs. 50 to Rs. 100 is charged to issue registration forms for NREGA. 4) To avoid payment of unemployment allowance, whoever

Make ICTs Work for People

is provided a job is registered. 5) The wage rates paid vary from State to State. This is because in AP payment is based on the volume of work done while in TN it is a fixed rate. As a result, in AP the wages can be as high as Rs. 300 to Rs. 400 while in TN it is fixed at Rs. 80. 6) Providing wage employemnt has become the main focus. Creation of productive longterm assets is not the main criteria.

ICT Solutions being tried out Software for Project Implementation The Government of AP is a forerunner in deploying ICT in the implementation of NREGA. In collaboration with TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) a software package has been developed which integrates various processes like: enrolment of wage seeker, monitoring of work execution, management of wage and material payments, etc. into a single framework: Computers with this software are installed in all the 656 mandals across 13 districts of AP. To give an idea about the benefits being realized one example about generation of estimates will suffice. Under the eight categories of works permitted in the Act, 62 types of works have been identified. Simplified input data sheets which can be filled by a non technical person are designed for all these types of works. Estimates are generated by the computer immediately after information in the input data sheet is fed. Thus this process demystifies the conventional estimate preparation and enables any common person to understand the process of estimate preparation. The

NREGEA Works in Pulakuntapalli

37

Make ICTs Work for People

has been suggested. It works as follows: Site Asst. Engineer sends the days muster roll of NREGS beneficiaries by SMS Village Payment Agent reNREGA works in Amadagur mandal, Pulakuntapalli ceives the SMS website <www.nrega.ap.gov.in> Village Payment Agent makes enables any user to view the folpayment to NREGS beneficialowing: ries based on muster roll received Job cards issued relating to A second SMS about payments any panchayat made is sent to Panchayati Raj The shelf of works Departments Banker Progress of works On receiving the SMS the Panchayati Raj Departments Estimates of the works in Banker transfers funds to Vilprogress lage Payment Agents bank ac Wages paid to the workers count. Paid muster rolls SMS database will be inteTo supplement the efforts of grated with NREGS web porvarious states another software tal to generate weekly payhas been developed by NIC (Nament details. tional Informatics Centre) which is being used in different States. Using Rural ATMs The low-cost rural ATM The web site has seven sections: (a) (Gramateller), being developed by For Citizen, (b) For Panchayats (at Vortex Technologies can be impleall three levels) (c) For workers (d) mented if the bank account transFor Other Implementing Agencies (e) For Programme Officer/District fer mechanism is put in place. The Project Cordinator (f) For States (g) ATM works with both used and For Ministry of Rural Develop- new notes and has a fingerprint ment. More details can be obtained based authentication system. It works on very low power with a at the site http://nrega.nic.in/ Many other solutions have built-in battery back-up and does been proposed by various agencies not require air conditioning. but have not yet reached the implementation stage. Some of them are: SMS based fund transfer To enable speeding up the process of fund transfers an innovative solution using mobile phones Using Biometrics An interesting pilot in using biometrics for authentication of workers was carried out on April 27, 2006, at Jakulla Kutha Palli (JK Palli, a remote hamlet of about 200 families, under the Amaduguru

Mandal, about 95 kms from Ananthpur District Headquarters) Reportedly the bio-metric tracking was 100 percent successful, with no failures, using a stand alone biometric device and a 12 volt car battery, as there was no power supply for the whole day in the entire Mandal. The bio-metric authentication, was not without its own attendant problems, as some of the women, came directly from work, with cement/lime mortar coating on their fingers. Some fingers were very rough and a second finger print registration had to be taken. But 100 percent success rate was achieved, out of which, 80 percent in the very first attempt and 20 percent in the second attempt. Around 50 percent of the beneficiaries are women. The minutes of the meeting of the local committee for payment disbursement in JK Palli elaborates the details of biometric tracking and payment. Synergetic Approach There are other projects like Common Service Centres, ePanchayats, etc., which are planned to be implemented in the coming months and years. In almost every state computers are slowly but surely percolating down to the panchayat level and it is only a matter of time before the State-Wide Area Networks are also available at the panchayats doorsteps. The use of ICT in NREGA implementation should be seen in synergy and complementary to all these initiatives that are contemplated or in progress. Then only can the full potential of ICT be harnessed for empowering the common citizen. NISG wishes to thank Ms. Gayatri Kalia, Officer on Special Duty, AP Rural Employment Guarantee Office and Mr. Kris Dev, Consultant, for their inputs in preparing this article.

38

38