August 2, 2023: No worker under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was denied wage payment due to the Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS), the ministry of rural development said today.
“To ensure timely payment of wages to the beneficiaries under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS and to address the issues arises due to frequent change of bank account numbers by the beneficiaries and subsequent non-updation by the programme officers, it has been decided to adopt the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS), which does not get affected due to change of bank account. (This is also done) to ensure that only genuine beneficiaries should get benefit of the scheme… For this, Aadhaar-Base Payment System is the best alternative,” the ministry said.
The ABPS has been made mandatory with effect from February 1, 2023, under the NREGA. However, due to the request made by several states, the ministry decided that wage payment of NREGA beneficiaries will be made using either the ABPS or NACH mode, depending upon the status on ABPS of a beneficiary, till August 31, 2023. In case states face any issues or problems due to the ABPS, it is resolved on priority basis, the ministry said.
To ensure more transparency in the implementation of the scheme, capturing of attendance with geo-tagged, two time-stamped photographs of the workers in a day through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app for all the works (except individual beneficiary works) has been made mandatory from January 1, 2023.
“This increases citizen oversight of the scheme besides enabling faster processing of payments. Worksite supervisors are responsible for capturing attendance along with geo-tagged photographs of the workers through the NMMS app,” the ministry said.
The ministry also said that the technical issues being faced in the NMMS app are taken up with the NIC on a real-time basis. All the issues concerning the NMMS app are reviewed and resolved from time to time.
The NMMS app has been modified to capture the second photograph just after four hours of uploading the attendance and first photograph. The morning attendance along with the first photograph and second photograph can be captured in offline mode and uploaded once the device comes into the network. In case of exceptional circumstances due to which attendance could not be uploaded, the district programme coordinator has been authorised to upload the manual attendance.
| State/UT-wise details of numbers of the active workers under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS in the financial year 2021-22. | ||
| SI. No. | State/UT | Numbers of the active workers (In lakh) |
| 1 | Andaman And Nicobar | 0.16 |
| 2 | Andhra Pradesh | 99.82 |
| 3 | Arunachal Pradesh | 3.03 |
| 4 | Assam | 60.49 |
| 5 | Bihar | 99.33 |
| 6 | Goa | 0.07 |
| 7 | Gujarat | 31.76 |
| 8 | Haryana | 9.27 |
| 9 | Himachal Pradesh | 14.32 |
| 10 | Jammu And Kashmir | 16.55 |
| 11 | Karnataka | 88.22 |
| 12 | Kerala | 27.06 |
| 13 | Madhya Pradesh | 114.26 |
| 14 | Maharashtra | 66.41 |
| 15 | Lakshadweep | 0.00 |
| 16 | Manipur | 7.26 |
| 17 | Meghalaya | 9.05 |
| 18 | Mizoram | 2.08 |
| 19 | Nagaland | 5.25 |
| 20 | Odisha | 78.72 |
| 21 | Puducherry | 0.67 |
| 22 | Punjab | 17.26 |
| 23 | Rajasthan | 145.66 |
| 24 | Sikkim | 0.99 |
| 25 | Tamil Nadu | 94.31 |
| 26 | Tripura | 10.09 |
| 27 | Uttar Pradesh | 174.92 |
| 28 | West Bengal | 181.25 |
| 29 | Chhattisgarh | 75.90 |
| 30 | Jharkhand | 47.34 |
| 31 | Uttarakhand | 12.74 |
| 32 | Telangana | 64.76 |
| 33 | Ladakh | 0.45 |
| Total | 1,559.47 | |
| State/UT-wise details of the number of workers whose Aadhaar numbers have been seeded with Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS) under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS as on 28.07.2023. | ||
| SI. No. | State/UT | Number of workers (In lakh) |
| 1 | Andhra Pradesh | 93.44 |
| 2 | Arunachal Pradesh | 1.92 |
| 3 | Assam | 23.47 |
| 4 | Bihar | 71.20 |
| 5 | Chhattisgarh | 57.09 |
| 6 | Goa | 0.06 |
| 7 | Gujarat | 21.94 |
| 8 | Haryana | 7.68 |
| 9 | Himachal Pradesh | 12.30 |
| 10 | Jammu And Kashmir | 11.12 |
| 11 | Jharkhand | 33.04 |
| 12 | Karnataka | 74.99 |
| 13 | Kerala | 24.25 |
| 14 | Ladakh | 0.36 |
| 15 | Madhya Pradesh | 88.34 |
| 16 | Maharashtra | 48.51 |
| 17 | Manipur | 4.17 |
| 18 | Meghalaya | 0.28 |
| 19 | Mizoram | 1.73 |
| 20 | Nagaland | 1.26 |
| 21 | Odisha | 57.45 |
| 22 | Punjab | 12.55 |
| 23 | Rajasthan | 113.23 |
| 24 | Sikkim | 0.73 |
| 25 | Tamil Nadu | 85.93 |
| 26 | Telangana | 55.75 |
| 27 | Tripura | 9.34 |
| 28 | Uttar Pradesh | 103.03 |
| 29 | Uttarakhand | 8.96 |
| 30 | West Bengal | 112.81 |
| 31 | Andaman and Nicobar | 0.11 |
| 32 | Dn Haveli And Dd | 0.00 |
| 33 | Lakshadweep | 0.00131 |
| 34 | Puducherry | 0.58 |
| Total | 1,137.62 | |
(Source PIB)
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