Direct wage transfer to MGNREGA workers from Apr 1

In order to prevent leakages in the flagship rural job programme, all wage payments to MGNREGA workers will be made through Direct Benefit Transfer to bank accounts of the beneficiaries from April this year, Government said on Tuesday.

Addressing a MGNREGA Sammelan on the occasion of the programme completing ten years, Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said that from April 1, 2016 all wage payments to MGNREGA workers will be done through DBT.

Currently, 94 per cent of the wage payments are directly deposited in the account of beneficiaries, Singh said.

For smooth fund flow, the electronic Fund Management System (e-FMS) has been made mandatory from April 1 this year. The Minister said that among the reforms responsible for revival of MGNREGA are timely release of funds to states to provide work on demand, an electronic fund management system, consistent coordination between banks and post offices besides monitoring of pendency of payments.

The personday generation is the highest in the second quarter at 45.88 crore and in the third quarter at 46.10 crore than it has been in the last five years.

Singh also said that more than 64 per cent of total expenditure was on agriculture and allied activities and 57 per cent of all workers were women, well above the statutory requirement of 33 per cent, the highest in three years.