Bihar aims for 100% Aadhar seeding of NREGS job card holders by Jan 15

The Centre had made Aadhar based payment system mandatory for all job card holders under MGNREGS from January 1.

Bihar hopes to complete the process of linking Aadhar cards of all job card holders under MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme) by mid-January as part of the Centre’s directive to states to implement Aadhar-based payment of wages to beneficiaries under the scheme, officials familiar with the matter said.

Labourers work at a MNREGA site for excavation of a pond. (PTI)

“We currently have around 84% of job card holders whose bank accounts have been linked with their Aadhar cards and we expect to achieve 100% coverage by January 15,” said the state’s MGNREGA commissioner Sanjay Kumar.

The Centre had made ABPS (Aadhar based payment system) mandatory for all job card holders under MGNREGS from January 1, which means payments as wages to beneficiaries against their work would be made directly into their bank accounts linked and verified through their Aadhar number after due mapping by National Payments Corporation of India( NCPI), officials said.

In Bihar, the total number of job card holders under MNREGA is 1.80 crore, of which 1.52 crore have their bank accounts linked with their Aadhar (unique identification) numbers, officials said. “Of the 1.52 crore, 1.15 crore are eligible for ABPS since their bank accounts have been mapped by NPCI. This is quite a high number as compared to other states,” an official associated with MNREGA programme said, requesting anonymity.

Of the around 96 lakh active workers (who have been working regularly), around 94 lakh have their bank accounts linked with Aadhar while 79.63 lakh are eligible for payments under ABPS, the official said.

Names of around 15 lakh job card holders have been deleted owing to various reasons, including death and duplication.

In the current fiscal (2023-24), Bihar has generated 15.64 crore mandays so far against the sanctioned 17 crore under the scheme, which is meant to provide at least 100 days of work to unskilled rural workers in a year.

A proposal for grant of another 8 crore mandays for work generation in this fiscal would be sent by Bihar to the ministry of rural development in coming weeks, officials said.