Ranchi: Complaints of irregularities in wage payments under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Nregs) in Jharkhand will soon be a thing of past. For, the State Government is all set to adopt the smart card system to bring in more transparency in the wage payment mechanism.

The move has been prompted following the successful operation of the pilot project for e-Payment in five blocks of five different districts last month. The blocks tried for e-Payment of wages are Itki in Ranchi, Dumri in Gumla, Jaridih in Bokaro, Sadar areas of Palamu and Dumka.

Under the project, labourers were issued smart cards with which they could withdraw their wages directly from the banks. Scheduled commercialised banks like the Bank of India, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank and the Axis Bank were roped in for the project. The state government used to transfer the wage payments to labourers at the end of each fortnight in their saving bank accounts.

Recently, Development Commissioner SK Chaudhary held a high-level meeting of officials of both the state government and the banks engaged in the pilot project and recommended for extension of the e-Payment facilities in 100 new blocks of the state.

Nregs Commissioner Sunil Kumar Barnwal told the iGovernmet that the Rural Development Department has been asked by the government to replicate the same mechanism in more blocks by the end of this fiscal.

“The final decision in this regard would be taken by the Rural Development Department in consultation with the Deputy Commissioners of the concerned district,” he added.

It may be recalled that the social audit conducted by a team of experts led by Jean Dreze had exposed large scale irregularities in execution of the Nregs projects and anomalies in payment of wages.

It was also observed that the irregularities in the projects being implementation under the Nregs had marred the spirit of the scheme in Jharkhand.

Some of the NGOs roped in for extension of Nregs in various districts including Khunti and Gumla districts were found to have swindled the fund by furnishing fake documents.

Chaudhary said that the new mode of payment would certainly help the government in execution of the project in honest manner so that the money meant for the poor reached the target section.