Workers employed under NREGA on the outskirts of Ajmer, working during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Source: PTI.
The Union government’s approach to
payments under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has
been a ridiculous joke, played on the workers who wait for their
hard-earned money for a long time. Many do not get their payments at
all, owing to various local malpractices.
The complex, centralised payments
system has resulted in a never-ending nightmare for the NREGA workers
who work hard for a meagre wage. It is known to all that NREGA wages do not even match the state’s corresponding agriculture minimum wages and continue to be ridiculously low, despite workers demanding dignified wage for a long time.
Let us understand how the centralised
NREGA payments system and the official Management Information System
(MIS), together create a great delusion in the tracking of payments.
The NREGA payments system is divided
into two stages by the centre; The payments generation stage at the
local level is defined as ‘stage one’ and the release of payments by the
central government to the worker’s bank account is termed as ‘stage
two’.
Stage
one consists of different processes at the local level and is the
responsibility of the local administration. In this, the filled ‘muster
rolls’ (daily attendance sheets of the workers) need to be entered
into the MIS and collated in the form of a “wage list” (worker-wise wage
payment information). Several such wage lists are collated into
different fund transfer orders (FTO) for processing payments in
different batches.
Subsequently, the FTOs need to be
digitally signed by the authorised signatories. In most states,
Panchayat secretaries are the first signatory while the Block
Development Officer is the second. However, many states have also
authorised Panchayat heads (Mukhias or Sarpanchs) to be second
signatories, which means that they have the authority to sanction
payments.
Once the FTO is digitally signed by
the two authorised signatories, stage one of the payments processing
system ends and stage two begins. In stage two, the central government
is required to process the fund transfer orders from their end using the
National Electronic Finance Management System (NEFMS) through a single
bank, directly to the workers account.
This entire process needs to be
completed within 15 days of the end date of the muster roll and as per
the law, the worker should get their payment within these 15 days.
The centre has put in place mechanisms in their MIS to show that bulk of the payments are “generated”
within 15 days. This, practically, means that the stage one processes
are being completed within 15 days. However, as per the Act, the entire
payment process should be completed within 15 days. This is a clever
move to mislead citizens and create an illusion that payments are made
on time; a clear violation of the Act.
While payments are routinely delayed –
even the central delays are very frequent – the MIS will keep showing
that bulk of the payments are generated within 15 days. For example, as
of September 1, 40% of payments for the month of August are pending
from the central government, as per Report no. R.8.8.1 in the official website. These payments amount to about Rs. 2,593 crore of wages. However, on the same website, it shows that 99% payments have been generated on time.
Report Showing 40% ( worth Rs. 2593 crore) of the August Payments are pending as of September 1.
One would naturally ask, what is the
percentage of delay for the stage two payments cycle? This is the wrong
question to ask. As per the Act, one should be concerned about ensuring
payments to workers within 15 days from the end date of the muster roll
and should not fall into the trap of calculating the stage one and
stage two delays separately.
Going by the terminologies coined by
the government, we should see if stage two of the payments cycle is
completed within 15 days from the end date of the muster roll. We don’t
have a mechanism to track that with the publicly available reports on
the website. Instead, the ministry has come up with a report called ‘Stage Two Tracking’ which shows the volume of pending payments from the central government at any given point.
However, once the payments are
cleared by the government, subsequently, the pending transactions and
amounts are reduced in the report. Therefore, this is by no means a
measure of stage two delays and does not tell us whether payments are
being credited to worker’s bank accounts within the stipulated
timeline.
The stage two tracking report
surfaced on the website when, in 2018, the Supreme Court had directed
the Union government to show the full extent of delays in payments on
the NREGA website and pay compensations to the workers accordingly.
However, the current reports on the
website do not reflect the total number of transactions delayed
beyond 15 days or the total volume of money involved in such delays.
This is clearly in contempt of court orders.
While the government should act
transparently to put in place systems to reduce delays in payments and
show the true extent of current delays, it has chosen unfair means,
through a highly sophisticated MIS, to confuse people instead. The
workers, most of whom do not have smartphones, internet access or access
to the website, are never clear on what is causing such long delays and
where exactly the payments are getting stuck.
Generally, when they ask a frontline
functionary or the worksite supervisors (commonly known as ‘mates’),
they get the common response that, “Abhi MIS nahi hua hai” (MIS is not done as yet). The term MIS, therefore, is almost synonymous with delayed payments for the workers.
So, does the central government not even calculate the extent of delays? Before the Supreme Court in 2018, the central government had stated
that only 17% of payments in 2016-17 and 43% in 2017-18 were paid on
time (that is, within 15 days), which means they keep track of them but
deliberately do not place the report in the public domain.
The Centre’s claim of fixing all
payment-related issues through the Aadhaar-based system is a plain lie.
Contrary to the Union government’s claim, the introduction of Aadhaar into the NREGA payments system has proved to be detrimental and has created several challenges in ensuring timely payments to the workers.
The
introduction of Aadhaar into the NREGA payments system has created huge
issues wherein payments get misdirected to someone else’s (other than
the worker) bank account due to Aadhaar-bank linkage errors and a huge
number of transactions are get rejected, showing “inactive Aadhaar” as
the error. This is typically a phenomenon where the Aadhaar-based
payment is initiated but for some reason, the bank has de-linked the
Aadhaar from the worker’s bank account.
Women labourers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) on the outskirts of Ajmer, Rajasthan. Source: PTI
Apart from this, there are
Aadhaar-based exclusions reported time and again from many states. Many
genuine job cards/worker’s names have been deleted in many states
due to the absence of Aadhaar.
One who closely observes the NREGA at villages would acknowledge that the issues of NREGA payments are not limited to the matter of Aadhaar linkages; it has deep connections with the quality of local implementation.
For example, many workers across the
country do not even use their own job cards while working. They work on
other’s job cards and are paid a fraction of the full wages in cash by
the job card holder. Often, influential locals, with full support from
the administration, use their job cards for earning money in this
manner. Also, workers often start working at the worksite only to
realise after a few days that their names have not appeared on the
E-muster rolls. They are never paid for those working days.
Almost 70% of the centrally allocated funds have been exhausted this year
(as of August 31) and payments have been delayed almost by a month at
least twice within the first five months of the year. As mentioned
earlier, the bulk of August payments are on hold as of August 31. In
such circumstances, the ground implementation of the NREGA will be
negatively impacted and significantly slowed down going forward, in
the absence of adequate allocation and timely release of payments.
On top of all of this, the government has, very recently, introduced a caste-based payments processing system
wherein the FTOs will be segregated into three different caste
categories (SC, ST and Other) and will be processed separately. This
arrangement is not only unnecessary but will add to the complexities and
delays. The government should simply focus on making timely payments to
all those who have worked under the programme and should not experiment
with their hard-earned money.
The
union government should come up with simple, decentralised mechanisms
wherein Gram Panchayats will have a key role in sanctioning and
processing the payments. It will promote greater accountability in the
NREGA processes and will also empower local governing institutions.
Debmalya Nandy is associated with NREGA Sangharsh Morcha and has
worked in the tribal areas of Jharkhand and Odisha for the last 12
years.
SOURCE ; THE WIRE
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