Government inks pact with ISRO for geo-tagging assets under MGNREGA

The Rural Development Ministry has inked an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for geo-tagging the assets created under MGNREGA in each gram panchayat in a bid to bring in more transparency in the rural employment guarantee scheme.

The move comes after PM Narendra Modi underlined the need for online recording and monitoring of assets to check leakages and effective mapping of terrain for future development works. “Around 30 lakh assets are created annually across the country under the rural job scheme and the ministry has decided that through convergence with other schemes, the geo-tagging of such assets will be done on a mission mode,” said Rural Development Secretary JS Mathur.

Mathur added, “With the help of Bhuvan mobile platform, completed asset would be geo-tagged along with photograph by gram rozgar sahayak or junior engineer. Since a huge amount of funds is flowing through the 14th Finance Commission to gram panchayats, more and more quality assets would be added through MGNREGA in rural areas which will lead to poverty reduction.”

Mathur said over 7 crore labourers have their Aadhar numbers seeded with bank accounts and over 95 per cent workers are getting their wages directly into their bank accounts or post-office accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, which has helped significantly in checking corruption in the rural job scheme.

ISRO chief Kiran Kumar said, “The application of technology for rural development will go a great way in planning and execution of projects in a transparent manner. Space technology is increasingly being used to the grassroot level for not only visualisation of the assets but also for terrain mapping to undertake other developmental works like watershed and drought-proofing measures.”