'Cruel New Year Gift': Cong Slams Govt For Making Aadhaar-Linked Payment Mandatory For MGNREGA Workers

Congress expressed concern about the government's decision to require the use of Aadhaar for MGNREGA payments, urging the Modi govt "to avoid using technology to deny welfare benefits to the poor".

File photo of Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh ( Image Source :PTI Images )

The Congress party voiced its concerns on Monday over the government's decision to make the Aadhaar-based system obligatory for MGNREGA payments, urging the "Modi administration to refrain from leveraging technology, specifically Aadhaar, to deprive disadvantaged Indians of their welfare entitlements". The opposition party highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's perceived scepticism towards MGNREGA, asserting that this "sentiment has manifested in various technological initiatives aimed at exclusion".

Indian National Congress condemns the Prime Minister’s cruel New Year gift to exclude crores of the poorest and marginalised Indians from earning a basic income through public works under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

The Indian National… pic.twitter.com/ykWAhaexL7

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 1, 2024

Jairam Ramesh, Congress's general secretary for communications, shared an official statement by the grand old party on X, which highlighted that the Ministry of Rural Development's (MoRD) fifth deadline extension for implementing Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) for MGNREGA payments concluded on December 31, 2023. The statement 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 concerns from workers and experts regarding the efficacy of ABPS for wage payments, the grand old party criticised the government's persistence with such technological initiatives. He described the government's approach as "an attempt to exclude crores of the poorest and marginalised Indians from earning a basic income". 

Congress questioned the MoRD's claims from August 30, 2023, endorsing ABPS. "First, since April 2022, an alarming 7.6 crore registered workers were deleted from the system. 1.9 crore registered workers were deleted from the system nine months into the current financial year." He further urged the ministry to clarify, stating, "The ministry must clarify who these 'stakeholders' were and when these consultations were held," the statement said. 

Referencing a study by LibTech India, the grand old party disputed the MoRD's assertions about ABPS efficiency. The statement said: "The study analysed 3.2 crore wage transactions to demonstrate that there is no statistically significant difference in the time taken to process account and Aadhaar based payments by the Union government."

The statement concluded by criticising the Modi government's technological experiments. "The PM's well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude."

"The Indian National Congress reiterates its demand that the Modi government should stop weaponising technology, especially Aadhaar, to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits," the statement read.