The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

It guarantees the ‘right to work’ and ensures livelihood security in rural areas. It ensures women empowerment by providing equal wages and reservation for women. It also aims at reducing rural- urban migration and creation and maintenance of rural assets and environmental protection.

A recent study has found that data manipulation in the MGNREGA is leading to gross violations in its implementation. In recent years, there have been at least 74 reported starvation deaths, with 60 cases having occurred in the last two years across parts of India like Jharkand. A hastily produced and insensitive language report concludes that none of these deaths was due to starvation or connected to MGNREGA. The governments in the State and Centre are demonstrating alarming indifference in this matter and are covering up realities by deliberately manipulating and obfuscating data.

The data manipulation under MNREGA has lead to severe underreporting of work:

• MGNREGA is a demand-driven programme, i.e., work must be provided within 15 days of demanding work failing which the Centre must pay an unemployment allowance (UA).
• A UA report is generated but rarely implemented due to funds crunch.
• Field functionaries don’t even enter the work demanded by labourers in the MGNREGA Management Information System (MIS), leading to information suppression at the source.
• Lack of offline alternatives to capture work demand from labourers means that data on the MIS are being treated as the only truth.
• Although work demand data (in person days) and employment-generated data are available at a panchayat level, aggregate data at the national level are only presented for employment generated.
• Thus, under-registered national demand is captured but intentionally not reported.
• By doing this, the Central government is trying to hide its violation of the extent of under-provision of work.
• The delay in the payment of wages which is captured in the system is intentionally suppressed to avoid paying delay compensation.

Impacts of such data manipulation leads to many legal and ethical violations:

• Based on analysis of work demand and employment generated for over 5,700 panchayats across 20 States (for 2017-18 and the first three quarters of 2018-19), the employment generated was about 33% lower than the registered work demand, and last year, about 30% lower.
• About 16 States still show a negative balance which shows the continued lack of funds. The Centre’s oft-repeated claims of the “highest ever allocation” are dubious and meaningless because if the allocation does not honour work demand and it is a violation of the Act.
• Contrary to the Central government’s claims of there being more than 90% payments on time, the study found of more than 9 million transactions that only 21% payments were made on time in 2016-17.The trend continued in 2017-18.
• Further, the Central government alone was causing an average delay of over 50 days in the disbursement of wages to labourers, as against the mandated 15-days else a delay compensation.
• This not only reflects contempt of court by the Central government but is also an insensitive assault on people and a deliberate hiding of the truth; leading to loss of countless lives.

Way Forward:

• The Supreme Court in the Swaraj Abhiyan vs. Union of India case stated that said that the delay caused in stage-2 was not taken into account for the purpose of payment of compensation.
• Before the ruling, only stage-1 delays were proposed to be compensated. The court urges the Centre that they should also share the blame if they cause the delay in stage-2, failing which the prescribed compensation would be paid.
• The Centre has now suggested a new format to compensate payments.
• Incorporation of ICT infrastructure at grassroots level, so that the data is available in public leading to better transparency and accountability.
• Social audits, mandated by law under MGNREGA, should be strengthened to reduce the data suppression and under-representation of job demand.

Conclusion:

The proper implementation of MGNREGA, among other measures, can go a long way in improving the life and the livelihoods of many distresses rural citizens. The triple, correlated crisis — a lack of sufficient funds, rampant payment delays, and abysmal wage rates should be fought out by better implementation of the scheme.