Adopting a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for delay in payment of MGNREGA wages, the Centre has asked the States to plug the gaps to clear the backlog on priority basis.
On an average, around 40 per cent of the total wage payments is delayed for more than 15 days despite the MGNREGA Act making it mandatory for the States to make the disbursement of daily wages on a weekly basis or in any case, not later than a fortnight after the date on which such work was done.
Taking stringent view of the fact that the States were not keen to dole out the benefits to the rural jobs beneficiaries, the Union Rural Development Ministry recently issued an advisory asking them to "identify areas where delays have been occurring and tighten the system without any loss of time."
The State Governments have also been asked to launch a month-long drive to clear all backlog at the earliest, a senior ministry official said adding that so far except Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, none of the States has appointed officials for examining the delayed cases.
As a few States have so far even not notified the rules for compensation for wages delay, we have asked the erring ones to notify the "rules" and implement the system as well as define the liability of engineers/JEs, while calculating delay compensation, said the official. They have also been told that data on compensation for delay in wage payment will be calculated from the date of notification of rules.
MGNREGA promises 100 days of work each year to every rural household. The Act stipulates that wage payments have to be made within 15 days to the beneficiary. However, complaints of delayed wage payments have been rampant since the scheme was implemented in February 2006.
In the 2013-14 fiscal, around 16 per cent of the total payments was delayed between 15 and 30 days, 15 per cent were delayed for 30 to 60 days, 7 per cent of payments were delayed for 60 to 90 days and 6 per cent were delayed for more than 90 days, the official added.
Delay in closure of muster roll (MR) and its computerization, inadequate staff for taking measurement of work done, inordinate delay in measurement of work in spite of dedicated staff, excessive time taken to link MRs with the measurement book and delayed generation of wage lists are some of the major reasons for delay in wage payments to the rural workers.