Revolutionizing rural connectivity: MSC’s smart solutions for PMGSY

• Jul 29, 2025
• 2 min

The Indian government launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2000 to improve rural connectivity across India. MSC was commissioned to design smart solutions that offered better ways to improve program delivery and capacity on the ground, particularly for the project’s physical and financial management. MSC supported the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA) to implement a new range of emerging IT solutions.

MSC conducted a detailed diagnostic and designed a three-component intervention to implement a smart payments framework in the scheme:

• Smart payment engine (SPE): The proposed SPE would be a module that will run if-then-else algorithms in the backend. It would use available inputs in electronic form and any other payment conditions to automate entitlement calculation and payment disbursement.
• E-measurement book (eMB): The proposed eMB would be part of the modular architecture to enable data entry at source by contractor and rules-based processing. The eMB would aid in the inspection of compliances by the Program Implementation Unit’s engineering staff and align with the needs of the online management, monitoring, and accounting system (OMMAS). It could take data inputs directly in real time from the field.
• Single project registry (SPR): The proposed SPR would be a reference data repository based on the Single Source of Truth principle. It would have a data push and pull facility to enable access to real-time information to and from other applications.

The project would create transparency across the system to bring accountability to the program’s last-mile expenditure management. It would enable key decision-makers to better observe project site data, trace fund flow, and monitor the program in real time.

The National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA) commissioned the project.