84.8 lakh workers registered under MGNREGS ‘deleted’, finds report

Study by Lib Tech reveals high deletion rate of MGNREGS workers, raising concerns about wrongful deletions and impact on program.

Between April and September this year, as per a study released by Lib Tech, a consortium of academics and activists, 84.8 lakh workers registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) found their names deleted from the programme. At the same time, 45.4 lakh new workers have been added, with net deletion of workers standing at 39.3 lakh. 

The highest number of workers removed from the scheme is from Tamil Nadu (14.7 %) followed by Chhattisgarh (14.6%). 

These deletions are part of the ongoing trend of a sharp rise in deletion of workers from the programme. In its report last year, Lib Tech had highlighted that 8 crore were removed from the MGNREGS registry during financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24. 

The Lib Tech report said that the high deletion rate is worrying and raises concerns about “wrongful deletions”. “An ongoing study by LibTech India in Andhra Pradesh found that approximately 15% of these deletions were wrongful,” the report, authored by three Lib Tech members Chakradhar Buddha, Shamala Kittane and Rahul Mukkera, said.  

The high rate of deletions has coincided with the government’s push for the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS). In January 2023, the Ministry of Rural Development mandated the nationwide implementation of ABPS for MGNREGS. To be eligible for ABPS, workers must meet several conditions: their Aadhaar must be linked to their job card, the name on the Aadhaar must match the name on the job card, and their bank account must be Aadhaar-seeded and mapped with the National Payments Corporation of India.

After pushing the deadline for final implementation at least four times, the government from January 1 this year, made it mandatory. As per Lib Tech’s analysis of the public data available on the MGNREGA portal maintained by the Union Rural Development Ministry, 27.4% of all registered workers (6.7 crore workers) and 4.2% of active workers (54 lakh workers) remain ineligible for ABPS. 

These trends have contributed in discouraging workers from depending on the programme and have added to migration from the villages. The Lib Tech report revealed that there was an 8% drop in active workers. In October 2023 there were 14.3 crore active workers, this number has come down to 13.2 crore in October 2024.