NREGAsoft-MIS for National Rural Employment Guarantee act, Delhi* 1. Goals & Objectives Ms Madhuri Sharma Make all documents of NREGA like job card, Muster rolls, demand for work, employment register available in public domain across the country Track fund movement from Ministry of Rural development to the pocket of a person across the country Develop a database of assets created under NREGA across the country since the NREGA act has come in force 2. Spread of Project service users Citizen Worker Gram Panchayats, Block Panchayats, Zila panchayats Line departments executing works of NREGA Administrator at Block and District level State NREGA department Ministry of Rural Development Administrators in the Government 3. Services provided Registration of Worker Issue of Job Card (G2C) Register Demand for work(g2c) Issue of acknowledgment for Demand for work (G2C) Generate work Allocation sheet (G2C) Generate Muster rolls(gtog) Generate pay slips(g2c) Generate Registration application Register, Job card Register, Employment Register for panchayat(g2g) Generate Cash book (G2G)
4. Geographical spread of project implementation Across the country up to Gram Panchayat Level except in Andhra Pradesh. 5. Project Timelines and milestones Project is already developed and is in implementation. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Was implemented in 200 Districts in 2006-07 and 130 more districts are added in 2007-08 and is application to whole country in 2008-2009. As on date NREGAsoft is implemented in 25 states, 344 Districts, 2857 Blocks, and 83079 Pachayats and expected to cover whole country by March 2008-2009. 6. Direct cost and time savings to avail services Workers are poor persons and all services are made free for them. But apart from cost saving what is important is to make sure that money should reach in right hands. Reduce corruption in system by making system more transparent as Government of India is spending huge money of the order Rs.16000 crores in the project. Job Card and pay slips can generate quickly. Acknowledgment For demand of work can be get immediately which ensures the right of a worker. Action on the complaints registered can be get as soon as it happens. 7. Direct cost and time savings to deliver services There will be cost saving in issue of Job card, pay slips etc. save amount and time in generating the registers need to keep at various locations. Rather then time saving it is mainly bringing the systems in place. Removing the bad practices like Kachha muster roll, part payments etc are the goals achieved as on yet. Locations where computer have reached in gram panchayat the system has helped in quickly generating the job cards and timely accepting the demand for work and issuing the acknowledgment of receipt of demand for work 8. Replication Replicated in all Districts of the country, except Andhra Pradesh. 9. Implementation model Project is government owned but some States have involved external agencies for data entry at block level.
10. Technologies Front end: Microsoft.Net technologies for online version of NREGAsoft. Microsoft as well as open source technologies for offline version of NREGAsoft Back end: Microsoft sqlserver2005 in online and MSDE2000 in offline. Any internet browser can be used to access the NREGAsoft through the NREGA portal http://nrega.nic.in. 11. Capacity building The central team has trained the State NIC team who acted as master trainers for District NIC team and District NREGA staff, The District NIC team has trained Block NREGA staff and Data entry Staff. Certain combined training programs including the District/Block NREGA staff and the persons of external agencies involved in data entry work of NREGAsoft are conducted at State HQ by the central NREGA team also. Regular video conferring with States and Districts by the central team has helped a lot in clearing the doubts of the implementers and incorporating the local requirements of the states/districts 12. Process and Legal Reforms National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is a new Act So Process reform is not required. 13. Project Financials/Sustainability NREGAsoft is created by NIC for Ministry of Rural development and is continuously maintained also. It is a collaborative effort involving Panchayats, Blocks, Districts, States and Ministry of Rural Development. Content management of NREGS in NREGAsoft is being met by State Governments as part of Administrative cost available in NREGS funding. 14. Project Teams and Leadership Senior Technical Director Technical Director Project coordinator Officials of NIC-DRD Informatics Cell State/District NIC Centers in implementation of project 15. Key project Outcomes Sustainability: It is sustainable as it is meant to keep account of Rs.12000 crores which is going from Government of India for the Betterment of job seeker.
Usage: Transparency to reduce all bad practices and protect right of worker. Bring the documents like job card, muster rolls, expenditure and fund flow under NREGA in public domain Usefulness: Worker now have complete details of when he has demanded job, when he has worked and how much money is paid to him along with muster roll number on the job card. So there is a tight linkage between the muster rolls and the job card. A citizen can track each and every paisa spent under NREGA. It does complete record keeping for Panchayats and administrators at all level. Satisfaction: Stack holders are satisfied as monitoring of such a big program becomes easier. Citizens who are generally kept out of the IT systems are the integral part of system and can see all information. In a way it has facilitated the social audit. Empowerment: Empowerment of all stakeholders by providing information. Providing space to them to enter their grievances and making the report on action taken on grievances in public domain 16. Service users Feedback Mechanism Feedback option on NREGA portal Grievance Redressal System of NREGAsoft: This system captures the Grievances from all stake holders and issues a complaint number and also tells the complainant to whom his complaint has been marked. Depending upon the type of complaint and the agency against whom the complaint has been made it decides to which officer it has to go for redressal. When that officer opens his page a pop up window comes on this screen giving details of all grievances addressed to him. He can take action by clicking the grievance from there and in this way can quickly respond to the grievances. If the officer does not take action in the specified time the grievance automatically move the next higher level. 17. Implementation Challenges Internet connectivity: Internet connectivity is quite poor at block and Panchayat level. So online as well as offline module has been developed and they are synchronous to each other. A location can move from offline to online and vice versa without and problem. Local language: The software is Unicode enabled and thus has overcome the language barrier Technologies used: The online version is on Microsoft technologies but offline version is in Microsoft as well as open source technology 18. Key Lessons learnt There is need to standardize the location code and further changes are recorded and handled by change event management. As every year many new districts are
formed, new Panchayats are formed, new villages are formed or villages move from one Panchayat to another Panchayat. As the IT infrastructure in India is quite poor in block, Panchayat and village level. It is necessary to have online and offline versions of software which are synchronous to each other. NREGAsoft implements on this strategy. Local language interface is mandatory when developing software for villages. NREGAsoft has local language interface. The IT systems should be simple and near to actual implementation. Project Contact Details Mrs. Madhuri Sharma Technical Director National Informatics Centre L-24, sector 25, Noida UttarPradesh madhuri@nic.in