State to get national NREGS call centre

The Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) will replicate the Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS) introduced by the state panchayatiraj department.

It has agreed to set up the National Call Centre (NCC) for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

This follows a presentation made by the officials of the panchayatiraj (PR) department recently to the officials of the MoRD. The proposed call centre will cater to all complains of all the states and the Union territories pertaining to the implementation of the NREGS, official sources here said. “The Union government has decided to set up the National Call Centre for NREGS at Bhubaneswar and it will function at the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD)”, R N Dash, secretary, panchayatiraj, Orissa government toldiness Standard.

He said, the Centre will employ the local youths to handle the work. This apart it will also act as call centre for all the schemes implemented by the panchayatiraj and the rural development department.

To bring in transparency in the implementation of the schme, the Orissa government introduced the electronic grievance redressal system (EGRS) for the NREGS job seekers in the state. Ten potential areas of complain pertaining to NREGS have been identified. They include not getting job cards, not being registered for work, not getting work after registration, getting work after 15 days, and delay in wage payments.

Under the new grievance redressal system, a call centre was set up at the state head quarter and a toll free number was introduced in the panchayatiraj department. The department has designed a software where the complains booked through the toll free number is being routed to the concerned Block Development Officer (BDO) using the digital signature.

Dash said, to spread the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITeS), the department has chalked out a plan to appoint 2000 data entry operators for 2000 Gram Panchayats initially. The operators will be employed locally and will be paid Rs 2000 per month on contract basis. It will be expanded to other GPs later. It has got the approval of the state finance department.