Over 5 cr MGNREGS names deleted, no system error | MGNREGA | Government Scheme | Jobs | Aadhar Card

State governments across the nation have removed the names of 5.18 crore workers who were registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) during the financial year 2022-2023. This alarming figure represents a staggering 247% increase in deletions compared to the previous financial year.

The data was provided by Union rural development minister, Giriraj Singh, in a written response presented in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, July 25. The minister attributed various reasons for these deletions, including the presence of fake and duplicate job cards, workers no longer willing to work, families permanently shifting from the Gram Panchayat, and cases of deceased workers.

The MGNREGS is designed to guarantee 100 days of employment to rural households across the country, offering specially notified minimum wages for the labor involved. This work primarily comprises physical labor and includes activities such as construction, afforestation, and land-levelling.

Responding to queries from Congress MPs V.K. Sreekandan and Gourav Gogoi, who sought clarification on the veracity and reasons behind the deletion of over a crore names from the MGNREGS system, Giriraj Singh clarified that ""system error"" was not a designated reason for these deletions.

However, according to a report by The Hindu, one of the reasons behind the deletions is the state governments' inability to reconcile differences in the details of registered workers between their MGNREGS job cards and Aadhaar cards. The Union government mandated earlier that payments for the MGNREGS must be routed through Aadhaar, India's biometric identification system, leading to the requirement for laborers to link these two cards. Despite multiple deadline extensions for the ""Aadhaar-based payment system"" since January, state governments have been racing against the timeline and resorting to removing workers with discrepancies between the two databases.

When questioned about holding low-level officials accountable for errors in the MGNREGS, Singh pointed out that it is the responsibility of state governments to implement the scheme effectively.

The financial year 2022-23 witnessed the cancellation of job cards issued to 5,18,91,168 MGNREGS beneficiaries, a sharp increase from the 1,49,51,247 job cards cancelled in the previous year. States and Union Territories such as Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, and Puducherry reported the highest number of cancellations during 2022-23.
During the last financial year, West Bengal removed the names of 83.36 lakh workers from the MGNREGS scheme, marking the highest number of deletions among all states during that period.

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