GADAG: Outsourced employees of MGNREGA scheme in Karnataka have not been paid salaries for the last four months. They say it is because of new software that has not been mapped with Khajane II (K2) software, which manages salaries of all state government employees.
But the officials concerned say the central government is yet to release funds for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme.
The scheme has 3,657 outsourced staff across the state who have not been paid since July this year. They have also not been paid their travel and dearness allowances for the last 10 months.
The scheme in the state has 27 disaster management information system officials, 27 district account managers, 202 technical coordinators, 222 taluk MBS, 294 BG coordinators, 299 BLRP, 799 technical assistants and others working in this project.
‘We requested officials to release salaries’
Their salaries range from Rs 10,000 to Rs 45,000. One of the staff members TNIE spoke to said he has no money to pay the bus fare to reach the village to attend to his work. Others complained that they are struggling to pay school fees and maintain their families.
An employee said, “We requested the officials concerned to release our salaries, but they said it was because of technical issues in mapping our payment system with K2 software.”
An official from the Gadag zilla panchayat said, “We have sorted out all technical glitches, but now funds have not been released by the Central government.”