At a time of jobless growth, over 39 lakh deletions of registered workers in the Centre’s rural jobs scheme were reported in the first half of the current financial year. Data compiled by an NGO from the official website of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) shows 84.8 lakh deletions against 45.5 lakh additions. It also indicates an 8% drop in active workers, which means there are fewer beneficiaries compared to last year. Rigorous scrutiny of the scheme’s job card data is a regular exercise undertaken by all states and Union Territories. But there are strict parameters for cancelling any job card. For example, it can be deleted if it is fake or duplicated or the beneficiary is no longer alive. Households not willing to work any longer or families that shift out of a gram panchayat for good, too, stand to lose their job cards. But what is worrying is the question of wrongful deletions - estimated at a whopping 15% in Andhra Pradesh alone in an ongoing study by the NGO, LibTech India. It suggests a slant in data purification.
Consequently, employment opportunities under MGNREGS dropped steeply to 154 crore person-days against 184 crore in the same period last year. In other words, a 16.6% drop in person-days in the first half of this year. In contrast, person-days had gone up by 10% during the same period to 166 crore in 2022-23. Peak person-days recorded in a full financial year was 309.01 crore in 2023-24 - a little over the previous peak of 389.09 crore in 2020-21 when the pandemic was at its peak.
Another worrying metric was that over 6.7 crore workers nationwide were ineligible to seek any work under the scheme for not complying with the mandatory Aadhaar seeding. An Aadhaar-based Payment System (ABPS) has been made mandatory since January 1 to curb fund leakage. While the intention may be above board, it indicates ABPS implementation challenges in the heart of rural India. On paper, ABPS may not be a constraint for employment, but ground reports suggest otherwise. Lower worker participation is hard to digest amid high inflation at a time when there is little indication of easing rural distress. The poorest of the poor could be slipping through the cracks due to various reasons, including ABPS. The government needs to plug the gaps immediately.