NREGA workers without pay for 1 month

RANCHI: NREGA labourers across the state have not received their wages since March 7. Little more than 99% of the Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) for NREGA wage payments sent to the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) in April 2018 have remained unprocessed.
NREGA activists under the banner Sangharsh Morcha who work for the rights of NREGA labourers are also clueless about the reason for this delay in absence of a proper reply from the government officials. Government records which are available in the management information system clearly reflect that bulk of FTOs for February and March 2018 have remained unprocessed, as well.

"Almost 86% of the FTOs for March and 64% for the month of February have remained unprocessed," said Ankita Agarwal, a member of the morcha.

The morcha activists who have been agitating for wage revision are now focusing on getting the payments released. "Earlier, whenever the Centre delayed the release of wages, the state government would make payments from the revolving funds which were later compensated. But, after the introduction of the National Electronic Fund Management System (NEFMS), which is allegedly to streamline the process of MGNREGA wage payments by the Centre, wages go directly into the bank accounts of the labourers leaving no mechanism for the state to tide over delays," Agarwal said.

Under the provision of the Employment Guarantee Act, delays in wage payments is supposed to be compensated but in the wake of introduction of this new mechanism of payment, delays are not considered once the FTOs are generated.

"We have been highlighting these discrepancies for a very long time now. We have written to the central government that generation of FTOs should not be considered payment of wages because the money is yet to reach the beneficiaries," said Balram, a Supreme Court-appointed advisor to the commissioner in the National Food for Work Programme (NFWP) case.

Agarwal said, "The situation of long and unpredictable delays in MGNREGA wage payments continue despite the ongoing public interest litigation filed by Swaraj Abhiyan in which the Supreme Court has instructed the government to ensure that workers are paid within 15 days of work."

Officials in the department of rural development and also under the state department remained incommunicado despite repeated calls till the tome of filing of this story. Joint secretary Aparajita Shadangi, secretary RD of Jharkhand Avinash Kumar and NREGA commissioner Siddhartha Tripathi did not respond to phone calls but sources in the department said, "There has been some technical glitch in clearing of documents. We are trying to resolve it."