Who we are

 

We are a team of engineers, social workers and social scientists who are interested in improving public service delivery in India. We are inspired by India’s Right to Information movement and believe that transparency can go a long way in reducing corruption and improving accountability.

While technology is integral to our approach, we recognise that a transparency project cannot just be about transferring bits of information from one place to another. We have learned that providing actionable information is a hard task. It requires an understanding of concrete problems that people face in each context, a strategy on which issues could be reasonably tackled in a given context, and an assessment of what role information can play in a role in this social process.  Doing so requires us to combine technical imagination with a sound understanding of social and political complexities. Consequently, LibTech’s focus has been on combining a thorough presence on the ground with rigorous academic research – what we call ‘Action Research’.

February 2024 Data Point: Mass Jobcard Deletions in NREGA

Our February Data Point looks at the trend of jobcard deletions in NREGA. Read more here.

Recent Publications

Payments in Odisha

We present a data summary of challenges workers faced while trying to access their wages from payment disbursement agencies including banks, ATMs, Customer Service Points (CSPs) and Banking Correspondents (BCs).
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Heavy Wait

The NREGA payment process consists of 2 Stages. After work is completed, a Funds Transfer Order (FTO) with worker details is digitally sent to the Central Government
by panchayat/block. This is called Stage 1 and it’s the state’s responsibility. The Central government then processes the FTOs and transfers wages directly to the workers’ accounts.

MGNREGA Employment

This Report was prepared using data available in the public domain. The analysis is based on data from three Financial Years: 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22. In this report, we present the state and district level details of Employment generated, Expenditure and Rejected Payments.

Updates

Recent EPW Commentary piece: From Aadhaar Mandate to Mass Jobcard Deletions: Unravelling the MGNREGA Story. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.58 (38), 23 September 2023.  Chakradhar Buddha, Laavanya Tamang.
New Challenges for NREGA in Telangana. The India Forum, 20 December 2023. Chakradhar Buddha, Anuradha De, Diwakar Mantri.
Fraud risk, boat journeys, biometric errors: Digital pension payments leave many behind in Odisha, Sameet Panda and Chakradhar Buddha, Scroll.in, 9 January 2024.