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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Banks may be paid for MGNREGS accounts by Remya Nair

Banks may be paid for MGNREGS accounts by Remya Nair

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published Published on Jul 20, 2011   modified Modified on Jul 20, 2011

The government plans to pay `80 every year for three years to state-owned banks for each account they have for a beneficiary of the rural job guarantee scheme.

This is expected to provide an incentive to lenders to ensure quicker delivery of wages under India’s flagship welfare programme.


“We have made a proposal to the finance ministry that a public sector bank gets paid `80 per year for each MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) account holder with them for the next three years,” said an official in the ministry of rural development, which oversees the programme that has an outlay of `40,000 crore for 2011-12.


The welfare scheme, which began in 2006 and now covers 619 of the country’s 626 districts, promises 100 days of work to each poor rural household every year. It provided employment to 4.9 million households in the year ended 31 March.


The finance ministry has approved and will soon announce the measure, said a finance ministry official. Both officials requested anonymity.


Public sector lenders have opened some 11.4 million such accounts out of a total of more than 23 million bank accounts, according to official data, which implies the move will cost the exchequer `90-100 crore per year.


Wages under the scheme are disbursed only through banks and post offices to plug leakages. Wages are supposed to be paid within a week and not later than a fortnight after a work is done.


The finance ministry also intends to make it mandatory for banks to adopt common delivery standards to make the process of wage disbursal more efficient.
“Banks will be asked to decide a common time frame for making payment to workers under the MGNREGA, which they will have to adhere to strictly,” said the finance ministry official.


For instance, a bank may have to ensure that a beneficiary’s account is credited within 48 hours and payment is released through a banking correspondent or a branch within five days.


An analyst, however, doubted the efficacy of the move. “The biggest problem in disbursing MGNREGA payments through banks is that they do not have the physical infrastructure to carry out these mammoth amount of transactions,” said Yamini Aiyar, a senior research fellow and director of the accountability initiative at the Centre for Policy Research. “The question is whether the extra money will help banks enhance and upgrade their infrastructure. Then it might make sense.”


There are huge costs involved for banks to transfer payments to workers in rural areas, according to a chief executive of a large public sector bank, who declined to be named. “This is not an incentive but only a partial reimbursement of the costs.”


To ensure faster movement of funds, banks have also been asked to transfer money electronically instead of in cheques. “With most banks achieving 100% core banking solutions (CBS), it should not be a problem,” the finance ministry official said.


The finance ministry has also asked banks and programme officials to look into transferring data electronically from the job scheme’s database to a bank’s database. “Though MGNREGA stores data in an electronic format, it’s transferred to banks in a physical form,” the finance ministry official said. “Banks have to again feed the data into their CBS platform, which causes delays.”


The rural development ministry is upgrading its management information system, said the ministry official quoted earlier.


remya.n@livemint.com


http://www.livemint.com/2011/07/19214327/Banksmaybepaidfor-MGNREGS.html?atype=tp


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