The digital battle for employment guarantee

A major stated objective of the eFMS was to reduce delays in wage payments

In January this year, some households of Jharkhand’s Palamu district had demanded employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). They were not given work though they had not exhausted their annual entitlement of 100 days’ work. The frontline functionary had told the clueless workers “MIS nahi ho raha hai” (MIS not happening). It turned out that the Ministry of Rural Development put a check on the number of days of work demanded by a household in NREGASoft, the online Management of Information System (MIS) of the MGNREGA. For reasons best-known to those who design such digital