If attendance is missing or incorrectly recorded, wages can be delayed or reduced, even when the work has been completed. With the shift toward digital monitoring, this small daily entry now plays a bigger role than ever before.
This article explains how NREGA attendance works, how it evolved from paper registers to mobile apps, and why it has such a direct impact on rural livelihoods.
Why Attendance Is the Backbone of MGNREGA
Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, wages are calculated strictly based on recorded workdays.
That means:
- No attendance record
- No muster roll entry
- No wage calculation
- No payment release
Attendance is not a formality. It is the legal and technical trigger that connects physical labour to digital payment systems.
Earlier System: Paper Muster Rolls
For many years, attendance at MGNREGA worksites was recorded manually:
- Supervisors marked workers present on paper
- Registers were submitted later
- Data entry happened after verification
While simple, this system had limitations:
- Delays in updating records
- Possibility of proxy or fake attendance
- Limited transparency
- Weak real-time monitoring
These issues eventually pushed the system toward digitisation.
The Shift to Digital Attendance
To improve transparency and accountability, attendance recording moved to a mobile-based system.
In most worksites today:
- Attendance is captured through a mobile application
- Geo-tagged, time-stamped photographs are taken
- Photos are captured twice a day
- Data is uploaded directly to the central system
- Muster rolls and wage calculations are generated automatically
From a policy perspective, this is an example of technology-driven monitoring in a large welfare programme.
What the Ground Reality Looks Like
While digital systems improve oversight, field conditions matter.
Common challenges include:
- Poor or unstable internet connectivity
- Mobile device failures
- App-related errors
- Dependence on a single supervisor’s phone
- Workers marked absent due to technical issues
Because of these realities, manual attendance is still allowed in exceptional situations, with approval from authorities.
This highlights a recurring theme in digital governance:
technology strengthens systems, but ground conditions decide outcomes.
How Attendance Directly Affects Wages
Each attendance entry feeds into:
- Muster roll generation
- Counting of payable workdays
- Wage calculation
- Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) processing
Even one missing attendance day can reduce total wages or delay payment. For households dependent on daily wages, this can have immediate consequences.
That is why attendance disputes are one of the most common issues raised by workers.
Verifying Attendance Records
Workers can verify attendance records through official portals by selecting:
- State
- District
- Block
- Panchayat
- Worksite or muster roll
Regular verification helps workers ensure their labour is correctly recorded in the system.
For a clear, step-by-step explanation of NREGA attendance, common problems, and verification methods, I’ve documented the process here:
https://mg-nrega.com/nrega-attendance/
Why This Small Entry Matters
NREGA attendance may look like a routine administrative task, but in practice it:
- Determines whether wages are paid
- Affects payment timelines
- Reflects how digital systems function at scale
- Shows the gap between policy design and field execution
Sometimes, a single daily entry decides a family’s income for the week.
Understanding attendance helps us understand MGNREGA not just as a law, but as a living system shaped by technology, administration, and ground realities.
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