MGNREGA Wage: Based payment deadline for MNREGA will not extend further, August 31 will remain the last date

Rural Development Ministry officials say that more than 90 percent of active workers' accounts are already linked with Aadhaar. In such a situation, the deadline for implementing the Aadhaar-based payment system will remain August 31.

According to a statement released by the ministry in June this year, out of the total 14.28 crore active beneficiaries, 13.75 crore beneficiaries have been seeded with Aadhaar numbers. According to the ministry, a total of 12.17 crore Aadhaar numbers have been authenticated. At this point in June, 77.81 percent of beneficiaries were found eligible for the Aadhaar-based payment system.

In May this year, around 88 percent of salary payments were made through the Aadhaar-based payment system.

The ministry had said that data on job cards issued to MGNREGA beneficiaries cannot be deleted on the ground that the worker is not eligible for the Aadhaar-based payment system.

Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh had given a written answer in this regard in Parliament during the recently concluded monsoon session. According to this answer, money has not been deposited in the bank accounts of about eight percent of the approximately 1.13 crore MGNREGA workers. Whereas the northeastern states of the country are lagging behind in this process.

In Assam, more than 42 percent, in Arunachal Pradesh about 23 percent, in Meghalaya more than 70 percent and in Nagaland 37 percent of workers' accounts are not linked with Aadhaar cards.