SHILLONG: The job card holders of Demdema C&RD Block have opposed the move of the government to transfer their wage money directly to the individual bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) instead of the bank accounts of the respective VECs.
In a memorandum sent to the Chief Minister Conrad Sangma here on Friday, the job card holders lamented that there are only two SBI branches in their area operating the VEC accounts and barring a few number of job card holders, others have their bank accounts with two bank branches located in Phulbari and Chibinang .
The job card holders said that the bank branches are already overburdened and often remain crowded, adding many job card holders, who always remain engaged in works channelised through VEC, are yet to open their bank accounts.
The request came from the job card holders even as Phulbari MLA, SG Esmatur Mominin, earlier had asked state government to initiate transfer of payment of wages directly to the job card holders through Direct Benefit Transfer for VECs under his constituency.
They are of the view that with this move, those who have accounts will also be deprived of the payment as it has been noticed that there are discrepancies in the names recorded in the job cards and in the bank accounts and the same problem will be faced by almost all the job card holders because any negligible dissimilarity is straight away rejected by the bank authority.
The job card holders want chief minister to direct the concerned department officials to maintain status quo pertaining to fund transfer of MGNREGA scheme instead of DBT.
In 2018, Selsella and Demdema blocks were identified as pilot blocks for the implementation of 100 per cent DBT under MGNREGA.
