eMARG is an e-Governance solution for:
- (a)Maintenance of rural roads.
- (b)Maintenance of State highways.
- (c)Maintenance of national highways.
- (d)None of the above
Correct — A, Maintenance of rural roads. eMARG stands for 'electronic Maintenance of Rural Roads under PMGSY'. It is an enterprise e-Governance application built by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA) under the Ministry of Rural Development, and it manages and monitors the maintenance of roads constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana — covering the five-year post-construction Defect Liability Period and the five-year Performance Guarantee period, so that maintenance work and contractor payments are tracked in a single transparent system.
- (b)Maintenance of State highways. — State highways are built and maintained by the State PWDs, not by NRIDA. eMARG's scope is fixed by its own name — rural roads built under PMGSY — and it does not extend to the State highway network.
- (c)Maintenance of national highways. — National highways fall under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and NHAI, an entirely different ministry with its own monitoring systems. eMARG belongs to the rural development side of government.
- (d)None of the above — Wrong, because option (a) is precisely right — eMARG is officially described as an e-Governance solution for the maintenance of rural roads constructed under PMGSY.
PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana), launched on 25 December 2000, is a Ministry of Rural Development programme to give all-weather road connectivity to unconnected habitations, implemented through NRIDA. Building the road is only half the job; keeping it usable is the other half, and that is where eMARG comes in — it digitises maintenance contracts, inspections and payments for PMGSY roads. It sits in a family of PMGSY IT systems: OMMAS for online management, monitoring and accounting of projects and funds, the Meri Sadak app for citizen complaints about road quality, and GIS-based systems for rural road planning.
The question is really a 'which ministry owns this portal?' test dressed up as an acronym. Decode the name itself — MARG is literally 'road' and the official expansion spells out 'Maintenance of Rural Roads under PMGSY'. Once you place a scheme with its parent ministry (rural roads → Ministry of Rural Development; national highways → MoRTH/NHAI; State highways → State PWD), options (b) and (c) fall away without any extra recall.
- eMARG = electronic Maintenance of Rural Roads under PMGSY
- Developed by NIC for NRIDA (National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency), Ministry of Rural Development
- Covers the five-year post-construction Defect Liability Period and the five-year Performance Guarantee maintenance of PMGSY roads
- PMGSY was launched on 25 December 2000 for all-weather connectivity to unconnected habitations
- Related PMGSY IT systems: OMMAS (management, monitoring and accounting) and the Meri Sadak citizen-complaint app
eMARG lives on the rural-development side of government, which is why options (b) and (c) cannot be right.
- Assuming any road-related portal belongs to MoRTH/NHAI — PMGSY portals belong to the Ministry of Rural Development
- Mixing up eMARG (maintenance) with OMMAS (project management and accounting) and Meri Sadak (citizen feedback)
- Treating PMGSY as a State scheme; it is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme implemented through State agencies
This is the standard 'portal/app → sector' question. MPPSC asks the acronym directly; UPSC prefers 'consider the following statements' about the parent scheme. Learn each portal with its ministry and its one-line function.
Consider the following schemes launched by the Union Government: I. Antyodaya Anna II. Gram Sadak Yojana III. Sarvapriya IV. Jawahar Gram Samriddhi Yojana. Which of these were announced in the year 2000?
- (a) I and II
- (b) II and IV
- (c) III and IV
- (d) I, II and III
Answer(a) I and II — Antyodaya Anna Yojana and the (Pradhan Mantri) Gram Sadak Yojana were both announced in 2000.
Same programme, tested at its birth — PMGSY, the rural roads scheme whose maintenance eMARG now manages, and which UPSC placed in the year 2000.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) is implemented by which Union Ministry?
- (a)Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
- (b)Ministry of Rural Development
- (c)Ministry of Panchayati Raj
- (d)Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
Answer(b) Ministry of Rural Development — through the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA).
- practice — not a real PYQ
The 'Meri Sadak' mobile application is associated with:
- (a)citizen feedback and complaints about rural roads under PMGSY
- (b)electronic toll collection on national highways
- (c)online booking of State transport buses
- (d)reporting potholes under the Smart Cities Mission
Answer(a) citizen feedback and complaints about rural roads under PMGSY — one of the citizen-facing IT tools of the programme.