MGNREGA: Why govt's app-based attendance system is facing protest

Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh termed the recent measures steps to check corruption in the scheme and said the government would not compromise on transparency

For Reena Devi from Muzaffarpur district, Bihar, the new mobile application to mark attendance for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a headache.

Devi said attendance on the app needed to be marked thrice a day, with photograph, in three different time periods.

And, if she missed marking attendance once, she would be counted as “absent” for the day, she said.

“Sometimes the mobile network isn’t adequate or there is some other hindrance to marking attendance, but then it should not be considered as that the person has stayed away from work or there are ghost workers,” Devi said from the protest site in the capital, where she, along with others, have come all the way from Bihar to build resistance to the new attendance system, along with a host of other changes that have been introduced into the flagship scheme in the past few months.

The Central government has introduced some major changes to the scheme under the MGNREGA.

First, it made attendance through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app mandatory for all workers. Then, it made it mandatory for all MGNREGA wages to be paid only to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

Before these, a few months ago, it formed a panel headed by former rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha to study various aspects of the scheme, including its role in poverty alleviation over the years, governance structure, and systems in place, and, perhaps most importantly, the spending pattern.

All these steps, taken in quick succession along with the sharp reduction in the FY24 Budgetary allocation for the scheme, have raised doubts among civil society activists and others that the Centre is gradually and discreetly looking to throttle the scheme by creating hurdles in its smooth functioning.

The Central government, though, denies all these charges.

And, according to recent newspaper reports, Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh termed the recent measures “steps to check corruption” and said the government would not compromise on transparency.

He even went a step further and said instead of the Centre footing the entire wage bill for the scheme, why shouldn’t states too contribute a portion of it in the ratio of 60:40, which would bring accountability and further reduce corruption and manipulation, according to those reports.

Civil society activists counter this argument by saying that it is irresponsible implementation by the Central and state governments that has led to systemic corruption.

For good measure, social audits have been systematically undermined, through under-funding and other means. In many states, the nexus between private contractors, political parties and corrupt functionaries operates without let or hindrance.

“Instead of supporting social audits and other participatory anti-corruption measures, the Central government has taken refuge in technological fixes that have proved useless at best, such as the questionable Aadhaar Payment Bridge System (APBS), to corruption in the scheme,” the MGNREGA Sangharsh Morcha said in its charter of demands that it presented to the government.

On the newly introduced mobile application-based attendance system, the morcha has said it has evidence that in some cases workers have lost 50 per cent of their wages owing to technical glitches in the app and many women mates -- worksite supervisors -- have had to take loans to get smartphones to use the app.

“Women workers who constitute more than half the NREGA workforce have been more impacted because of this app. There are no proper guidelines or clear solutions to deal with technical glitches, nor is there a guarantee of wages for the lost hours and days. Workers have no control over the attendance process and as it is directly linked to their wages, it is undermining the proper functioning of the programme,” the Morcha said.