New Delhi: Following repeated deadline extensions, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) will now exclusively utilise the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) for wage disbursements. This mandate applies to all states, effective immediately.
The ABPS leverages the 12-digit Aadhaar number as a worker’s financial address. To reap its benefits, a worker’s Aadhaar details must be seeded with their job card and linked to their bank account.
As of January 1, data on the Union Rural Development Ministry’s website reveals approximately 14.28 crore active MGNREGS workers. While Aadhaar seeding has been achieved for 13.48 crore individuals, only 12.49 crore have transitioned to the ABPS, leaving roughly 12.5 per cent of active workers ineligible. The disparity becomes even starker when considering all enrolled workers - out of 25.89 crore, only 17.37 crore are currently within the ABPS fold, translating to an exclusion rate exceeding 32 per cent.
Despite initial reservations, the government mandated ABPS adoption in January 2023, initially setting February 1 as the deadline. However, delays in Aadhaar linkage throughout various states necessitated numerous extensions, stretching the deadline to December 31, 2023. While the official MGNREGS website reports that 87.8 per cent of active workers are ABPS-eligible, over 1.5 crore individuals still remain outside the system. Concerns regarding the slow pace of Aadhaar enablement, even after the missed December 31 deadline, highlight potential implementation challenges.
Researchers and activists, such as Laavanya Tamang of LibTech India and the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, warn that premature mandatory adoption of ABPS could lead to significant worker exclusion. “Exclusion from MGNREGS due to authentication failures or insufficient infrastructure is a real possibility,” Tamang emphasises. She further questions how the government plans to guarantee access to work amidst the ongoing transition.
A LibTech working paper published in August 2023 echoed these concerns, noting the immense pressure placed on field staff to ensure compliance and the potential for job card deletion in case of authentication failures. Notably, the rural development ministry itself disclosed a staggering 267 per cent increase in job card deletions (exceeding 5.48 crore) during 2022-23, raising further questions about the potential impact of the mandatory ABPS shift. In a statement issued in August last year, when the last extension was made, the ministry had said states have been informed that beneficiaries who come for work should be requested to provide their Aadhaar number but will not be refused work on this basis.
If a beneficiary does not demand work, in such a case her/his status of eligibility for APBS does not affect the demand for work and job cards cannot be deleted on the basis of reason that the worker is not eligible for APBS, it had said.