MGNREGA_SAMEEKSHA

76 MGNREGA Sameeksha
The new Guidelines suggest that:
• Each Block must appoint a full-time PO for
MGNREGA. Block Development Officers (BDOs) 7
or other block officers should not be given
‘additional charge’ for the programme, as substitute
for deploying a PO.
• Blocks, where either Scheduled Castes (SCs) plus
Scheduled Tribes (STs) form >=30 per cent of the
population or the annual MGNREGA expenditure
was more than Rs 12 crore, appoint at least
three Cluster Facilitation Teams (CFT), 8 each of
which will service a Cluster of Gram Panchayats
(CGP). 9 Each CGP will cover around 15,000 JCs
or an area of about 15,000 hectares (ha). The CFT
will comprise a fully dedicated, three-member
professional support team led by an Assistant
Programme Officer (APO) and include specialists
in earthen engineering, community mobilisation,
hydro-geology, and agriculture/allied livelihoods.
This will also enable more professional planning
based on the watershed approach aimed at
improved land and water productivity.
Reducing Delays in Wage Payments
Apart from deploying additional staff, MGNREGA
2.0 also:
• Specifies a payment schedule for states to follow
and track, using a transactions-based MIS (also
see Boxes 7.1 and 7.2).
• Suggests that the timeline for each process be
determined and delays be monitored at each step
through MIS like closure of Muster Rolls (MR),
capturing measurements, generating pay-order,
issuance of cheque and pay-order to paying agency,
transfer of cash to sub-agency (Branch Post Office/
Business Correspondent) and wage disbursement
to workers.
Strengthening MIS
A major criticism of MIS is that it does not capture
transactions on real-time basis and all data entries are
basically post facto. For example, entry of payments
into the MIS is done after wages are disbursed to
workers. Another criticism is that there are delays in
data reporting through MIS.
MGNREGA 2.0 has worked out a strategy to
address some of these issues by deploying a Real-Time
Transaction Based e-Governance solution in pilot
districts in a few selected States including Sabarkantha
in Gujarat, Bangalore Rural in Karnataka, Ganjam in
Odisha, and Jaipur, Baran, Ganganagar in Rajasthan.
The first phase of the pilot will strengthen the
Electronic Fund Management System (e-FMS)
Box: 7.1 Tackling Delayed Wage Payments
The Andhra Pradesh Experience
Online entry of data in Andhra Pradesh is real time, i.e. the State uses its data software to issue pay-orders to banks and
post offices, for payment of wages.
On the field, the schedule for closing of MRs and their entry into the software is set to avoid delays in wage payment.
The measurement sheets and MRs of the week’s work are compiled on the sixth day of that week and transmitted to the
Mandal (Sub-Block) computer centre. The next day, the muster data is fed into the computer and on the eighth day payorders
generated and cheques prepared. By the tenth day, cheques are deposited into post office accounts of workers.
By the thirteenth day, workers are able to access wages from their accounts. Free availability of payment information
facilitates public scrutiny and transparency.
Use of such real-time technologies to enable online updation of critical data at each stage of the MGNREGA workflow
is now being facilitated by the GoI for some States.
Source: Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.
7
A Block Development Officer is in charge of a block and monitors all development related programmes.
8
CFTs are teams of professionals recruited to provide support to the MGNREGA. Each CFT will be appointed for a cluster
of GPs.
9
Each CGP will consist of around 15,000 Job Cards or an area of about 15,000 ha, broadly corresponding to the boundaries
of a milli-watershed and local aquifer.