Jharkhand has gone through a rough patch in MGNREGA implementation in the financial year 2018-19. The implementation of MGNREGA was almost standstill for nearly about 6 months during the financial year. The Gram panchayats Mukhias were on a one month long “ pen down” strike in demand of the fourteenth finance commission funds , followed by a  strike called by the NREGA functionary union ( The programme officers  and the frontline functionary’s) in demand of better remuneration and benefits for the staffs. This has vastly  affected the implementation of MGNREGA works  across the state and as a result the persondays generation figures took a huge blow. In addition to this, couple of occasions the wage payments were held up by the central government , each time for  a period of more than one months. The delayed payments and frequent freezing of money has adversely impacted work at ground. The government will have to take full responsibility of the failure as they have constantly neglected the ground issues and allowed this situation where MGNREGA functioning was almost zero in the entire state during the strike called by the NREGA functionaries.

It is also important to mention that , state’s decentralized annual labour budget planning and Integrated watershed planning in 1272 villages of the same number of GPs under the CFT( Cluster facilitation Team) progaramme was also on hold for a long long time due to the absence of NREGA functionaries at the field. Once the strike was revoked and work resumed, the long exercises of labour budget planning and integrated watershed planning ran simultaneously for more than a month and absolutely negligible implementation work could be done during this phase as almost everyone including the Programme Officers  were engaged in the processes of decentralized planning. The entire implementation in 2018-19 had taken a huge jolt due to frequent hazards in the implementing  systems and other external issues. This has resulted in a very poor show on ground and the state could only achieve 76.6% of the approved persondays for the labour budget. This was even less than the  results if the previous financial year( i.e 2017-18) which had achieved 85% of the total approved labour budget according to the official website of the Government Of India(GoI). The figures show that a  9 % decline in  Person Days(PD) generation  than the previous year which should be a major cause of concern. While several media reports and the official website of the central government have claimed that the demands for MGNREGA work was the maximum in 2018-19 compared to last few years; jharkhand’s poor show is a sign of failure of the state government.

The rural  households of Jharkhand, deprived of  year round food security and availability of other employments, have significant dependence on MGNREGA works but due to the mismanaged implementation now a larger section of the workers have lost faith in it. While across the nation, in the absence of other employment opportunities people have opted for MGNREGA, in Jharkhand, the official figures show that the works have further dried up under the scheme.

19.08 lakhs workers from 14.45 lakh households have worked in MGNREGA in the year 2017-18 which too has a reduction this year. In 2018-19, 16.24 lakh workers from 12.73 lakh families have worked in the MGNREGA schemes. While the number of households worked declined  by  12%, the number of workers have reduced by 15% than the previous year.

The total number of  works taken up including the new one’s and spill over works declined by 11.43%, while total number of on-going works at the end of the year ahs seen a decrease of 35% in 2018-19 than the previous financial year. 402027 schemes have been closed in MIS in 2018-19  as compared to 284677 schemes in 2017-18. It is evident that as on-going work figure at the end of 2017-18 was far far higher than that of 2018-19; more number of works could be closed at the MIS this year. This has nothing to do with the overall work scenario in the state.  Furthermore, the schemes are randomly closed on the MIS while the works are physically incomplete and the payments to the workers are yet to be made.

Also, the number of people who had completed 100 days of employment was 21000 less than the figures of previous year.

The most disturbing figure however is the participation of tribal people in the MGNREGA works. The ST% has further gone down 2% this year which makes it a total 12% decline from 38% to mere 26% in the last 4 years. More  surprisingly the  downfall is much more in the tribal dominated areas where the tribal participation remains generally high. The belts of santhal pargana and west singhbhum are the worst sufferers in this respect. In some of the blocks the reduction is in the range of 10-22% as compared to the last year which definitely goes to show that all is not well in MGNREGA. This will need a very detailed study, analysis and introspection. While there is  no clear reason or evidence of  tribal people prospering and leaving MGNREGA works, the declining figures only indicate disinterest among the workers and  growing corruption in the areas.

However there are some encouraging figures in terms of participation of women in the MGNREGA works. The participation of women further increased by 2% and reached 39% which  makes it a 7% increase in the last 4 years which is a good sign. This goes to show that more and more women are now participating in MGNREGA works which was not the case earlier. Also in terms of average  employment provided to participating households, there has been no  improvement  this year. On an average 42 days of employment were provided to each of the job card holding families which had worked in MGNREGA in 2018-19. This figure was  41 in 2017-18.  In the year 2015-16, which was also the year when Jharkhand had carried out it’s ambitious people’s planning campaign i.e  Yojna Banao Abhiyan, the average days of employment provided per household was 52 and in the very next year however this figure declined to 40.6 but in the same year Jharkhand had  observed a record 707 lakhs PD( personDays) generation which had even surpassed the approved labour budget of 700 lakhs PD for the said year. This was possible due to huge number of works opening post the Yojna Banao Abhiyan but the subsequent years have only recorded a steady decline in MGNREGA performances in the state.

Furthermore it is a matter of introspection that while Jharkhand has 23lakhs active job cards and  29lakhs active workers, why only  16 lakh workers from 12 Lakh families are working. Further one needs to delve into the fact why the rest 22 lakhs inactive job card holding families which have about 53 lakhs inactive workers are staying away from the MGNREGS works.

Debmalya Nandy is a social Worker

Courtesy: Counter Current

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It is however not clear why a employment guarantee programme like MGNREGA is considered as a DBT scheme and why  does the NREGA workers are made to link their Aadhaar numbers with their respective job cards in order to receive payments against their work.

MGNREGA payments  is neither service nor a subsidy or a benefit, it is payment against work. So, literally the MGNREGA workers are getting their  remuneration against the  work that they carry out and which is assigned by the Gram Panchayats and other  Programme implementing agencies. The question is why would then the Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act would apply on MGNREGA, which is primarily a rural job scheme which provides  a maximum  100 days of employment guarantee to every  rural household.

The second important question is that while it has been shown through different studies and surveys that the mandatory Adhaar impositions have only added to the plight of the rural workers, why does the government transfer the MGNREGA wages through a direct benefit transfer system.

While it is important that the MGNREGA wages are credited to the  bank account provided by the workers which can be easily done through mapping of job cards and bank account numbers and channelizing the wages through the  system of  electronic transfer, the  need for  Aadhaar Number to be linked to the  job card is not clear, which then makes the whole process confusing and troublesome.

The wages then get credited to the bank account linked to the  Aadhaar number and this system  creates a  never ending puzzle for the workers. It is important to mention in this context  that in the direct benefit Transfer schemes, the subsidy or the benefits get credited to the beneficiary’s bank account which is last linked to her/his  Aadhaar number.

The issues:

1)      Often the Aadhaar number of the workers are linked to other people’s bank accounts  and  as a result the wages get credited to the wrong bank accounts. The  scale of this issue is quite serious  as we can  find such issues in almost each and every  Fund transfer Orders (FTO) sheets. These mistakes can be deliberate or inadvertent but the workers finally have to suffer. These misdirected transactions make life absolutely miserable for the workers who remain clueless about the cause of such issues  and get stranded not knowing  how to deal with such problems, as centralized payments and digital mode of implementation with a real time MIS linked execution in place, the accountability mechanisms have been completely thrashed.

2)      The rural  workers who have multiple bank accounts  have  problems of a different kind. Whenever a worker produces her/ his Adhaar card  for E-KYC or in the time of opening a new bank account, the consent for adhaar linking is given by default and without the knowledge of the worker and hence their bank linking status with their adhaar number  keeps switching between different banks and the payment of wages too keeps switching between banks.  This might sound funny but in reality there is great hardship that is added to the already hassled people.  The cost involved every time people visit banks can’t also be ignored and further adds to the exploitation.

3)      A large chunk of payments get rejected referring to a mysterious reason called inactive Adhaar. It is however not very clear from the official guidelines of the government, how these transactions get rejected due to In-active Aadhaar and most importantly how does the adhaar numbers get inactive.  There are many ways the government try to explain this however the issues seem to have increased  only in the recent years. The bottom line is that such an issue occurs in case of DBT payments and  creates more confusion among workers who are then made to submit their E-KYC’s again . These are unnecessary troubles and makes NREGA more non-credible for the workers who are already troubled by  various local issues and the system at large.

4)      A lot many payments have gone to Airtel Payments bank as the Aadhaar numbers of workers got linked to the said  payments bank. Similar issues were observed in the urban areas where the LPG subsidies were going to the Airtel Payments Bank. Despite repeated assurances from the government that this problem is dealt with and that, such errors will not be repeated, one can still find  payments  which are going to the Airtel Payments Bank.

5)      Aadhaar does not help in corruption control as the  means of corruption through forged muster rolls, workers working under someone else’s  job card continue to be the basic and biggest issues of MGNREGA which  can only be addressed only through  proper ground monitoring and a decentralized mechanism of grievance redress.A mere adhaar number does not help in fixing any of those issues.

While Aadhaar based payments have only added to the suffering of the labourers and it’s implementation through  the fragile rural banking systems have only created commotion, it is high time that the government should see the ground realities which are clear as daylight.

The most important debate however is how did the government apply the section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to the payments of MGNREGA remuneration  which in no way seem to be in accordance with the guideline of the Aadhaar Act. The government must clarify it’s intentions as over centralization, technology driven implementations and Aadhaar linked payments have created a great chaos in the implementation, increased leakages  and  demolished    local accountability in the grass roots. Can we imagine our salaries being linked to the DBT considering all the hassles that it brings with it?

Courtesy: Counter View

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The idea of MGNREGA was conceived, based on the fact that the planning and implementation of the schemes will be done in a decentralized manner, which will honor the local and traditional knowledge and decision making. However in the last twelve years MGNREGA has seen strong centralized bureaucratic control over the programme which has demolished the spirit of employment guarantee and the idea of a demand based allocation of work.

MGNREGS today has become everything, which it was suppose to challenge and rectify. The exploitation of workers, non dignified wages, contractor based delivery have become some of the common features of MGNREGA. The great Indian bureaucracy has again turned a revolutionary programme into a failed dream. The over centralization and administrative control over implementation and misinterpretations of the law by the administrators, have been the primary reasons why NREGA could not give out, what it was suppose to deliver. However, the programme still is a lifeline for crores of rural households but it could never reach it’s true potential. In true sense, MGNREGS as a programme hasn’t evolved since it’s inception and an ACT which was suppose to transform the scenario of rural jobs has now become an agonizing compulsion for the workers across the nation. The need and benefits of rural employment guarantee is unquestionable but the implementing mechanisms and policy inertia has kept the programme at stagnation.

MGNREGA in it’s current form is seen as an asset creation machine which considers the workers as tools for generation of assets. The Ministry of Rural Development presently has little focus on worker’s dignity and well being and thus, contractor based service delivery, which is common in rural job schemes can be observed everywhere despite the fact that employment guarantee ACT completely eradicates the idea of contractors in the MGNREG schemes. The wages and benefits of the workers are non-lucrative and monitoring in terms of preserving worker’s rights are negligible. Disinterest among workers further paved way for the contractors and middle men to take control which resulted in heavy leakages.

Asset generation focus in an employment guarantee programme further has an implication on the budget allocations. Too much asset focus has resulted in state wise targets for assets and thereby having limited allocation of funds based on number of targeted assets. This has huge implication on ground. The MGNREGA budget allocation has always been inadequate to meet the needs of workers. While the budget allocations should be made based on the decentralized labour budget planning in the Gram Sabhas and number of job card holding households, the allocation nowadays are being done based on asset generation plans of the government. The idea of MGNREGA was also to provide additional employment of 100 days to people apart from the existing jobs available in the rural schemes. In the present scenario MGNREGA has been integrated with a whole lot of other existing rural asset schemes such construction of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, Anganwadi centres and toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission, which reduces the scope of additional income. Also, these programmes have a contractor or owner driven implementation process wherein contractors or the owners themselves supervise the schemes, causing regular violation of the MGNREGA provisions.

The MGNREGA wages are ridiculously low and in most states it is even lower than the state’s agricultural minimum wage. While, this itself is a blatant violation of the Law, the constant wage delays in MGNREGA has put workers into more trouble. The centralized payments systems have further added more insult to the injury as people have to now wait for their rightful wages for a long long time due to central delays in release of funds.

The Ministry of Rural Development, for the past couple of years have been constantly boasting up about the NREGA budget allocations and have been terming the allocations as highest ever. Not only the ministry has terribly miscalculated the budget, it has also ignored the inflation adjustments and the yearly increase in the number of job cards while exultantly announcing the allocations as highest ever. In real terms the budget has only reduced in the past few years as the funds for a certain financial year include a huge pending liability of the previous year. As a result of the inadequate allocations, every year funds get dried up halfway into the year and thus causing tremendous stress on the workers and joblessness at ground. Joblessness in the peak working seasons cause huge number of people migrating to towns.

In an employment guarantee programme the claims of highest ever allocation does not hold any value, if it is insufficient to meet the needs of the workers. Adequacy of funds is what is important to meet the current demand in the nation and claims of highest ever allocations does not really change the abysmal situation on ground. The central government should now stop bragging about the funds and work on providing sufficient allocations and timely release of funds to states.

While, several ground surveys show that MGNREGA is not functioning properly, the central government’s repeated claims of MGNREGA running successfully, raise questions on the credibility and intentions of this government. Furthermore, it is more derisive that the central government has been making these claims on the basis of their official Management Information system(MIS), authenticity of which is already questioned on various occasions and in different platforms. It has been proved on multiple occasions that reports shown on the MIS vary distinctly from the ground realities.

The larger issues of inadequate allocations, centralized payments and delays in wages have destroyed MGNREGA which was already suffering from multiple local issues and malpractices. Now the target based asset focus in MGNREGA is further damaging the essence of employment guarantee. The irony is that the quality of assets too haven’t improved and one can find poor quality and incomplete MGNREGA assets across the nation. In absence of a robust monitoring and grievance redress strategy, the condition of the programme can never be revived. The ministry has always been prompt in responding to the critics but highest officials never respond to the ground issues. While the workers across the nation demand higher wages, increase in work days and enhanced benefits, the officials keep their mouth shut.

The central government have allocated Rs.60000 crores for MGNREGA for 2019-20. The total budget for 2018-19 was Rs. 61084 crores. While independent activists, researchers and organizations have repeatedly claimed with data that MGNREGA cannot function properly with anything less than Rs.88000crores, this reduction in the budget has no logical explanation.

The world’s largest rural job scheme is going through a deep crisis. In the times when frequent reports of starvation deaths have shaken the nation, the rural development minister and the MGNREGA officials at the centre cannot shun from their responsibilities. With the general elections round the corner, BJP government needs to understand that 13crores job card holding families will be closely watching their next moves.

Courtesy: Counter Currents
 

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