Centre 'fails to pay' Rs 74 crore to Andhra rural workers: NREGA wage transfer delay

By A Representative
A non-profit group consisting of engineers, social workers, and social scientists – calling themselves “liberation technology” enthusiasts – has regretted for the Central government is taking 26 days on an average to complete wage transfers to Andhra Pradesh workers employed under the rural jobs scheme of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
Suggesting the delayed payments phenomenon is not just confined to so-called Bimaru states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, a report by the non-profit, LibTech India, which is part of the Collaborative Research and Dissemination, New Delhi, says, the delay is a clear violation of Section 3(3) of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Act, 2005, under which NREGA workers are entitled to receive their wages within a fortnight of the date of closure of the muster roll.
The NREGA payment process broadly consists of two stages. After the work is completed, a Fund Transfer Order (FTO) is generated and digitally sent to the Centre. This is called Stage 1 and is the State government’s responsibility. The Centre then processes the FTOs and transfers wages directly to the workers’ accounts. This is called Stage 2, which is entirely the Centre’s responsibility.
As per the Act, Stage 1 must be completed in eight days and Stage 2 must be completed within seven days after that. Stage 1 and Stage 2 together should therefore be completed within 15 days of the closure of a muster of work.
In order to find out the ground reality in Andhra Pradesh, LibTech India researchers randomly sampled 1% of panchayats in Andhra Pradesh (130 of 12,956 panchayats), downloading wage payments details for all the job cards that appeared for work in the current financial year up to July 31, 2021 from an Andhra Pradesh government site.
Based on the data, they calculated the difference between the date of FTO generation (transaction date-date on which the FTO is sent from State to Centre) and the date of credit to see how long each transaction took in Stage 2 of the payment process.
“Out of 3.95 lakh downloaded transactions for which the FTO was sent to the Centre, 34% transactions were still unpaid as on August 10, 2021”, the report says, adding, “Thus, we analysed 2.58 lakh transactions which were paid across the 130 panchayats.”
The analysis of the data, according to the report, shows that “in the current financial year (FY), the Centre is taking an average of 26 days to process wage payments. Adding the average time taken during Stage 1, the total time taken to credit wages becomes 29 days, a gross violation of the Act, which states payments must be completed within 15 days.” It adds, “As of August 10, 2021,34% (of 3.95 lakh) transactions were still unpaid.”
The calculations also show that “less than 20% of credited payments only have been completed within the stipulated 15-day time period so far this FY”, the report asserts, adding, “Nearly 3% of transactions have taken more than 2 months to get processed. For the transactions that are still pending, nearly half have experienced a delay of 30+ days already.”

Non-acknowledgement and non-payment of delay compensation is in direct violation of the MGNREG Act, and of the Supreme Court order

According to the report, “The Centre has taken more than thrice the time to process payments this year (25.82 days) as compared to last year (6.78 days). Last year, with the pandemic, the Centre was processing payments in less than seven days. However, this year with the second wave, the time taken is intolerably high.”

Considering the huge return of workers from urban to rural areas during the pandemic, the report says, the number of persondays generated between April and July has in fact increased to 20.09 crore this year from 19.12 crore last year. “As the pandemic continues and demand for MGNREGA increases, timely payments are a priority”, it comments.

As for delayed compensation, a legal provision, the report says, it is “not calculated at all” either for Stage 1 or Stage 2. It adds, “Considering that most of the payments experience some amount of delay, this means workers are not getting a lot of compensation they are legally owed. Extrapolating the delay proportions for all of Andhra Pradesh, the, actual compensation due will be Rs 26 crore for FY 21-22 (April-July), Rs 12 crore for FY 20-21, and Rs 36 crore for FY 19-20.”
“This non-acknowledgement and non-payment of delay compensation is in direct violation of the MGNREG Act, and of the Supreme Court order dated May 18, 2018 in the Swaraj Abhiyan v Union of India case, which stated that the Centre must calculate the delay and pay compensation to the workers for the full extent of delays (Stage 1 + Stage 2)”, the report underlines.
Under the NREGA, compensation should be paid at the rate of 0.05% of the unpaid wages per day in case the payment of wages is not made within 15 days from the date of closure of muster roll.

Comments

Anonymous said…

It is high time someone in the executive/legislative branch announcec that they are above the law. That way the courts won't waste time passing good judgements which are brazenly ignored.

October 02, 2021

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai* The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

Beyond Lata: How Asha Bhosle redefined the female voice with her underrated versatility

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The news of iconic Asha Bhosle’s ‘untimely’ demise has shocked music lovers across the country. Asha Tai was 92 years young. Normally, people celebrate a passing at this age, but Asha Bhosle—much like another legend, Dev Anand—never made us feel she was growing old. She was perhaps the most versatile artist in Bombay cinema. Hailing from a family devoted to music, Asha’s journey to success and fame was not easy. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had already become the voice of women in cinema, and most contemporaries like Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, and Noor Jehan had slowly faded into oblivion. Frankly, there was no second or third to Lata Mangeshkar; she became the first—and perhaps the only—choice for music directors and all those who mattered in filmmaking. Asha started her musical journey at age 10 with a Marathi film, but her first break in Hindustani cinema came with the film "Chunariya" (1948). Though she was not the first choice of ...

50 years of the Port of Spain miracle: The chase that redefined Indian cricket

By Harsh Thakor* Fifty years ago, India turned the tide to rewrite cricket history, rising from the depths of despair to a moment of enduring glory. Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad, is celebrated among cricket grounds for its poetic beauty. For India, it became a theatre of historic triumph. In 1976, it showed the cricketing world what it was made of.

Search This Blog