The Hindu: Mumbai: Tuesday,
October 04, 2016.
The Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is not only a
pioneering livelihood security programme but also a great example of proactive
disclosure of information through its Management Information System (MIS). It
is the first transaction-based real-time system for any public works programme
in the country that is available in the public domain. There has been a
digitisation of all the processes in MGNREGA — right from a worker registering
demand for work, to work allotment, to finally getting wages for completed
works. Another notable feature of the MIS is the availability of information
through online reports at various levels of disaggregation. This has enabled
any citizen to monitor the implementation of the programme and has consequently
charted a new paradigm of transparency since the enactment of the Right to
Information (RTI) Act. The sheer scale of information available on
implementation is also no mean achievement. Individual worker details from
around 2.5 lakh gram panchayats are available in the MGNREGA MIS.
While this
system is certainly a great feather in the cap of a transparent democracy, it
is critical to understand its current shortcomings and possible ways to improve
its functioning.
Shortcomings
To begin
with, the MIS is accessible only from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Indian Standard Time.
This is a huge impediment for collaborative work across time zones.
Second, it
does not provide any data dictionary. A data dictionary is a repository of all
the names of variables/columns used in various reports, containing a brief
explanation of its meanings. Such a dictionary is crucial so that any citizen
accessing the online reports can understand the content in them. As things
stand, unless somebody has spent a lot of time in rural areas, it is difficult
to comprehend the details of many reports.
Third, the
nomenclature of the column names in the online reports is not consistent. The
same column name is labelled differently in different reports. For instance,
what is referred to as the Payment Date in the report of weekly works
(‘Mustroll Report’) is known as the Second Signatory Date in a report titled
‘FTO Second Signatory’. Payment Date is also a misnomer as it does not refer to
the date on which a worker gets paid. Although obfuscation of the column names
may not be intentional, it nevertheless becomes excruciating for any citizen or
researcher to make meaningful sense of the reports.
Fourth, some
obvious worker-centric links in the data structure are missing. For example,
every household that does MGNREGA work has a unique job card number. This
number is crucial to get work. Upon completion of a work week, a Funds Transfer
Order (FTO) is generated containing the details of each job card holder’s
earned wages. On the MIS, there is no clear link between these two crucial
pieces. As such it becomes difficult to follow the trail of each job card
holder from the time of work demanded to getting the wages.
Passing
the baton of accountability
While
computerisation of all transactions is a welcome move, officials are passing
the baton of accountability. One should be mindful that an information system
doesn’t end up controlling the legal rights. There are several situations when
a written request for work by a worker is not entered in the MIS till funds for
work allocation are made available from the Centre. This is illegal as the Act
mandates provision of work within a stipulated time of requesting for it.
Similarly, the generation of the FTO is withheld till funds for wage payments
are released. There are other instances when the FTO is not generated if a
worker fails to furnish his or her Aadhaar number. Some are harder to locate as
there is no paper trail or stated intention but realised only retrospectively
once the workers are affected. There are other such examples illustrating how
the IT infrastructure becomes a tool prioritising administrative needs as
opposed to being a programme enabler. In this regard, it is instructive to
recall the phrase “code is law” popularised by the Harvard Law professor,
Lawrence Lessig. Code, as in software, and code, as in law, can both be
instruments of social control. To quote him: “We can build, or architect, or
code cyberspace to protect values that we believe are fundamental. Or we can
build, or architect, or code cyberspace to allow those values to disappear.
There is no middle ground. Code is never found; it is only ever made, and only
ever made by us.”
Technological
architecture can also be used to perpetuate falsehoods. For instance, consider
the flawed mechanism of the calculation of delay compensation when wages are
not paid on time. Ideally, the compensation should be calculated from the 16th
day of completion of a work week till the day on which the workers actually
receive their wages. However, the compensation is computed based on the payment
date, which, as we have mentioned, is not the date on which the wages get
credited into the workers’ accounts. The difference of the two calculation
methods run into crores of rupees that rightfully belong to the workers. While
the automated calculation is a progressive measure, its basis must be correct
and transparent. The fact that even with the flawed calculation no compensation
has been paid corroborates that technology can be a strong aid but not a
replacement for accountability.
The MIS is a
powerful mechanism to have an evidence-based discourse for monitoring basic
services. But a governance framework for the MIS needs to be put in place that
lays out the minimum standards and accountability of the Ministry managing the
system. Such a framework must be built in consultation with all concerned
parties and should follow the provisions of the law (both MGNREGA and RTI). The
system design choices should reflect the values of the worker-centric programme
and hence principles need to be followed for compassionate design. Otherwise,
we fear that technology is dictating administrative choices, akin to the phrase
“architecture is politics”.
(Sakina
Dhorajiwala is a student of Public Policy at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.
Rajendran teaches at Ashoka University, Sonepat. The views expressed are
personal and don’t reflect their respective institutions’ perspectives.)
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