The State government is planning to make payment of wages to all wage-seekers of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) through biometric smart cards soon, Commissioner of Rural Development G. Jayalakshmi stated.
Payment of wages under the scheme is being made through biometric smart cards in 17,798 of the 21,916 gram panchayats (GPs) including through postal biometric disbursement in 2,428 GPs. The remaining 4,118 GPs in three districts will be brought under the smart card payment system soon, she said making a presentation on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in MGNREGS in the State at a programme on innovative practices organised by the Centre for Innovations in Public Systems (CIPS) here on Saturday.
Explaining about IT@School project in Kerala, Secretary of General Education of that State M. Sivasankar said they had introduced IT as a compulsory subject in syllabus for Class 8 in 2002 and for Classes 9 and 10 in the next two years. Now all high schools in Kerala were VPN (virtual private network)-connected and over 20,000 classrooms were transformed into e-classrooms.
