Managing innovations in rural e-governance services: a case of MGNREGS in India

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) focuses on supporting income of Below Poverty Line (BPL) citizens in India. Its outreach across Indian states and among the population having diverse employment challenges in rural India has made the scheme more complex. Role of e-Governance has been quite beneficial in ensuring transparency, accountability and empowering rural citizens to exercise their rights. This has been possible through innovations in e-Governance services that involve complex federal and democratic structure of government systems. In this paper we discuss the issues related to innovations in services, and restructuring the processes while embedding citizen interests. This paper illustrates role of e-Governance in successfully planning, designing and implementing innovations for effective deliveries of MGNREGS services with multi-dimensional effects on sustainable development in a country like India.