Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme

What is the Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme?

Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Indira Gandhi Shahari Rozgar Guarantee Yojana, usually abbreviated IRGY, is Rajasthan's urban counterpart to MGNREGA, run by the Local Self Government Department of the Government of Rajasthan through the state's urban local bodies. The scheme was announced in the 2022-23 state budget and launched on 9 September 2022, making Rajasthan one of the first Indian states to legislate a genuine urban employment guarantee at scale.

Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme guarantees a registered urban household up to 125 days of unskilled manual work in a financial year at the notified daily wage, with work to be provided within 15 days of a recorded demand. The scheme covers all municipal corporations, municipal councils and municipalities in the state.

The design borrows directly from MGNREGA: a household-level job card, a demand that the administration must answer within a fixed period, attendance-based wages paid into a bank account, and a published list of permissible works. The difference is the work itself. Rural MGNREGA builds ponds and field bunds; the urban scheme cleans drains, maintains parks, plants and waters trees, supports heritage conservation, removes debris and runs civic sanitation drives, work a municipality needs done anyway and previously contracted out.

The guarantee started at 100 days and was raised to 125 days in the 2023-24 Rajasthan budget, effective 1 April 2023, with a state outlay reported at around Rs 800 to Rs 1,100 crore for the expanded scheme.

Note on the scheme's name. The Rajasthan government that took office in December 2023 reissued the scheme as the Mukhyamantri Shahari Rozgar Guarantee Yojana. The portal address, the job card, the demand process and the work categories carried over. If your job card says Indira Gandhi Shahari Rozgar Guarantee Yojana, it remains valid; you do not need to register again.

Who is eligible for the Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme?

Your household can register if:

• You are a permanent resident of Rajasthan living inside the area of a municipal corporation, municipal council or municipality.
• Your household holds a Jan Aadhaar card listing the members who will work.
• The members who want work are aged 18 to 60 years.
• Those members are willing to do unskilled manual work.
• Each worker has a bank account for wage credit.

There is no income ceiling, no caste condition and no education requirement. This is deliberate: an employment guarantee is self-targeting, because people who do not need a manual day-wage job do not turn up for one.

You cannot apply / are not eligible if:

• Your household lives in a rural area outside every urban local body. Rural households are covered by MGNREGA instead, and a household cannot draw from both guarantees for the same period.
• The person seeking work is under 18 or over 60.
• You have no Jan Aadhaar record in Rajasthan.
• You are seeking a salaried or skilled municipal post, the scheme provides day-wage unskilled work, not permanent employment, and it confers no claim to a government job.

Registration is by household. All eligible adults in the Jan Aadhaar family can be added to one job card, but the 125-day entitlement belongs to the household for the year and is shared among them.

How to apply for a job card under the Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme

1. Open the official portal at irgyurban.rajasthan.gov.in. This is the only authorised application channel for the scheme.
2. Choose Job Card Registration and sign in with your SSO ID. If you do not have one, register for an SSO ID first at sso.rajasthan.gov.in using your Jan Aadhaar number.
3. Enter your Jan Aadhaar number and pull up the family record. Select the adult members aged 18 to 60 who want to be registered as workers.
4. Fill in the address, ward and urban local body details, add each worker's Aadhaar number and bank account details, and upload the required documents.
5. Submit the application and note the acknowledgement or application number.
6. Collect or download the job card once the urban local body verifies the household. The card carries the household registration number used for every later work demand.
7. File a work demand. Log in again, open the work demand option, and record how many days of work you want. Work must be offered within 15 days.

If you cannot fill the form yourself, go to an e-Mitra kiosk or your ward office. The kiosk may charge only the small government-notified service fee; the registration itself is free.

What work is offered and how are wages paid?

Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme runs work in a published set of categories:

• Environment protection; plantation, watering, park and garden upkeep.
• Water conservation — desilting and cleaning drains, ponds, step-wells and other water bodies.
• Sanitation and solid waste; civic cleanliness drives, waste segregation support.
• Heritage conservation, supporting maintenance of historic structures.
• Removal of illegal encroachment and debris in public spaces.
• Service and convergence works with other municipal departments.

Wages are paid at the notified daily rate for unskilled workers in Rajasthan, credited directly to the worker's bank account against attendance recorded at the worksite. Attendance is entered by a mate on the portal, so a worker who is present but not marked will not be paid: checking the muster entry at the end of each day matters more than anything else in this scheme.

What documents are required for the urban employment guarantee scheme?

How to check your job card and payment status

1. Sign in at irgyurban.rajasthan.gov.in with your SSO ID.
2. Open Job Card details to see the household registration number, the members listed, and the days of work already used in the current financial year.
3. Open the muster roll or attendance section to check that each day you worked is recorded.
4. Check payment status against the muster roll, and update your bank passbook to confirm the credit.
5. If a day worked is missing from the muster roll, raise it with the mate and the ward office immediately; corrections are far easier before the muster is closed.

Why urban employment guarantee claims get stuck

• Attendance not recorded by the mate for a day actually worked. This is the most frequent complaint under the scheme.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, so the wage transfer fails.
• Name mismatch between Jan Aadhaar, Aadhaar and the bank account.
• Household already at the 125-day limit for the financial year.
• Work demand not formally recorded on the portal; verbally asking a ward officer for work does not start the 15-day clock.
• Household address falls outside the urban local body boundary, which invalidates the registration.

The practical lesson is to do everything on the portal and keep the reference numbers. A recorded demand is enforceable; a conversation is not.

Where to complain about the Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme

• Toll-free helpline 18001806127, listed by the Local Self Government Department for its urban schemes.
• Ward office and the executive officer or commissioner of your urban local body, for attendance, work allocation and delay complaints.
• Grievance section on irgyurban.rajasthan.gov.in, which issues a tracking number.
• Rajasthan Sampark helpline 181 or the Rajasthan Sampark portal for a written complaint escalated above the municipality.

Job card registration and work demand are free. No mate, contractor, ward official or agent may charge for a job card, for being given work, or for releasing your wages.