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NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Flays Linking of MNREGA to Aadhaar

Counterview

[January 1, 2024: The linking of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to Aadhaar – a plan criticised in no uncertain terms by activists and experts – will take off from today, making it impossible for job seekers to secure payment under the scheme without an Aadhaar card connected to their job cards.

The implementation of an Aadhaar-based payment system had been made mandatory on January 30, 2023 and, after five extensions for state governments to calibrate their databases, it is going to be kickstarted today.

As has been noted before, for this system to work, a worker’s bank account and job card need to be linked with Aadhaar, and the account must also be connected to the National Payments Corporation of India’s ‘mapper.’

In a press statement, the civil rights group working among rural workers, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, has condemned the Narendra Modi government’s implementation of mandatory Aadhaar-based wage payments for MGNREGA workers from January 1, saying it will render 8.9 crore rural workers ‘ineligible’.]

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Text of Statement

The two basic statutory entitlements of right to work on demand and right to timely payment of wages are under attack due to the compulsory enforcement of Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) for wage payments in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from 1st January 2024. NREGA Sangharsh Morcha strongly condemns this merciless regime’s obsession with mixing technology and welfare, showing utter disregard for the poor, marginalised and working class.

There are 25.69 cr registered workers under the MGNREGA. Out of which, 14.33 cr are categorised by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) as active workers. As on 27th December 2023, 34.8% (8.9 crore) of total registered workers and 12.7% (1.8 crore) of active workers are still ineligible for ABPS. This means that none of the 8.9 cr workers will be allowed to work or get wages in MGNREGA.

In a press release dated 1st January 2024, the MoRD claimed that Aadhaar seeding of 98.31% ‘active workers’ have been completed. Against these seeded Aadhaar, only 87.52% ‘active workers’ are now eligible for Aadhaar Based Payment System. This essentially means that even after five extensions over 11 months, 12.5% of ‘active workers’ are still ineligible for ABPS. Further, MoRD’s strange claim that “ABPS is applicable only in case a registered beneficiary turns up for wage employment,” after the illegal categorisation of job card holders into ‘total workers’ and ‘active workers’ and leaving 8.9 crore legitimate workers disentitled under the scheme, is an absolute mockery of the legislation and crores of rural poor dependent on it.

It is important to note that after many years of relentless push for ABPS, 12.5% of ‘active workers’ are still ineligible. The press release by MoRD dated 30th August 2023, extending the ABPS deadline to 31st December 2023, stated the reason for extension as rejection of transactions arising due to (i) frequent changes in bank account number by the beneficiary (ii) non-updating of the new account number by the Concerned Programme Officer due to non-submission of new account by the beneficiary on time. This shows how the MoRD resorts to conveniently place the onus of non-compliance on the poor workers and implementation staff to hide the inefficiency of ABPS.

Deletion and issuance of new job cards are routine practices. However, FY 22–23 saw an exponential increase in worker deletions as the MoRD began steps to make ABPS mandatory. While job cards of 4.74% of the total workers were deleted in FY 21-22, job cards of nearly 19% of the total workers got deleted in FY 22-23 and 7.72% of the workers in FY 23-24. That is, in the last 2 years alone, job cards of nearly 7.6 crore workers have been deleted many of whom are alive and willing to work. This is akin to decreasing the denominator to make a fraction look good. To mitigate these concerns, the MoRD must release a breakdown of reasons for deletions in FYs 22-23 and 23-34.

Multiple unions took out a 60 days dharna in Delhi and proactively met MoRD to oppose ABPS and various tech interventions in MGNREGA, but the MoRD never paid attention. MoRD must disclose which are the civil society organisations consulted, the date of such engagements and the minutes of the meetings.

In the absence of any evidence to prove the efficiency of ABPS compared to the ‘account based system’ compounded with unprecedented and massive deletions to create an illusion of transparency, the MoRD must take immediate steps to implement social audits and relinquish its tech-weapons.

(Courtesy: Counterview, a newsblog that publishes news and views based on information obtained from alternative sources, which may or may not be available in public domain, allowing readers to make independent conclusions.)

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‘Cruel New Year Gift’, Says Congress as MGNREGA Wage Payment Through Aadhaar System Kickstarts

Sravasti Dasgupta

The Congress has condemned the linking of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act/Scheme (MGNREGA/S) to Aadhaar that takes off from Monday (January 1) and has called it a “cruel new year gift” to the country’s poor and marginalised.

The scheme guarantees 100 days of work to rural households.

The implementation of an Aadhaar-based payment system was made mandatory on January 30, 2023, and after five extensions for state governments to calibrate their databases, it is set to kickstart from Monday.

The system requires a worker’s bank account and job card to be linked with Aadhaar. The account must also be connected to the National Payments Corporation of India’s ‘mapper’.

According to data by LibTech India, a consortium of academics and activists, 7.6 crore job cards have been deleted from the system over the last 21 months.

In a statement on Monday, Congress MP and the party’s media and communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh said that the move was the “prime minister’s cruel new year gift to exclude crores of the poorest and marginalised Indians from earning a basic income.”

“There are in total 25.69 crore MGNREGA workers of whom 14.33 crore are considered as active workers. As on December 27, 34.8% of the total registered workers (8.9 crore) and 12.7% of active workers (1.8 crore) are still ineligible for ABPS. Despite many challenges highlighted by workers, practitioners, and researchers, in using ABPS for MGNREGA wage payments, the Modi government has continued with its destructive ‘experiments with technology’. This is the prime minister’s cruel new year gift to exclude crores of the poorest and marginalised Indians from earning a basic income,” he said.

Ramesh accused the Modi government of using technology as a weapon to exclude the people belonging to the marginalised community.

“The prime minister’s well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude – such as the digital attendance (NMMS), ABPS, drone monitoring, and the proposed integration of facial recognition to NMMS. No due consultation or scientific piloting was done before unleashing these ‘experiments’ on crores of Indians,” he added.

The Congress reiterated its earlier demand that the Union government “should stop weaponising technology, especially Aadhaar, to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits, release delayed wage payments and implement open muster rolls and social audits to improve transparency.”

Despite its popularity, the job scheme has seen budget cuts in recent years. In the 2023 budget, the MGNREGS was allocated Rs 60,000 crore. Concerns have been raised that the allocation to the MGNREGS has declined by 33% as compared to the revised estimates of 2022-23.

The Wire has earlier reported that the centrally sponsored scheme has not had a performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) since 2013. CAG’s performance audits examine the extent to which an activity, programme, or organisation operates economically, efficiently, and effectively.

(Courtesy: The Wire.)