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From the new year, the central government has made it mandatory to receive all salaries through the Aadhaar-based Payment System (ABPS) under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). For this it is essential to link Aadhaar card details with their job cards. The government's threat to implement ABPS is not yesterday. This was weighing like a sword on the scalps of Narega workers for the past one year. Percentage having Jobcards. 34.8% workers are still ineligible for this mode of payment. That is, after the implementation of this mandatory order, they will fail to claim their wages and will be forced out of the NREGA scheme itself. It is a serious allegation by social activists that ABPS is made mandatory as part of an ill-intentioned bid to reduce NREGA job cards or drive workers out of the scheme.
This allegation is not without merit. In the past, there were cases of denial of ration to the poor for not having an Aadhaar card. We have also seen the consequences of that rejection. Many cases of starvation were revealed across the country. Later, the alert government made a statement that Aadhaar card is not mandatory for BPL card holders to get rice and pulses. Even after this, most of the ration shops in this country have refused ration because they do not have Aadhaar card. We have experienced government phasing out cylinder subsidy money in the name of Aadhaar link. Aadhaar link made mandatory only to deny subsidy. Earlier, the subsidy stopped for those who did not link Aadhaar. After that confusion was created in the transfer of subsidy to the banks. Subsidy money falling towards the bank stopped forever. The above factors have led to allegations that this Aadhaar-based payment system has been implemented to phase out Narega cardholders from the schemes.
Narega is the largest employment scheme in the world. When this scheme was implemented during the UPA era, the BJP ridiculed it. But while coming to power and presenting the new budget, Narega praised the project and promised to provide more grants. Narega scheme took hold of migrant workers in urban areas during the Corona and Lockdown period when there was a situation of moving back to the village. International economic experts have described that Narega scheme has made a huge contribution to save rural areas from hunger and malnutrition. The United Nations has also hailed the success of the NREGA project. The government needed to provide more grants for this scheme which contributed a lot to the unemployment problems of this country. But in recent years there have been allegations that the government itself is plotting to end this project. ABPS is a continuation of that scheme, the concern of NREGA activists.
Earlier, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while speaking in the Lok Sabha said that the demand for work under Narega scheme in rural areas is decreasing. This is a confusing statement given by the Finance Minister to cover up the government's failure in the Narega scheme. When factchuck.in checked the veracity of the finance minister's statement, the holes in his words were exposed. When this website checked the data available on the Narega website regarding the demand for jobs under the scheme between 2018-2022, different information was found. This brought to light that the demand for work in rural areas has steadily increased. In 2018, about 9.11 crore people from 5.78 crore families had applied for work. This demand has increased to 6.16 crore households i.e. about 9.33 crore people in 2019-20. This demand naturally increased even more during the Covid era. Because even then the laborers who were doing wage work in the cities had inevitably returned to the rural areas. During the first wave of Covid in 2020-21, the demand for Naregadadi jobs increased by 38.7 per cent, according to the government website.
According to the government statistics, the central government has arrears of more than Rs 5,000 crore for the Narega project. In many states, the work has come to a standstill due to non-payment of funds on time. Workers are also unhappy with the Narega scheme due to wage discrimination. Rather than the people not wanting to be the beneficiaries of the Narega scheme, it is correct that the government does not want the people to participate in the Narega scheme. The government is unwilling to pay the arrears. That is why the central government is trying to reduce the number of beneficiaries of Narega scheme through various pressures. ABPS payment has now been implemented only to further harass the workers and not to make the NREGA scheme a success. It is suspected that the government's intention is to make the daily wage laborers leave their jobs and wander to Aadhaar card, to create difficulties in payment due to various reasons… Gradually, the people will become jealous of this scheme and keep them away from Narega. At the same time, there is a fear that more workers will be forced out of the Narega scheme by advancing Aadhaar. Unemployment has already risen since the recession. Hunger and malnutrition are high. How right is it to make even the 100-day employment basis of the NREGA scheme unbased in the name of Aadhaar? The government should review this order again.
