Now, drones to monitor MGNREGA worksites

Source: The post is based on the article “Now, drones to monitor MGNREGA worksites”  published in The Hindu on 18th August 2023.

What is the News?

The Union Ministry of Rural Development has asked States to use drones to monitor worksites under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(MGNREGA) scheme.

How can drones be helpful in monitoring MGNREGA Scheme?

Drones will be helpful in addressing complaints about corruption in MNREGA works.

These complaints vary from machines being used in place of the workers, many receiving wages without doing work, or works beyond the approved list being undertaken and so on. 

Drones will be especially helpful in such cases for real-time monitoring and for garnering evidence.

How is the government planning to deploy drones to monitor MGNREGA works?

Drones will be used for four types of monitoring: surveying the ongoing works, inspecting the completed works, impact assessment  and special inspection in case of complaints.

Drones will be used by the ombudsperson. According to the MGNREGA Act, there should be one ombudsperson per district who is responsible for registering suo moto complaints and disposing of them within 30 days.

State governments will provide the drones to ombudspersons as needed.

However, the Union government will not be providing the States with any extra funds to deploy these drones.

State governments are expected to draw the necessary funds from the administrative head, which is roughly 10% of a State’s MGNREGA budget.

Instead of buying drones, States can hire drone-specializing agencies.

Government has also planned to form a centralized dashboard to store the videos and photos collected from the drones, for data analysis and reporting purposes.

What is the significance of these measures?

This will be the second big technological intervention introduced to keep a check on MGNREGA workers. 

From May 2022, the Union government has made it mandatory to capture attendance at all worksites using a specially-developed mobile-based application.