An Act to

provide for the

enhancement of
livelihood
National Rural Employment security of the
households in
Guarantee Act 2005 rural areas of
Seminar on the country by
“Government Flagship schemes: providing at
ICT: A key Enabler” least one
Using ICT for NREGA hundred days of
Guaranteed
wage
Dr. Rita Sharma employment in
Secretary, Government of India
Ministry of Rural Development.
every financial
year to every
21st, October, 2009 household
1
 NREGA:
NREGA: Objectives
Objectives
Primary
Supplement employment opportunities
Auxiliary
Regenerate natural resource base for
sustainable rural livelihoods
o Water conservation & water harvesting
o Drought Proofing (afforestation & tree plantation)
o Irrigation canals, micro & minor irrigation works
o Works on individual land of SC/ST/BPL/IAY/ Land
reform beneficiaries/ Small & Marginal farmers
o Renovation of traditional water bodies
o Land development
o Flood control & protection, drainage
o Rural connectivity
Process Outcomes
Strengthen grass root processes of
democracy Infuse transparency and
accountability in governance 2
 NREGA National
(FY 2006-07)
Overview
(FY 2007-08) (FY 2008-09) (FY 2009-10)
200 Districts 330 Districts 615 Districts upto Sep., 09
619 Districts
Employment provided to households:   2.10 Crore 3.39 Crore 4.49 Crore 3.26 Crore
PERSONDAYS [in Crore]
Total:   90.5 143.59 216.01 128.24
SCs:  22.95 [25%] 39.36 [27%] 63.39 [29%] 38.67 [30%]
STs:   32.98 [36%] 42.07 [29%] 54.78 [25%] 27.86 [22%]
Women:  36.79 [41%] 61.15 [43%] 103.41 [48%] 65.43 [51%]
Others:  34.56 [38%] 62.16 [43%] 97.84 [45%] 61.71 [48%]
Average personday per household 43 Days 42 Days 48 Days 39 Days
FINANCIAL DETAIL
Budget Outlay (In Rs Crore): 11300 12000 30000 39100
Central Release (In Rs Crore): 8640.85 12610.39 29939.60 16524.61
Total available fund [including OB]: In Crore. 12073.55 19,305.81 37483.94 29182.69
Expenditure (In Rs. Crore.) 8823.35 15856.89 27137.88 15737.40
Average wage per day Rs. 65 Rs. 75 Rs. 84 Rs. 88
WORKS DETAIL
Total works taken up (In Lakhs):   8.35 17.88 27.2 25.21
Works completed:    3.87 8.22 12.09 6.39
Water conservation: 4.51 [54%] 8.73 [49 %] 12.50 [46%] 13.15 [52%]
Provision of Irrigation facility to land owned by 0.81 [10%] 2.63 [15 %] 5.56 [20%] 4.15 [16%]
SC/ST/ BPL and IAY benificiaries:
Rural Connectivity: 1.80 [21%] 3.08 [17 %] 4.91 [18%] 4.17 [17%]
Land Development: 0.89 [11%] 2.88 [16%] 3.97 [15%] 3.40 [13%]
Any other activity: 0.34 [4%] 0.56 [3%] 0.25 [1 %] 0.33 [1.3%
 NREGA: Positive Trends
• Increase in Agriculture Minimum Wages and wage earned per
day and annual income. Bargaining power of labour has
increased
• Earnings per HH has increased from Rs 2795 in 2006-’07 to Rs
4060 in 2008-’09 & estimated Rs. 5000 in 2009-10
• Financial Inclusion: 7.75 crore accounts opened
• Distress migration has reduced in many parts
• “Green Jobs” created as 70% works relate to water
conservation, water-harvesting, restoration, renovation and
desilting of water bodies, drought-proofing, plantation &
afforestation
• Rural assets created led to Productivity-enhancing effects
- Improvement in ground water
- Improved agricultural productivity & cropping intensity
- Livelihood diversification in rural areas.
4
 ICT and NREGA

1. Implementation: Transparency &

Accountability
2. Grievance Redressal
3. Financial Inclusion
4. Public Information
5. Employment generation effects
6. Income impact on telecom sector
 ICT for Implementing NREGA
 NREGA is Rights based. The basic premise for
Rights is transparency.
ICT provides an opportunity for enabling
transparency by placing all information in the
public domain.
It includes separate pages for approximately 2.5 lakh Gram
Panchayats, 6458 Blocks, 615 Districts and 34 States & UTs.
8 crore Job Cards & 2 crore Muster Rolls in public domain
A transaction level, work-flow based, web
enabled MIS has been developed for NREGA
nrega.nic.in
The architecture of software is designed to
follow all the legal and statutory provisions
 MIS Functions
Generate all Registers/documents and make them available to public, specially:
• Workers’ entitlements:
o Registration,
o Job cards,
o Employment demanded and allocated,
o Days worked,
o Muster rolls,
o Unemployment allowance,
o Payments and compensations due.
• Work data:
o Sanctioned shelf of works,
o Work progress,
o Measurement,
o Inventory of works/assets
• Financial data:
o Financial Proposals
o Funds available/spent
o Amount paid as wages, materials and administrative expenses
o Track transfer of fund to various implementing agencies.
o Online processing of Labour Budgets
• Grievances:
o Register grievances of workers and Track complaints and action taken
• Monitoring and Corrective Action: alerts for corrective action, Social Audit findings.
 Use of ICT in Grievance Redressal

• Citizen can lodge complaints online through

website www.nrega.nic.in
• National helpline now being upgraded to ICT based
network of national helpline
• Toll free Helpline No. obtained which is
1800110707.
• Complaints received through Helplines has been
sent to the State Govt through email.
• State Governments have been requested to set up
Helplines at the State and District levels. Report on
establishment of helpline has been received from UP,
Gujarat, Bihar, Goa
Use of ICT for Financial Transactions

• NREGA has given a big stimulus to ICT

enabled financial transactions in rural areas:
Rural ATM, hand held devices, smart cards,
bio-metrics.

• ICT enabled business correspondence

services that use Smart Card / Hand held
devices / Biometrics
 ICT for People’s Information
• Pilot initiative launched to enable direct worker access to log in
and transact through a Point of transaction. Integration of
following NREGA processes in Smart Cards or Hand held
Devices with biometric identification:
 Registration , Job cards, Demand and allocation of work
 Recording of attendance at worksite
 Payment of wages
Areas of implementation as Pilot Project –Andhra Pradesh,
Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala

• Geographic Information System (GIS): GIS for effective

management and assessment of Natural Resources through GIS-
based Asset Management System. GIS to evolve appropriate
methodology for collection, collation, storage and processing of
data on natural resources in a given region and in totality. Area of
implementation – Gujarat, West Bengal, Uttarakhand

• Partnership with UIDA for including NREGA workers in the unique

identity project.
Employment generation impact on ICT

• 6907 computer assistants at block

level

• 745 IT manager and computer

Assistants at District level
 NREGA Income Impact on ICT

• Estimated 10% of wages earned

expended on mobile phones
• Computers and internet connectivity
• Under consideration NREGA labour
for trench digging for laying fibre
optic cables by BSNL
http://nrega.nic.in