Five months after the Union Government's order making it mandatory to capture attendance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers through government mobile application-National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) at work sites where 20 or more workers are employed, at least three States — Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Assam — are pushing for making this universal, though majority of the States still have concerns about it.
As per the data for September put out by the Union Ministry for Rural Development, there are only eight States, including the above three, which have recorded 90% and above usage of the app. These include Assam (93.42%), Odisha (92%), Tamil Nadu (93%) along with Karnataka (92%), Kerala (91.5%), Tripura (91%), Uttarakhand (91%) and Puducherry (99%). In Puducherry, though the usage of the NMMS app is high, the quantum of worksites in September was just 774.
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“We have listened to complaints and made several tweaks to make it easier for the end user. One big change is allowing offline use of the app. The mate can record the attendance even if there is no Internet connectivity and it will get uploaded whenever they reach a place which has the necessary signal strength,” the official said. The official further added that based on the complaints the app and the procedures are constantly evolving.
Many shortcomings
There are still a host of shortcomings for which the worker ends up paying the penalty. The data from the Ministry reveal that in nine States and Union Territories the usage of the app is less than 50% or less. These States are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Goa, Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar and Jammu and Kashmir. In case of Goa and Nagaland, the usage is zero.
The Rural Development Ministry started this on a pilot basis on May 21 last year. Initially, the utilisation of application was to be voluntary. To record the attendance via mobile application, the mate or supervisor has to upload geo-tagged photographs of the workers. The entire exercise is aimed at encouraging transparency and citizen oversight. The Union Government has been repeatedly flagging misuse of MGNREGS funds by the State Governments.
Andhra Pradesh, which has one of the largest MGNREGS workforce, used the NMMS app for recording attendance in September only in 21.48% of over 92,000 work sites. In August this number was at 9.56%.
In Uttar Pradesh, another State which receives a significant percentage of total MGNREGS national funds, in September, out of 1.3 lakh work sites, only in 50.19% the muster roll was filled via the app. The September numbers are marginally better than August, when it was 48.31%.
In West Bengal, where the Centre, owing to accountability and other procedural lapses, has withheld ₹7,000 crore of MGNREGS funds, the usage is just 25.8% in September. In Jammu and Kashmir, where government-sponsored Internet outages are a regular occurrence, the number for September stands at a pitiable 7.9%. Bihar with 54.26% usage and Madhya Pradesh with 51.36% also fall in the tally of reluctant users.
Technical glitches
In the States which have been reporting high usage too, many workers end up suffering wage losses due to technical glitches. Nikhil Shenoy, divisional secretary, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan has an illustrative example. Rajasthan has reported 86.75% rate of usage of the app. “We tallied the physical muster rolls with the digital one captured by the NMMS app for 14 gram panchayats in Dungerpur district of Rajasthan for the month of September. Our analysis shows that 302 labour days are missing from the attendance records in the app. It is well and good that the government wants to bring in more transparency via the app. Why should the workers have to pay the penalty? For the loss of wages even for one day could be catastrophic,” said Mr. Shenoy.
Another example is Bihar, where a sharp dip was reported in the rate of app usage from 75.15% in August to 54.26% in September. “There are server capacity issues, then there are problems in the rectification procedures. Say, a worker's attendance could not be recorded for a reason, till now as a laid procedure, he had to go to the DM [District Magistrate], which is not always feasible. We have shifted it now to the block level, though, this seems to be a recurring issue,” a senior Bihar official said.
