New Delhi: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will help the Government in implementing its flagship Rural Employment Scheme.

Besides the IITs and IIMs, many other universities and professional institutions have agreed to support the rural development ministry in implementing the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme.

"The IITs may provide assistance for preparation of works manual and quality control guidelines for NREG. It will also provide technical inputs for improvement in NREG works, besides helping create a model for work convergence with other government programmes," an official said.

"The institute will also help in training and capacity building of NREG technical staff."

"The IIMs may help in development of tools for programme evaluation and monitoring, training and capacity building of programme officers and district programme coordinators. It may also help in the development of techniques and tools for convergence of agri-business and concurrent evaluation studies on NREG scheme," he said.

The 2006 Act provides enhancement of livelihood security to rural households by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year.

Earlier this month, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh held meetings with the heads of several universities, technological and management Institutes seeking their support for implementation of the NREG programme.

"Case studies may be developed through joint collaboration of the institutions and NREG programme implementation agencies that may be used in teaching as well as training institutions," he said.

The educational institutions may encourage undergraduate and postgraduate students in different programmes to work as summer interns in the NREG scheme and earn a certificate at the end of their internship.

Various areas of technical collaboration with the institutes were identified. It included the agricultural universities' potential support in conducting studies on impact assessment on employment, migration, income, wages, agricultural productivity and soil moisture.

In April this year, the NREG scheme was extended to all 630 districts in the country with 21.1 million households being provided employment till June 2008. IANS