Workers under MGNREGS receive wages in distorted ways: Study

NEW DELHI: A study by LibTech India, released on November 19, elucidated the unusual amount of work a labourer has to do, out of their work site, just to get hands on their earned income. According to the study, many of the workers dependent on the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), are forced to make multiple trips to the bank, which adds travel costs and income losses, and face repeated rejections of payment, biometric errors and wrong information, to access their wages.

Sakina Dhorajiwala, LibTech researcher, said that even in regular times, these challenges make it hard for workers to access their wages in a judicious and timely manner. She added that the situation for the workers has aggravated during the COVID-19 pandemic, as “transport becomes harder, and there is no question of physical distancing at a rural bank.”

The study reported that only one in 10 workers get an SMS message informing them that their wages have been credited. A third of workers have to visit their bank branch just to find out if their wages have been credited or not. A quarter of the respondents in the study also said that despite being informed on their wage being credited, they found that the money was not in their accounts.

The study was sponsored by a research grant from Azim Premji University and is based on the 2018-19 survey of almost 2,000 workers in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Sakina said that there has been little change in the number of bank branches per capita in rural areas, so most of these challenges remain.