Geo-tagging of MGNREGA assets reach the one crore landmark

Geo-tagging of MGNREGA assets reach the one crore landmark(सीमा चिन्ह)

Ministry of Rural Development achieved a milestone(मील का पत्थर) today by successfully geo tagging one crore assets created under flagship rural employment program MGNREGA. The geotagged assets have been shared in public domain. Each year a huge number of rural assets are created under MGNREGA. Since it started in 2006-07, more than 2.8 crore assets have been reportedly created. That makes for an annual average of about 30 lakh new assets.

The assets created range from plantations, rural infrastructure, water harvesting (कटाई) structures, flood control measures such as check dams etc., infrastructure for the community and assets promoting sustainable livelihood. All the assets created under the program will be geotagged. According to ministry sources assets relating to water works will receive primacy.

After PM Narendra Modi highlighted the need for online recording and monitoring of assets to check leakages Ministry of Rural development tied up with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO and National Informatics Centre to geo tag MGNREGA assets. An MoU was signed on June 24, 2016 for geo tagging of assets under each village panchayats.

Relevant training manuals were developed in consultation with NRSC. Help of National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR) was enlisted for training more than 2.75 lakh personnel.

Once the  training programme was completed in the last week of August, 2016, geotagging exercise started from September 1, 2016. The exercise will ultimately lead to more transparency and ultimately ensure accountability at ground level.

Generally a Gram Rozgar Sahayak or a junior engineer takes a photo of an asset and upload it on the Bhuvan web portal run by ISRO's National Remote Sensing Centre via a mobile app. Once a photo is uploaded, time and  location gets encrypted (को गोपित) automatically. There is also an option to add more information according to laid down parameters.

Around mid January 2017, Kangra, in Himachal Pradesh became the first district in the country to geotag all the assets created under the MGNREGA.