Activists counter govt claims of timely MGNREGS payments, demand higher wages

New Delhi: Countering the Union rural development ministry's claims of MGNREGS wages being paid on time, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha on Wednesday alleged the payments to workers' accounts were being delayed by "weeks or months".

The organisation -- a national platform of workers' collectives, unions, organisations and individuals working on the flagship rural employment scheme -- also announced a two-day protest at Jantar Mantar, starting Thursday.

In a statement, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha said economist Jean Dreze had pointed out that it was only Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) that were generated on time, even as crediting of workers' accounts was delayed by weeks or months.

The statement said Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers debunked the government's claims that the budget for the scheme had been hiked.

They also demanded that wages under the scheme be increased to Rs 800 per day.

According to the statement, Jharkhand NREGA Watch's Afsana Khatun said insufficient initial budget allocations had led to severe delays in wage payments and denial of work on demand once the funds ran out.

Jitendra Paswan from Bihar criticised the imposition of "arbitrary, opaque and unjustified technical interventions" such as Aadhaar-based Payments System (ABPS) and online attendance under the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS).

"Persistent connectivity issues and technical glitches with the NMMS app result in workers losing their attendance and consequently wages for the day. ABPS requirements such as stringent KYC procedures and Aadhaar seeding with bank accounts has caused widespread deletion of job cards, with nine crore workers' names having been deleted since the 2022-23 fiscal," the statement said.

Even as the ministry claimed that these deletions were routine, Libtech's Chakradhar Buddha highlighted the significant spike in deletions since the introduction of ABPS.

Ambarish Soren, a MGNREGS worker from West Bengal, condemned the stoppage of funds under the scheme for the state and said it had stalled work for over three years while pending wages for the 2021-22 fiscal remained unpaid.

"Even as Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan justified the action, saying they have proof of large-scale corruption in implementation of NREGA in West Bengal, neither have any officials been held accountable nor any kind of penalties imposed," the statement said.

"The NREGA Act does not authorise the denial of wages to workers due to implementation irregularities. NREGA Sangharsh Morcha demands that the rural development ministry share details of the investigation and publish the investigation report," it added.

Inadequate budgetary allocations and arbitrary technical interventions are two sides of the same coin, both used to systematically dismantle the scheme and strip the workers of their rights, the workers said in the statement.

Union Minister of State for Rural Development Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that 60 lakh new job cards were issued under MGNREGS on an average every year and the government had no role in the deletion of job cards.

He had said 57 per cent of the rural development budget was allocated for MGNREGS and asserted that Aadhaar-seeding enhanced transparency.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said a standard operating procedure on the timely payment process for direct payment into the accounts of beneficiaries was issued and its implementation by states and Union territories was being monitored on a regular basis.

In 2024-25, 98.91 percent of FTOs were generated within 15 days from the closure of muster rolls, he had said.