Congress demands scraping of digital attendance system for MNREGA workers 

Digitally capturing attendance of MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers through web platform National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) that depends on photo uploads of the workers is “unworkable” & “counterproductive” and must be withdrawn, Congress general secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said in a statement here. 

The Hindu had reported on Tuesday (July 15, 2025) Union Rural Development Ministry’s July 8th directions to the States flagging the various ways NMMS, which was aimed at bringing in transparency, was being manipulated. Three years back the government had made it mandatory for all MNREGA workers to use this platform for marking their attendance. It required them to upload their photographs twice a day at the worksite. It was found that to meet this requirement, irrelevant photographs were being uploaded among other discrepancies. 

“FAST is the self-declared motto of the Modi Government. It actually stands for First Announce Second Think,” Mr. Ramesh said in a statement here taking a dig at the government. Since its introduction, Mr. Ramesh said the Congress has highlighted the operational problems with NMMS and the government’s July 8 notification is a final “acknowledgement” of the problem. 

The NMMS, Mr. Ramesh said, ended up excluding many genuine workers because of internet connectivity and other reasons without effectively checking the fake workers since they can go twice a day to be photographed, get paid without working for a minute.  “However, the Modi Government, post its acknowledgment of the issue, has identified solutions that are worse than the problem,” he said. Engaging the administration from top to bottom to verify the photos is going to waste the precious time of MNREGA functionaries. He demanded that the government must affirm “task-based payments” which is the essence of MNREGA. 

Nikhil Dey, founder member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, said, that the July 8th order is a confession that NMMS doesn’t work but the solution offered is misplaced and misdirected. “The government is paying the MNREGA labourer for the work carried out not simply for showing up. A photo, even if clicked twice a day doesn’t show whether any work was carried out,” Mr. Dey said.

Instead of imposing newer and more complicated measures on the workers, Mr. Dey argued that the government must hold the supervisory authorities and the engineers accountable. “A worker is paid on the basis of measurements by the engineers, first in carving out the work and then in appraising how much of it has been done. Instead of tasking the entire administration to look at photographs, shouldn’t the government come up with monitoring mechanisms for supervisory authorities and engineers. Let them need to produce geo-tagged and geo-fenced photographs of the times they go to the field,” Mr. Dey said.