-Down to Earth How did the government apply Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to the payments of MGNREGA remuneration, which in no way seem to be in accordance with the guidelines of the Act The payments of wages in MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are done through the Aadhaar Payments Bridge (APB) using the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) systems. Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act has been applied to...
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The solution is universal -Rajendran Narayanan & Debmalya Nandy
-The Hindu Strengthening the MGNREGA would be more prudent than a targeted cash transfer plan like PM-KISAN Rural distress has hit unprecedented levels. According to news reports, unemployment is the highest in 45 years. To allay some misgivings of the distress, one of the announcements in the Budget speech was that “vulnerable landholding farmer families, having cultivable land up to 2 hectares, will be provided direct income support at the rate of...
More »MGNREGA workers in Jharkhand demand increase in wages and number of days of guaranteed work
-Press release by NREGA Watch (Jharkhand) dated 2nd February, 2019 Thousands of NREGA workers across Jharkhand spilled to the streets today to express their anger at the continued denial of their entitlements. In over 30 blocks of the state, workers raised their voice against the abysmal wage rate, acute shortage of work, increasing delays in payment of wages, and violation of several other rights. They also demanded work and submitted grievances...
More »MGNREGA's information system flawed, misguiding -Debmalya Nandy
-Down to Earth The scheme's Management Information System destroys local accountability, promotes centralisation and administrative control and gives out wrong data There is an increasing tendency in the Union government to show performances of central schemes, especially social welfare programmes, through data captured by the Management Information System (MIS). It is indeed a matter of astonishment how the MIS data always shows high performances of schemes and programmes, while ground surveys and...
More »An imaginary friend -Sakina Dhorajiwala, Anmol Somanchi, and Rajendran Narayanan
-The Indian Express Claims that Aadhaar has increased the demand and allocations of NREGA work rest on several faulty assumptions. Two newspaper articles in the Times of India and Financial Express claimed that Aadhaar linking boosts MGNREGA and has cut wage payment delays. Both articles were based on a working paper, “A Friend Indeed”, by members of the Digital Identity Research Initiative (DIRI) at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The ISB...
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