Central government has insisted that MGNREGA wages be paid exclusively through savings accounts opened for workers in nearby banks and post offices as a solution to corruption in payments. But the problem persists; VV-PACS Community Correspondent Satyendra from Mau district of Uttar Pradesh gives us a reality check into the current status of MGNREGA payments in his village.
'It has been a month but we still haven't received our wages. We are poor people. When we asked the Village Head she never listened to our problems' says one MGNREGA worker.
Since crucial guidelines and safeguards have been ignored the aim of ending corruption in wage payments has not been achieved. This can only happen when bank payments are combined with other transparency safeguards. Otherwise, as is already happening, new vulnerabilities will get entrenched.
Call to Action: You can help by calling Malti Singh, Village Head, Mau,Uttar Pradesh on 0847367980 and ask her to make wage payments to MGNREGA workers.
About the Partnership: The Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programme and Video Volunteers have come together to create the Community Correspondents Network. The videos generated by the network will be able to highlight voices from the margins, providing skills to social communicators to provide advocacy tools to community based organizations.
In this video, we can see a success story of a Public Health Centre that got renovated and functional with the effort of a Community worker, Ms Laxmi Kaurav.
In this video of UPS Manwan Awoora school, Kupwara, Kashmir, the community correspondent Pir Azhar shows us that there are nine classes for 250 students, and due to lack of space, the lower primary classes are held outside in the open. Also the school has only 7 teachers.
