Centre must end insistence on Aadhaar Based Payment Systems (ABPS) to pay wages for workers: Congress

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh highlights findings of independent report that shows over 84 lakh workers registered under MGNREGS had found their names deleted from the flagship programme

Congress general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh on Saturday (October 26, 2024) said the Ministry of Rural Development must immediately put an end to insistence on Aadhaar Based Payment Systems (ABPS) to pay wages for workers enrolled under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

Citing the latest report of LibTech, a consortium of academics and activists, which revealed that between April to September this year, 84.8 lakh workers registered under MGNREGS had found their names deleted from the programme. At the same time, only 45.4 lakh new workers have been added with net deletion of workers standing at 39.3 lakh. Mr. Ramesh said the deletion coincides with the Ministry’s order making ABPS mandatory from January 1 this year.

‘Catastrophic impact’

To be eligible for ABPS, the workers have to ensure that their Aadhaar must be linked to their job cards, the names on the Aadhaar must match the name on the job card and that their bank accounts are Aadhaar seeded and mapped with National Payments Corporation of India. “Ten months later, we now have data on the catastrophic impact of this policy shift,” he said in a statement.

The report prepared by LibTech revealed that 27.4% of all registered workers (6.7 crore workers) and 4.2% of active workers (54 lakh workers) remain ineligible for ABPS. There is also a fall of 16.6% in person days (total number of workdays a person registered under the programme completes in a financial year) under the programme in comparison to last year.

Calling it a government-created human, economic, and institutional tragedy, Mr. Ramesh said that ABPS, along with marking workers’ attendance through the National Mobile Monitoring System, is resulting in the violation of the right to work on demand and the right to timely payment of wages guaranteed under the programme.

“The Ministry for Rural Development must immediately put a stop to this insistence on ABPS and NMMS. Furthermore, Budget of MNREGA and the daily wages of workers should be increased,” he added.

Published - October 26, 2024 09:26 pm IST