  Generally it has been considered that the plages and sunspots are the main
contributors to the solar irradiance. There are small scale structures on the
sun with intermediate magnetic fields that could also contribute to the solar
irradiance. It has not yet been quantified how much of these small scale
structures contribute to the solar irradiance and how much it varies over the
solar cycle.
  In this paper, we used Ca II K images obtained from the telescope installed
at Kodaikanal observatory. We report a method to separate the network elements
from the background structure and plage regions. We compute the changes in the
network element area index during the minimum phase of solar cycle and part of
the ascending phase of cycle 24. The measured area occupied by the network
elements is about 30% and plages less than 1% of the solar disk during the
observation period from February 2008-2011. During the extended period of
minimum activity it is observed that the network element area index decreases
by about 7% compared to the area occupied by the network elements in 2008. A
long term study of network element area index is required to understand the
variations over the solar cycle.
