Transcript www.cprsouth.org

Evaluating National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme In
India: A Dynamic Rural Survey Method
Using Mobile Phones
CPRSouth 6, Janani Rangarajan, Rajesh Kumar, Sriram Narayanamurthy, Dr.Ashok
Jhunjhunwala, Suma Prashant
Dec 9-10, 2011
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Overview of National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme (NREGS)
About Technology for Evaluation of the Scheme –
Mobile Interface to Enterprise Database: MINED
Method of Evaluation
Challenges while using Mobile Technology for
Evaluation
Key Findings and Policy Recommendations
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NREGA ACT:
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act, covering over 800 million people, is one of the world’s largest
social welfare scheme aimed at poverty alleviation in rural areas by
guaranteeing hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural
household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work.
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UNDP sponsored audit was done by RTBI:
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Sample:
Continuous
audit is an integral part of NREGS which requires a simple procedure
A total of 600 NREGS workers from 5 districts and 40 villages
constituted the sample. Sample based on random sampling
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Automation Software for the audit survey conducted
using mobile phones: Mobile Interface to Enterprise
Database(MINED):
 MINED is a unique interfacing technology which is used for data collection
through an inexpensive mobile connected over GPRS to the enterprise
database.
Why MINED?
 Data to be collected from a large area (remote villages) in a short period
of time
 Usual method consumes paper and time
 Synchronizes data between handset and back end instantaneously
 Allows alteration/removal/ introduction of questions mid stream
 Collected data is tamper proof
 No data loss and data misinterpretation
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A total of 72 questions in
Tamil,
font
used
was
SaiIndra
Each screen could
accommodate around 5-7
questions and 10-12
screens per questionnaire
were used
Drop down options for all
the questions were provided
NREGA- Live Sample Data Upload
in multiple languages
July 2009
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Language: Mobile phones could not support
Tamil fonts
This was overcome by using Universal Text
Format (UTF) 8 in all the mobile phones
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Field Size: Tamil fonts occupied more space
than the 32 bytes allocated for English fonts
by default
The field size of the answers was increased in
order to ensure that the full answer to a
question was accommodated
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Mode of conducting: A challenge initially
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No provision for subjective answers
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Emotions could not be captured
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Live update and Real time data analysis
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Flexibility of changing questions
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Accurate data
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Cost effective and saves time
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Scalable and supports vernaculars