ADILABAD: In what is being seen as a counter-strategy to “expose” the Centre, the State government has decided to create WhatsApp groups to run parallel to the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) App for the execution of the NREGS works. The State’s move comes after allegations flew thick and fast between TRS and BJP over who is responsible for the delayed payments being made to the NREGS workers. Village secretaries who are to create these WhatsApp groups have been instructed to include all important leaders right from the Sarpanch to MP in it.
The Central government’s NMMS App, intended to ensure transparency in the release of funds and payment of wages to workers under NREGS, is already in operation. The WhatsApp groups have been created after the State government issued a circular stating that for the execution of the NREGS works, the panchayat secretary “shall create a Whatsapp group at gram panchayat level and post messages related to muster rolls on a daily basis.”
The WhatsApp messages should contain data on the issuance of new muster rolls, name and code of the work, and names of the workers.The Central government’s NMMS app came into operation on May 16.
The commissioner of Panchayat Raj issued a circular to the district officials who in turn sent it to gram panchayats stating that the NREGS worker’s attendance was mandatory through the NMMS App. But the app has had technical problems. The NMMS app has been developed with social audits revealing misuse of crores of rupees. Recently in Boath mandal of Adilabad, a social audit revealed that `1 cr funds had been misused.