Mobiles help MGNREGA to smoothen processes
The Indian government has been a slow adopter of technology. Until some time ago, most public departments were reluctant to use computers and smartphones for daily activities. However, things are now changing with e-governance and m-governance gaining momentum.. Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have taken a lead in offering citizens m-governance services through mobile phones.
People can now avail several government to consumer (G2C) services through their mobiles. These include acquiring death and birth certificates, driving licenses, vehicle and arms registrations etc. These are however baby steps towards an advanced information and communication system enabled by mobile devices.
MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), one of the government's biggest rural welfare programmes, too, has started using mobile technology for its processes.
MGNREGA, enacted by legislation in 2005, guarantees 100 days of employment to all rural households. In 2006, the scheme was launched in 200 districts of India with a budget of Rs 11,300 crore. It was later expanded to cover another 130 districts in 2007 and 2008, and eventually covered all 593 districts in India by April 2008. In 2009 to 2010, the outlay rose steeply to Rs 39,100 crore. About four crore rural households were provided jobs under the scheme between 2008 and 2009.
Some states have now started using mobiles to ensure transparency, better information dissemination, online monitoring and evaluation of the MGNREGA programme, ensuring timely feedback and social audits to increase the chances of this scheme being a success.
West Bengal and Karnataka governments have already initiated the process of shifting the MGNREGA processes to mobile phones. According to Ranjit Kumar Maiti, special secretary, panchayat and rural development department, West Bengal, “The pilot for this was started by government of West Bengal with assistance from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2008."
He added that at that time as many as 521 gram panchayats were given mobile phones for better implementation of NREGA processes.
He explained that mobile phones are being used for real time tracking of work progress. He further said that the programme officer captures images of the site and its GPS coordinates with the date and time on a camera enabled mobile handset, before starting any task and after the work is finished the same process is repeated to get updates on the status of the project.
The officer then visits the nearest panchayat office and retrieves data from the mobile phone onto a computer. He then uploads the data from the PC to a central server. In this way, he generates reports of the entire project.
Similarly, SMSs are being used for faster fund transfer, said Maiti. He added that the site officer sends the list of beneficiaries by SMS. A village payment agent receives the SMS and makes payments to beneficiaries. Then, a second SMS about payments made is sent to the panchayat and on receiving the SMS the panchayat's banker transfers funds to the agent's bank account. The SMS database is then integrated with the NREGA web portal to generate weekly payment details.
Maiti told Telecom Yatra that mobile phones are used by gram panchayats in the state to capture field data on a daily basis and then to upload this data onto a computer server. The data gets updated in real time in the monthly report, which is prepared by the tenth of every month.
He added that of the 341 blocks in the state, 90 are currently using mobile phones for data capture and monthly reports.
According to Maiti, the gram panchayats use low cost Nokia phones to send SMSs, which are charged at Re one per SMS. The cost of sending SMSs is funded by the state government. He also added that no mobile phone company has, till now, shown interest in offering free handsets to the panchayats.
Anindya Kumar Banerjee, regional manager, NComputing India, who had been involved in several m-governance projects in West Bengal, said that at present, the entire chain of NREGA processes in West Bengal is being facilitated through mobile phones. He added that West Bengal is the first state to have initiated the use of mobile phones in this scheme, and currently, mobile payments are being made from 3,351 gram panchayats throughout the state.
Najmul Ahasan, a senior ICT professional, said, "Mobile phones are now being used for both payments and reporting of daily updates in the NREGA scheme." He added that in the years to come, most e-governance applications will be available on mobile phones and will apply to all government schemes. Further, the applications will be simple to use.
Phoenix Software, a company involved in offering SMS solutions for the NREGA scheme in Madhya Pradesh, has launched a 'many to one sms' tool, which enables the transfer of numerical or text data from several mobile phones to a computer based database.
The 'many to one sms' tool collects information regarding engaged labour and the number of tasks in a given panchayat. All reports and SMSs generated are made available on the website in real time and a daily record of the number of SMSs received is maintained. A summary report is then sent to the concerned officers.
Akash Chouksey, head, Phoenix Software, says, “The application is currently being used in 8 to 10 districts of Madhya Pradesh and we are looking at taking it to some more districts.”
The use of ICT in this scheme can ensure timely payments and can also help in addressing the grievances of labourers working under NREGA. It can also help in strengthening social audit and in reducing chances of fraud and leakage. Maiti said that the government of Bihar is also considering implementing this service and has requested for a prototype from West Bengal.
It is important that the government should make mobile phones available to each and every gram panchayat in the country to ensure complete financial inclusion. This is possible only with a strong public-private partnership, with companies coming forward to assist the government.
