PANJIM: Nearly 8,000 beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have not been paid their wages for the last five months. The reason appears baffling- a purported glitch in the software of the bank which handles disbursement to beneficiaries.
The Union Ministry for Rural Development officials, monitoring the situation, has given eight-day ultimatum to the bank to rectify the error and to credit the wages of poor workers.
Failure to do so, the bank will be penalised and interest will be charged on the deposited money besides depositing the amount in another bank.
There are as many as 51,000 MGNREGA beneficiaries in the State of which the highest 33,000 are from North Goa and 18,000 are from South Goa district.
When contacted, RDA Minister Govind Gaude said, “I am following the matter and status of the issue.”
An official of the bank said that many beneficiaries are very poor and their savings accounts do not have KYC, the official said, adding that the bank should have brought this issue to the notice of the RDA. Rejection of payment is not the solution because beneficiaries belong to poor families and mostly hailing from rural areas.
Secretary (RDA) Menino D’Souza said, “There is some problem with the software of the nationalised bank due to which payments are not being made to the beneficiaries and it is getting delayed. Now we have been allowed to take onboard private banks like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank to make payments.”
According to a government source, one of the nationalised banks is facing the issue of OTF (organised trading facility). This bank has now been given an ultimatum to resolve the issue. The bank does not have data of beneficiaries. It has been decided that the bank will be penalised if the issue is not resolved within the next eight days.
Earlier, a meeting of all the bank representatives was held to find out a solution and to streamline the payments. Some beneficiaries are very poor and their savings accounts do not have KYC, the official said, adding that the bank should have brought this issue to the notice of the RDA. Rejection of payment is not the solution because beneficiaries belong to poor families and mostly hailing from rural areas.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Yuri Alemao said, “It is shocking that poor workers put in their sweat and blood to earn daily wages but the insensitive BJP-led government is just not bothered to pay their daily wages in time. The Sawant government spends crores of rupees on events without any financial approvals but fails to pay poor workers.”
