New Delhi: The names of around 27 lakh workers were deleted from the database of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) between October 10 and November 14 this year.

The deletions, which took place at a time when the Union government’s push to conduct e-KYC, were much higher than the 10.5 lakh additions during the same period. The electronic know your customer process is being conducted for all workers, to remove ineligible beneficiaries, reported The Hindu.

Lib Tech, a consortium of activists and academicians has flagged out the deletions from MGNREGS, terming them as ‘unusual.’ While deletions over the last six months added up to about 15 lakh, in just one month, they increased up to 27 lakh, which is almost double the earlier six-month total.

According to Lib Tech’s analysis, in the first six months of the financial year 2025-26, MGNREGS recorded net additions of 83.6 lakh workers, as 98.8 lakh workers were added, against 15.2 lakh deletions, reported the newspaper.

Thereafter, net additions fell to 66.5 lakh by mid-November, which meant that 17 lakh workers disappeared in a single month. The analysis observed that that 6 lakh of these beneficiaries were active workers, which meant that they have worked at least one day in the past three years.

The analysis revealed that states with high e-KYC completion rates were leading the trend in deletions. Andhra Pradesh, where 78.4% of workers have completed e-KYC topped the list with 15.92 lakh deletions. Other states which large number of deletions included Tamil Nadu with 30,529 deletions and e-KYC completion rate of 67.6% and Chhattisgarh with 1.04 lakh deletions and 66.6% completion rate of e-KYC.

The Hindu report added that senior officials at the Union Ministry of Rural Development ruled out any correlation between the e-KYC drive and the deletions.

“We have also issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for the deletion of any job card, which includes putting out the job cards finalised for deletion in public domain, allowing time for the beneficiaries to file an appeal, and a final approval from the gram sabha,” a top official at the Ministry told the newspaper.

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