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For five hours, around 30 workers stood at a worksite in Raichur district of Karnataka, waiting – not for work, but for their attendance to be recorded. Despite repeated attempts, only one worker’s attendance was successfully captured over nearly 45 minutes. Many eventually left without having their presence recorded.

This is not a story about a minor technical glitch. It is a glimpse into how a legal right to work can be quietly transformed into something conditional – dependent not on whether a worker is present, but on whether a digital system is able to recognise them.

As India moves towards a new employment framework to replace MGNREGA, such experiences are not isolated inconveniences; they are early warnings. Even before any formal transition, a quieter transformation is already underway – through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS).

As noted in earlier reporting in The Wire, the NMMS system had already reduced attendance to a rigid technical requirement—often experienced by workers as “two photos or no pay.” What is now emerging is a deeper shift: even when workers meet these conditions, the system itself fails to recognise them.

Alongside field investigations, a review of regional media coverage across states and languages indicates that these issues are not isolated, with similar problems being reported from multiple parts of the country.

Introduced with the promise of curbing corruption, NMMS replaced manual attendance with real-time, geotagged photographic records. The logic appeared straightforward: more data, tighter verification, and less scope for manipulation. Yet the trajectory of NMMS suggests a different outcome. It has not reduced corruption; it has changed its form—while simultaneously excluding workers. In doing so, it has begun to shift MGNREGA from a guaranteed legal right to a system where access depends on digital validation.

This shift is not accidental. It reflects a broader direction in welfare governance, where technology is increasingly used not to expand access, but to regulate and condition it.

From Digitising Attendance to Reshaping Corruption

In its early versions, NMMS was relatively easy to manipulate. Attendance could be marked using irrelevant photographs,........

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