Road construction in India

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Overview

Launched in 2000, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) aims to improve rural connectivity across India. Over the past 20 years, PMGSY has significantly expanded the rural road network through the construction and upgradation of more than 704,000 km of roads connecting 172,000 habitations, with an aim to reduce the income disparities between urban and rural India.

In spite of these achievements, PMGSY has faced various challenges relating to construction delays, cost overruns, and under-utilisation of funds. The current process requires significant manual intervention from all stakeholders, which results in tedious verification checks, high individual discretion, and substantial administrative burden due to the nature of the work to be verified and the value of funds to be disbursed.

Solution

To overcome these issues, MSC supported the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA), which is responsible for managing and monitoring the PMGSY, with adopting a Smart Payment system. The proposed smart payment system included the following major components:

Single project registry (SPR)

A central data repository for all PMGSY projects, which enabled real-time access to all project-related information such as on vendors, contract milestones, and payment conditions.

E-measurement book (e-MB)

Traditionally, the execution of projects was recorded manually in a physical Measurement Book. The e-MB transitioned this into a digital interface, through which project milestones could be seamlessly tracked and verified.

Smart payment engine (SPE)

An if-then-else rule-based engine that will automatically invoice payment processing and voucher creation using data input from the e-MB and trigger fund release to the vendors.