“Instead of adequately funding the programme, the Union government has repeatedly resorted to needless technical tinkering. The National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) application for capturing workers’ attendance, mandated in the current FY, is one such anti-worker intervention,” they mentioned.
The newest digitisation efforts, ostensibly to weed out corruption and guarantee fiscal transparency, have deviated from the first goal of the scheme – to offer assured 100 days of employment to grownup members of rural households in each monetary 12 months.
The process to get work below the MGNREGA itself is a bit complicated. Those who need work ought to increase their demand with the gram panchayat, after which an acknowledgement type (C2) with particulars of the variety of staff for a given work (from a pre-approved checklist of works) and the muster roll is generated.
The MGNREGA mate has to take this muster roll to the worksite and document attendance on the NMMS utility. Once the work is completed, a Bare Foot Technician (BFT) or junior engineer will measure the progress of the work. Subsequently, the invoice for the muster roll is accredited and despatched for fee.
Work-snatcher NMMS app
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After a short pilot section, and even earlier than any impartial analysis of its efficacy had been carried out, the Ministry of Rural Development made using NMMS obligatory for capturing staff’ attendance below the MGNREGA from January 1.
During its pilot section since May final 12 months, particular person works (in non-public lands of registered beneficiaries) like land improvement had been excluded from digital attendance. Manual attendance was additionally allowed when the variety of labourers was lower than 20.
All that has modified with the NMMS, by which two time-stamped and geotagged pictures of the employees needs to be uploaded on a given day. The first exhibits the employee throughout the 6 to 11 a.m. schedule and the second throughout the 2 to six p.m. schedule.
“Due to technical issues, the attendance taken in the morning does not get registered in the app. We are eligible for payment only if the attendance is captured in the app twice daily,” Majhi Sabar, a jobseeker from Akhusingi gram panchayat in Padmapur block in Odisha’s Rayagada district, instructed 101Reporters.
“When real-time attendance is missed once, we turn out to be absentees after applying for that work. Consequently, a day of work is cut from the 100 man-days allotted in that financial year.”
“At the end of the day, the labourers seem to have wasted a day without work or pay. You know, they cannot instantly go looking for some other work when they are already at the MGNREGA site,” mentioned Kailash Majhi, a job seeker from Titiribandha village.
If the work is carried out below the person beneficiary scheme, the beneficiary himself ought to take staff’ attendance. However, there isn’t any readability on how that is doable because the NMMS app is just meant for mates.
Even mates have points on the subject of accessing NMMS. Some of them would not have the cash to buy cell phones. So they find yourself utilizing the gadgets of family/acquaintances to get the work completed. This is also a violation of the rules.
ABPS and non-linking
The ministry has additionally made Aadhaar-based Payment System (ABPS) obligatory. In easy phrases, it means linking each financial institution accounts and job playing cards with Aadhaar numbers, which is completed on the block stage. However, the issue arises when the MGNREGA web site makes use of an automatic course of to establish and reject job seekers based mostly on the Aadhaar linkage. Sometimes, it rejects these whose financial institution accounts are already seeded with Aadhaar!
To make issues worse, the MGNREGA tips stipulate that any muster roll with even a single non-ABPS request isn’t eligible for fee. In reality, the system won’t generate the wage checklist in such a circumstance.
In the Management Information System (MIS) of the MGNREGA web site, there isn’t any particular provision to establish these with out Aadhaar-linked accounts. So, if such a labourer is allotted work in a muster roll for a couple of days, that individual is ready to lapse all these man-days from his/her 100-day quota. Also, as soon as it turns into clear that this individual’s checking account isn’t appropriate for ABPS, no work will henceforth be supplied to him/her.
According to official sources, Aadhaar seeding was completed a few years in the past by organising mega Aadhaar camps. “The problem here is quite unique. The MGNREGA website itself identifies those with Aadhaar-linked accounts through an automated process. At times, it rejects even genuine cases.”
Social employee and former chairperson of Padmapur block Kailash Kraska instructed 101Reporters that tips and technical errors had been depriving individuals of their proper to hunt work and get wages. “Sometimes, during wage list generation, an error shows up which results in zero muster roll attendance,” he knowledgeable. Workers haven’t any recourse in such instances and might’t even strategy the district’s MGNREGA ombudsperson who solely appears at human-induced irregularities.
Setting limits on work
Existing tips don’t permit greater than 20 ongoing initiatives in a gram panchayat at any given time, whether or not they’re group or particular person beneficiary-related works. This has a direct impact on asset creation in gram panchayats in gentle of the technical glitches.
“If payment under any head is pending in connection with a work, it cannot be listed as complete in the MIS. When it stays in the system as a pending project, the prospect of adding new work gets affected due to the guideline related to the number of projects. It is a procedural pain to get a nod for more than 20 projects. The MGNREGA is no longer a people-oriented scheme, it is a technically suicidal programme. However, what people really need is work and on-time payment,” Akhusingi’s naib sarpanch Devasis Mohapatra instructed 101Reporters.
For making ready detailed mission studies of MGNREGA works, a safe web-based utility is used. “It takes over a month to get a project approved. Around 70 per cent of the projects submitted are rejected due to a mismatch in wage-material ratio and other technical procedures. As a result, the works approved by gram sabhas taking into account the demands raised by people are put on the back burner,” mentioned Chita Ranjan Sabar, a former samiti member of Gudia Bandha gram panchayat in Padmapur block.
“The MGNREGA has narrowed down into a set of guidelines and procedures, where the wages and right to work are sacrificed,” he famous.
Delayed funds
Instead of studying from and constructing on the potential that MGNREGA demonstrated throughout the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, the federal government is set to slowly kill the programme, says Rajendran Narayanan, Assistant Professor on the Azim Premji University. “NMMS is an unnecessary and irrelevant intervention that is being used to discourage worker participation. It doesn’t address the root causes of corruption in the scheme like the use of machines to co-opt work, lack of adequate junior engineers to verify work done in the field and the defunding of social audit infrastructure at the local level,” he observes.
A scenario that’s certain to turn out to be worse with the diminished funding for the scheme. The budgeted allocation for MGNREGA has been diminished from Rs 73,000 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 60,000 crore in 2023-24 fiscal. In 2021-22 fiscal, the allocation was Rs 98,000 crore.
Bidika Anusuya from Akhusingi Gram Panchayat labored below the MGNREGA for 14 days from December to February for a day by day wage of Rs 221, however is but to be paid as a result of lack of funds. Gudaria Sabar, a migrant labour from Soura Ambakhola village in Padmapur block, mentioned he additionally didn’t get wages for the final 4 months as a result of non-availability of Central funds.
“Life is difficult. I do not even have the money to pay off my debts to the shopkeeper,” mentioned Gudaria, who together with a couple of different labourers have determined emigrate to different states in quest of work.
“There are guidelines regarding attendance and other things, but there are no provisions to penalise the Central government when lack of funds puts rural livelihoods in jeopardy,” mentioned Akhusingi-based Congress chief Parsuram Panigrahy.
All this in the end is resulting in decrease demand and work days below MGNREGA. The MIS information for Padmapur block present the whole expenditure throughout 2021-22 fiscal was Rs 9.56 crore, whereas the variety of man-days was 4.44 lakh. In comparability, the expenditure for the present fiscal as much as February 2023 was solely Rs 4.67 crore towards 2.10 lakh man-days, which is just round half of the earlier 12 months.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com