Nearly 100 MGNREGA workers from different blocks of mineral-rich and rebel-hit West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand staged a four-hour-long dharna at the district collectorate to protest against the conspiracy of the “Modi government to weaken and subsequently end MGNREGA”.

At the end of the sit-in-protest at around 3pm in Chaibasa, a delegation of Khadya Suraksha Jan Adhikar Manch and NREGA Watch submitted a memorandum addressed to Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren to register a strong protest against the central government’s move and also remove the irregularities in MGNREGA in the state by taking action against contractors-local administration nexus.

“Modi government is continuously weakening MGNREGA with a conspiracy to end it. The MGNREGA budget for 2023-24 has been reduced by 33% as compared to last year.

“This year, attendance through the national mobile monitoring system (NMMS) app has been mandatory for workers while Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS) is mandatory for payments. Due to both these techniques, large-scale labourers are being deprived of work and their wages,” said Ramchandra Majhi of the manch.

“With the NMMS app, labourers have to stay at the workplace in the morning and afternoon for photographs even after completion of work. Due to various technical problems and non-availability of Internet network in NMMS many times neither the attendance nor the photo is uploaded. Due to this, the hard work done by the labourers goes waste and they are deprived of their wages,” said Kaushalya Hembrom.

Balram, associated with the Right to Food campaign, said that NMMS is based on the idea that all the local people, including labourers and gram sabhas, are thieves and only the central government is honest. This is an insult to Gram Sabha, Fifth Schedule and democracy and said that a similar app should be linked to the attendance and salary of government officials and ministers.

Sandeep Pradhan from Sonua block said that the labourers who are not linked with ABPS are not getting work from the local administration.

“If even one labourer does not have ABPS linked then the payment of all labourers in the muster roll is stopped. Out of about 1 crore MGNREGA labourers in the district, only half are ABPS linked,” said Pradhan painting the gravity of the situation.

Jharkhand convenor NREGA Watch, James Herenz, said that similar problems are being faced by MGNREGA workers across the country and it is not limited to West Singhbhum.

“For the last 60 days, MGNREGA workers from all over the country, including Jharkhand, staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on these issues, but the anti-labour attitude of the central government continues,” said Herenz. The manch official expressed dismay that even the Jharkhand government has not done enough to oppose such policies of the central government and seems to have forgotten its promise before the 2019 Assembly polls of standing with MGNREGA workers.

“Like every year, there is a massive migration from West Singhbhum to other states and other districts in search of employment this year too. Not a single rough plan has beenimplemented in many villages of the district for several months. Even after demanding work, not all labourers are given work on time. There is a huge backlog of payments,” said Banmali Bari, also a member of the Manch.

Members alleged that with the connivance of middlemen and local administration, large-scale irregularities are being done by issuing fake muster rolls, due to which the work is visible on paper but not on the ground. No action is taken on the complaints. The connivance of the administration is clear.

The memorandum to Soren and West Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ananya Mittal called for the cancellation of ABPS and NMMS, state government should start implementation of an adequate number of schemes under MGNREGA in every village, wages along with compensation should be paid after conducting a survey of pending payments and strict action should be taken against contractors and guilty officials and under no circumstances should any job card be cancelled without physical verification and without the verification from Gram Sabha.