The rural development ministry on Sunday dismissed reports that enrolment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is going down and said it is not possible to fix targets for total enrolment in the demand-driven scheme as the financial year is still going on.

According to a report of Libtech India on the implementation of the MGNREGS, there has been an 8-per cent drop in the number of active workers under the scheme compared to last year.

The report also said there has been a net deletion of 39 lakh workers, raising concerns about wrongful deletions. While the names of 84.8 lakh workers were deleted, only 45.4 lakh workers were added under the scheme.

"Since MGNREGA is a demand-driven scheme and current FY is still ongoing, hence, it is not possible to fix an exact target of person days generation. However, the states/UTs can send proposals for labour budget revision as per the locally felt needs," the ministry said in a statement.

"It may be noted that the total person days generated between FY 2006-07 to FY 2013-14 were 1,660 crore, whereas the total person days between FY 2014-15 to FY 2024-25 has been 2,923 crore" it added.

The Libtech report said employment opportunities under the scheme have dropped significantly compared to the previous year, from 184 crore to 154 crore person-days.

It also said 27.4 per cent of all the workers, or 6.7 crore people, are ineligible for receiving wages through the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS).

On direct benefit transfer (DBT) and Aadhaar seeding, the ministry said ABPS conversion is a major reform process where benefits are credited directly into the bank accounts based on the Aadhaar of the workers under the MGNREGS.

"As on 26.10.2024, Aadhaar seeding has been done for 13.1 crore active workers, which is 99.3 per cent of total active workers (13.18 crore)," the ministry said.

"It is a fallacious argument that workers' demand for work is not registered if their accounts are not ABPS-enabled and that their wages remain unpaid because of this reason. In case of non-eligible workers, whose ABPS is still pending, states/UTs have been requested to sensitise all banks to ensure timely seeding of Aadhaar numbers of MGNREGS beneficiaries into NPCI mapper," it added.

The ministry said if any transaction returns from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) or a bank with any valid reason for rejection under the ABPS, then that transaction can be regenerated through the National Automated Clearing House (NACH) payment mode.

"Therefore, there already exists an alternative solution at NREGASoft in the form of NACH payment mode (i.e account based) for the regeneration of failed transactions under ABPS. States/UTs have been continuously sensitised regarding this," the ministry said.

On deletion of job cards, it said job card verification is a continuous process under the MGNREGS and the exercise is conducted by the states and Union territories with the help of the Aadhaar number as a tool of de-duplication.

"Job cards can be cancelled/deleted, after due verification, only if it is a fake job card (incorrect job card)/duplicate job card/household not willing to work/family shifted from gram panchayat permanently/single person in job card and that person has expired," the ministry said.

It said according to NREGASoft, during the financial year 2023-24, the total number of job cards deleted by the states was 1.02 crore, whereas in the current FY 2024-25, as on October 26, the number was 32.28 lakh.

The ministry also rejected the argument that MGNREGS work is not undertaken in villages where the mates (frontline supervisors) do not have smartphones that support the NMMS app.

"In case of exceptional circumstances due to which attendance could not be uploaded, the District Programme Coordinator (DPC) has been authorised to approve the manual attendance. In FY 2024-25, attendance for 20.35 lakh worksites (95.66 per cent) has been captured and uploaded on the portal," the ministry said.

It also said the budget estimate for the scheme has been on an increasing trend. During FY 2013-14, the budget allocation was Rs 33,000 crore at the BE stage, which is Rs 86,000 crore during FY 2024-25 -- the highest since the scheme's inception. Further, it is stated that in FY 2024-25, the minimum average notified wage rate has increased by 7 per cent.

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