Yuktdhara: Web-based GIS Solution for Planning of MGNREGA Assets at Gram Panchayat Level

Overview

The Ministry of Rural Development’s MGNREGA (The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005) is regarded as the backbone of India’s labour laws and social security measures. Enacted in 2005, the scheme aims at guaranteeing the people of India the “right to work” and enhance livelihood security by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

The Central Government launched a new Geospatial planning portal ‘Yuktdhara’ in line with its Digital India Mission to help facilitate new MGNREGA assets using remote sensing and geographic information system-based data in August 2021. The portal’s name stands for ‘Yukt’ derived from ‘Yojana’ meaning ‘planning’ and ‘Dhara’ meaning ‘flow’. This initiative is made towards realising a G2G service for rural planning in support of decentralised decision-making in the country.

Vision: To facilitate rural local self-governments in preparing data-driven plans with reliable accuracy, accountability, and transparency.

Objectives

y To design and develop an open-source web-based GIS portal for facilitating spatial planning at the

Gram Panchayat level y To assist in capacity building of all involved stakeholders so that they can apply the tools for rural development y To collate multi-thematic content on natural resource management for ease of evaluation, verification, and execution of planning projects.

Stakeholders Involved

Village-level Planning teams, state-level rural development teams, central-level decision-makers, and voluntary bodies are involved.

Solution and Implementation Plan

Multi-thematic inputs available were integrated onto the web GIS platform, followed by conducting thorough quality assurance of the content and development and deployment of the Yuktdhara portal. This was followed by training of ground-level functionaries for using GIS tools and data, preparation of spatial plans, quality checks, and participatory approvals. The plans are being used for monitoring of assets and MGNREGA works, and a continuous learning and redesign model has been adopted to keep the system dynamic. Planners use the Yuktdhara portal to verify and analyse previous assets under various schemes and identify new works using online GIS tools.

Use of Geospatial Technologies

The portal coalesces a wide range of thematic, multi-temporal high-resolution earth observation data and geo-processing tools. It serves as a repository of assets (Geotags) created under various Yuktdhara rural development programmes Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNGNREGA), Integrated Wastelands Development Project (IWMP), Per Drop More Crop (PDMC), and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and field photographs. The available spatial inputs offer a holistic understanding and landscape familiarization of the Gram Panchayat to the user community for better planning. Planning of new activities is taken up through the web GIS portal "Yuktdhara" to incorporate spatial planning aspects to rural employment generation.

Key Outputs

y Geospatially enabled plans to take up rural employment generation. y Capacity with functionaries for GIS-based planning y Quality planning and long-term monitoring of MGNREGA assets created over the years y Progress-based disbursement of funds based on geo-tagged data.

Outcomes Achieved

The consolidation of data from various flagship programmes has significantly helped reconfigure the service chain and overcome traditional geographic or functional silos at multiple levels of programme implementation. Yuktadhara has been established as a key tool in strengthening the MGNREGA process in terms of Earth observation-based potential and value addition towards realizing Digital India. Further, scientific planning is resulting in improved resource management and livelihood improvement compliant with key SDGs.