To check irregularities in the payment of NREGA workers, the Bihar government has launched an ambitious 'E-Shakti' project to facilitate them with smart cards carrying details of their duration of work and the wages earned.
The scheme would check fake payments made under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and ensure that the officials don't fudge the workers' wages, state rural development department sources said.
Launched from Dharhar village of Paliganj area in Naxalite-hit Jehanabad district recently, the 'E-Shakti' scheme promises to cover each worker with smart cards carrying details about duration of work, the wage earned, photograph and registration number of the beneficiary, the sources said.
"A worker can register his presence by simply swiping the card in the teller machine kept with the panchayat sevaks in each of the panchayats," the sources said.
The 32 kb biometric smart card would also store a list of all government services being provided to the rural masses.
The new method will check manipulation in the preparation of muster roll and help genuine workers get a minimum 100 days of wages as per the NREGA stipulations, the sources said.
The scheme has been launched in two blocks of Jehanabad on an experimental basis and if the experiment succeeds, it would be extended to all the 38 districts of the state.
The card can be used later on as an electoral identity card, ration card, bank card as well as beneficiary card for various welfare schemes of the state government, a state public relations department official told PTI.
Bihar is the only state where the state government is using its own financial resources to implement the employment guarantee scheme in districts not covered by the Centre in the first phase.
