The Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, held a two-day National Workshop on “Strengthening Digital Data Systems and Evidence-Based Learning” under DAY-NRLM, on 12th and 13th October 2026, at Gurugram, Haryana. Representatives of State Rural Livelihoods Missions, NITI Aayog, the World Bank, GIZ, J-PAL, Gates Foundation, 3ie, BRAC, NABARD, NPCI, financial institutions and development partners participated in the workshop.

In his keynote address, Shri Rohit Kansal, Secretary, Department of Rural Development, GoI, said that around 10 crore women organised into nearly 92 lakh SHGs have leveraged formal credit of about ₹14 lakh crore. The next phase must strengthen around 87 lakh enterprises and track the progress of Lakhpati Didis towards the target of six crore. He said “what gets measured gets done; what gets measured gets improved,” and called for LokOS to become an operational platform integrated with banking portals for a seamless digital credit journey. He urged that data be complete, consistent, current, correct and verifiable, and that the Mission move from monitoring dashboards to decision-support systems.

Shri Vipin Kumar, Additional Secretary, Department of Rural Development, GoI, outlined three strategic shifts for DAY-NRLM i.e. from inclusion to prosperity, from credit access to quality credit, and from supported to self-reliant institutions. He said LokOS can build a digital record of credibility for each woman based on her saving and repayment behaviour. He stressed that this data belongs to the women who generate it and must be used in their interest.

The Ministry has been closely working with the State Rural Livelihoods Missions and technical partners to systematically resolve operational and system-related issues, assign clear responsibilities and timelines, strengthen the training and handholding of field functionaries and community cadres, and facilitate cross-learning through the replication of State best practices. Progress in digitising SHG, VO and CLF profiles and recording their financial transactions on LokOS was reviewed during the workshop. Validation of member and institution data was stated to be the foundation for transactions, credit histories and programme analysis. The workshop will strengthen the monitoring framework by moving to household, institutional and enterprise outcomes, using LokOS as an evidence base, connecting administrative datasets across schemes, and investing in State capacity to generate and use evidence

The workshop was also attended by Shri Amit Shukla, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, GoI; Dr. Monika, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, GoI; Smt. Rangoli Pathak, Joint Director, Ministry of Rural Development, GoI; Shri Suraj Bhan, CEO, Haryana SRLM; Shri Himanshu Sharma, CEO, Bihar SRLM; and Shri Sumit Kumar, CEO-ZP, Gurugram, Haryana.

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