The rural development ministry in collaboration with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is set to introduce biometrics-based identification to check the on-site corruption in the NREGS.

A committee comprising officials from the ministry, the department of Information technology and a representative of UIDAI has been constituted to consider the use of Biometrics, ICT devices and UID to improve the delivery system in the implementation of NREGA at the grassroots level.

“The introduction of the biometrics system will check fudging of the muster rolls and will help in the effective implementation of NREGA,” rural development minister C P Joshi told Governance Now in an exclusive interview.

A report prepared by the ministry notes: “The objective is to introduce biometric attendance on site to improve the overall delivery system in the implementation of NREGA by capturing all the processes right from registration, demand of work, issue of dated receipt, allocation of work, attendance at worksite with GPS coordinates, measurement of work and wage payments.”

The ministry has set August 20 as the deadline to roll out the biometric based transaction of NREGA processes. The manual attendance of workers on site has led to complaints of widespread existence of ghost workers, discrimination in awarding work and delays in preparation of muster rolls resulting in delayed payments.

The ministry expects the on-site biometric attendance would eliminate such complaints to a large extent. The process would require collection of biometric data of all NREGA workers and creation of a state data warehouse. The ministry is in the process of preparing a comprehensive concept note for rolling out the programme, which includes process mapping with the assistance of external consultants.