NEW DELHI: The Congress said on Monday that the Modi government should “stop weaponising technology”, especially Aadhaar, to deny the most disadvantaged Indians their social welfare benefits, as an Aadhaar-based system will soon be required for MGNREGA payments.
The Opposition party also condemned it and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude”.
Wage payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will now be done only through the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), sources said on Monday. The last extension of the deadline to state governments to make the payments mandatory through the system ended on December 31.
The sources said it has been conveyed to states that payments will now be made only through the ABPS. If any state has any grievance, it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, they said.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, “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 per cent of total registered workers (8.9 crore) and 12.7 per cent 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”, he said.
“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 alleged.
Ramesh pointed out that a statement issued by the MoRD dated August 30, 2023, made certain questionable claims such as job cards will not be deleted on the basis that the worker is not eligible for APBS and that different “stakeholders” in certain “consultations” have found ABPS as the best route for making wage payment.
It also claimed that ABPS helps workers get their wage on time and avoids transaction rejections, Ramesh noted.
Ramesh said the ministry must clarify who these “stakeholders” were and when these consultations were held.