There are about 27.5 crore registered workers under the nationwide employment scheme. (File)
The number of person-days generated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) in January and February this year after the implementation of an app-based attendance system has fallen compared to previous years, data collected by a community group has shown to see.
As groups of MGNREGA workers continue to protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi against the new attendance and payment systems for more than a month, data collected by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, who spearheaded the protest, showed that a total of 34.59 crore man-days were generated. January and February this year.
This was significantly lower than January and February 2022, when 53.07 crore man-days of work were generated.
In 2021, 56.94 crore man-days of work were generated in the same period. In 2020, it was 47.75 crore person-days in the two months, while in 2019, 47.86 crore person-days were generated in January and February.
The data was calculated using the MIS report.
MGNREGA workers protesting the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) have said their presence is not being noticed due to network problems in rural areas and have demanded a rollback. The employees are also protesting against the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), which has been made mandatory, as several employees do not have an ABPS account.
According to the data collected by the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, as of February 1, less than 40 percent of the total number of MGNREGA employees were eligible for ABPS payments. This is more than 10 crore workers across the country. The NMMS app is used to record employee attendance at MGNREGA job sites by uploading geotagged photos twice a day. It was made mandatory in all workplaces on January 1, 2023.
On January 30, 2023, the Ministry of Rural Development announced that all MGNREGA wage payments should be made through Aadhaar based payments only from February 1.
There are about 27.5 crore registered workers under MGNREGA, 8.4 crore workers were employed in 2022-23 and 272.8 crore man-days of work were generated.The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, more commonly known as MGNREGA or NREGA, is a flagship program aimed at improving the livelihoods of households in rural areas of the country by providing each household with at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a fiscal year, the adult members voluntarily engage in unskilled manual work.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
