09/12/2020 Delayed payments to rejection: MGNREGS workers spend money to collect wages | Business Standard News 98.2% of payments have been made within 15 days for nancial year 2020-21, per government data. Rejected MGNREGS payments consist of approved ‘fund transfer orders’ (FTOs) to workers’ accounts that have failed due to technical errors in the payment system. These include data entry errors by the local administration (incorrect bank account or Aadhaar number entered), bank account-related issues (dormant, joint or closed accounts), Aadhaar-related (delinking of Aadhaar from bank account due to mismatch of names, etc). Each type of error throws up a particular error code in the MGNREGS Management Information System (MIS). The total rejected FTOs pending resolution in 2020-21 are 4.2 million. Computer operators at the block level understand the meaning of di erent error codes displayed in the MGNREGS MIS, according to the survey. With the move to digitisation, however, “computer operators [have] become quite powerful making it hard for workers to reach out to computer operators”, said the report. Often, one computer operator at the block level is shared between multiple panchayats, which creates a human resources problem, Padma Bareddy, project manager, Anode Governance Lab told IndiaSpend. Computer operators also have to escalate some of the issues to a higher level, as there are di erent MIS user roles at the state, district and panchayat levels, added Bhagat. Technology does not work in silos and is enabled by the principles used in its design, said Dhorajiwala, adding that agencies that design Aadhaar-centric platforms, for instance, are not accountable to people. “These platforms are opaque and do not consider the context of the state--like electricity and network challenges,” she said. Most panchayat functionaries who oversee MGNREGS work and wage payments are not capable of resolving technical issues on their own due to lack of training, Bhagat told IndiaSpend. “They tend to escalate technical problems to the MGNREGS cell [at the state level in Jharkhand] or other relevant authorities. Ideally, these issues should be resolved at the panchayat level,” he added. “If panchayats are provided adequate resources and training, they are capable of taking ownership,” said Bareddy. There are also non technical reasons for delayed MGNREGS payments and arrears. Wage payments were frozen in 19 states in the past due to delayed audits and approvals by governments, IndiaSpend reported in November 2017, the year preceding the LibTech India survey. “The absence of signatories in o ce when required, mismatch between the account particulars and what was stated in the wage bills, and the delay in preparation of wage bills by the team leaders” were also noted by the KEA report in 2018. Delays ‘normal’ for workers, grievance redressal inadequate Of 1,947 workers surveyed, 546 communicated complaints and 79% of these related to pending wages or partial wages received, said the LibTech India report. Here too, added costs of making follow-up trips to the panchayat to resolve complaints were incurred by some workers. About 94% of complaints were made verbally, for instance to panchayat o cials, and 6% were led in writing. Only about 6.3% of workers surveyed whose payments were rejected registered a written complaint, and nearly 30% said they had a complaint but did not register it. Nearly 60% of those who had complained said it was not resolved satisfactorily, or at all. Verbal complaints, however, have “no o cial bearing and therefore it is equivalent to not ling it at all”, the report noted. One problem in registering grievances is that delayed payments have become so normal for workers that they do not see months-long delays to be a violation of their rights under MGNREGS, the report noted. Given that workers do complain verbally, there is reason to believe that if a robust and working grievance redress system is created, more workers would le complaints, said Dhorajiwala. Often the people who implement MGNREGS are the same people who have to be approached to address the problem, making for a weak grievance redressal system, according to the report. For instance, if a worker is not provided employment within 15 days of receipt of application, they are entitled to a daily unemployment allowance, according to the 2019-20 annual master circular for MGNREGS. The compensation, if delayed, can be “recovered from the functionaries/ agencies Hide ˅ Close COVID-19 INDIA CASES: 9,735,850 responsible for the delay”, says the circular. “If the block has to pay unemployment allowance from their pockets, it is unlikely that they will ever approve the claims of MGNREGS workers for unemployment allowance,” Dhorajiwala cautioned. https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/delayed-payments-to-rejection-mgnregs-workers-spend-money-to-collect-wages-1201… 5/9