NEW DELHI: The Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Andhra Pradesh has taken the lead in putting the maximum information on the programme in the public domain. This has been done by providing computer connectivity up to the mandal (block) level.

Designed by TCS

The comprehensive Andhra Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (APREGS) portal is designed by the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is also holding talks with the Bihar, Assam and Uttaranchal Governments to replicate the model in these States.

"This is perhaps the highest level of information that has been put in the public domain to make this ambitious scheme transparent,'' according to the Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh. "The mandals are connected through 1,300 computers where information from the gram sabha is updated every fortnight," he said, adding that the challenge now was to make the scheme totally online by providing connectivity right up to the village level.

Accountability

By computerisation, the A.P. Government has been successful in bringing about total transparency in the issuance of job cards, preparation of job cards, and payment of wages. The online system has also helped in monitoring of rights and entitlements for the 100 days wage employment to wage-seekers families and timely payment of minimum wages. The site also facilitates social audit and offers accountability mechanism at individual and institution levels.

Innovative step

The most innovative step taken by the State Government is to make the payment of wages to labour through bank or postal saving accounts opened for every wage seeker so that there is no corruption in the muster-rolls and the payment is ensured to the worker. This also offers transparency in all transactions and fixing accountability. Each household job card is generated by a computer and has a ID which gives all information regarding the job card holder, including caste, gender and even disability besides members of the self-help groups. The employment guarantee scheme software also generates estimates for the works identified by the gram sabha.

States told to emulate

Mr. Ramesh along with the representatives of the Tata Consultancy Services, and the Rural Development Secretary of A.P. even made a presentation before the Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to explore the possibility of the other States also adopting the same model.

The module is also used to analyse the available data in the database and generate reports for monitoring the implementation of the programme. This would also be useful in identifying undesirable trends to take corrective actions, according to the TCS.

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