New portal launched to facilitate geospatial planning of MGNREGA assets

The government on Monday launched a new geospatial planning portal, 'Yuktdhara', which Union Minister Jitendra Singh said will help in facilitating new MGNREGA assets using remote sensing and geographic information system-based data.

He also said that the portal will serve as a repository of geotags created under various national rural development programmes.

The 'Yuktdhara' portal was launched by Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Giriraj Singh

The name given is very apt as the word 'Yukt' is derived from 'Yojanam' (planning) and 'Dhara' indicates flow, said Jitendra Singh, who is the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office. He is also in-charge of the Department of Space.

"This platform will serve as a repository of assets (geotags) created under various national rural development programmes i.e. MGNREGA, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, Per Drop More Crop programme and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, along with field photographs," he said.

"The new portal under Bhuvan 'Yuktdhara', which has been released today, will facilitate planning of new MGNREGA assets using remote sensing and GIS (geographic information system)-based information," Jitendra Singh said.

He said it is definitely a culmination of untiring joint efforts of the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Ministry of Rural development made towards realising a G2G service for rural planning in support of decentralised decision making.

Jitendra Singh acknowledged the potential and services of ISRO's Geoportal Bhuvan and said due to its rich information base, satellite images and analytical capabilities, Bhuvan has become a de-facto geospatial platform for a number of developmental planning activities in the country.

The minister said the high point is that this portal integrates a wide variety of thematic layers, multi-temporal high resolution earth observation data with analysis tools.

Planners will analyse previous assets under various schemes and facilitate identification of new works using online tools. Plans prepared will be evaluated by appropriate authorities under state departments, Jitendra Singh said.

Yuktdhara-based plans will be prepared by grassroot functionaries and verified by appropriate authorities for relevance and resource allocation, he said.

This will ensure quality of plan and enable long-term monitoring of assets created over the years, Jitendra Singh said.

The minister said before, during and after geotagging of assets, there will be progress-based disbursement of funds.

Also, a citizen-centric mobile application JANMANREGA has helped the rural population by providing feedback using Bhuvan services, Jitendra Singh said.

He was of the view that the synergy of geographic information and earth observation technology has not only brought value of location to each rural asset, but also brought in unprecedented transparency in MGNREGA programme.