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Aadhaar payment system under MGNREGA must be made optional: Parliamentary panel
Scroll | March 14, 2025 2:39 AM CST

A on Wednesday said that the Aadhaar-based payment system under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme must remain optional and suggested using alternative payment mechanisms to ensure that workers receive their wages.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA, is a national social security scheme meant to guarantee at least 100 days of unskilled manual work in a year for every rural household.

The Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, in its fifth Demands For Grants (2025-’26) report submitted in the Lok Sabha, said that technological intervention must not be made mandatory due to operational challenges that have led to the exclusion of beneficiaries.

“In several instances, workers have been wrongfully removed from the system due to discrepancies between their Aadhaar details and job card records,” noted the committee headed by Congress MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka.

The Centre made the mandatory from January 1, 2024.

For workers to be paid under the system, their have to be linked to their MGNREGA job cards and bank accounts. The Aadhaar details then need to be integrated with the database of the National Payments Corporation of India, after which the institutional identification number of the bank needs to be mapped on the National Payments...


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