Sravasti Dasgupta 
The central government has no role in the deletion of job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its responsibility lies with the state governments, union minister of state for rural development Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said in the parliament on Tuesday, December 3.
Pemmasani’s response came during the question hour about deletions of job cards due to the introduction of the Aadhaar-based payment system under MGNREGA, which guarantees 100 days of work to rural households.
“99% of all job-card holders have Aadhaar seeding and there are no issues. Aadhaar seeding is nothing but increasing transparency. This is a means to deliver the amount directly to the bank. It is not an obstacle,” said Pemmasani in his reply to Congress MP K.C. Venugopal’s question.
“And deletions are based on five factors: if there is a fake card, duplicate card, if the person moves from one panchayat to another panchayat or if the person expires, if the person does not want to work anymore or if the area becomes urbanised from a rural area. These are the criteria for job deletions. And again, this is the responsibility of the state. The central government does not have any role in job deletions,” the minister added.
Venugopal had said that 10.43 crore job card deletions had taken place under the scheme in the last four years across the country and sought to know whether it was because of the introduction of the Aadhaar-based payment system that became mandatory on January 1, 2024.
“In 2021-22, 1.43 crore workers’ names were deleted. In 2022-23, 5.53 crore, resulting in 247% increase in deletions. This period of 2022-23 has coincided with the union government issuing several circulars mandating Aadhaar-based payment system in MGNREGA,” Venugopal said.
When Pemmasani said that the centre has no role in job deletions, Venugopal countered him saying that the minister’s response does not coincide with the ground reality.
“He is talking about deletions on five parameters. Only through these five parameters, 10.43 crores names will be deleted? We cannot understand that. You are indirectly insulting the labourers through this,” Venugopal said.
In response, Pemmasani said that about 30 lakh job cards are deleted on an average every year.
“If you take average deletions, there are 60 lakh new cards issued every year. About 30 lakh are being deleted for various reasons on an average. The total job cards are about 13-14 crores; this is a static number,” said Pemmasani.
“Total number of active job cards is around 9.2 crores,” the minister said, adding that 65 lakh job cards were issued in 2022-23 and 50 lakh in 2023-24. “So the active total job cards is 9.79 crores. Where is the number that you are talking about that 2 crore job cards are being deleted?”
In January, facing backlash, the union government said that it may consider exemptions from the Aadhaar-based payment system for the payment of wages under MGNREGA on a “case to case” basis.
According to data provided by LibTech India, a consortium of academics and activists, between April and September, 84.8 lakh workers’ names were deleted from the scheme, reported the Hindu. Last year, LibTech data showed that 8 crore people were removed from the MGNREGA registry during financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24.
In response to questions raised by Venugopal as well as Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP T.R. Baalu on the reduction in budgets for the scheme, Pemmasani said that the scheme is “demand based” and referenced budgets under the UPA regime from 2009-10 to 2012-13 to state that the Modi government had increased allocations.
In a written response to a question raised by Venugopal on budgetary allocations to MGNREGA, union minister of rural development Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the allocations in budgetary estimates had risen from Rs 60,000 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 86,000 crore in 2024-25. In terms of funds released on revised estimates, the allocations increased from Rs 71,687.71 crore in 2019-20 to 74,976.84 crore in 2024-25.
Also read: Why Rural Rajasthan Needs MGNREGA
During the question hour, Senthil also pointed out that the budgetary allocation has been consistently lower than the revised budget of the previous financial year and asked, “You have introduced all methods to end this programme. You have introduced an app where you have to register attendance. Do you have an idea how many people are not able to register their attendance on the app? You have deleted cards left, right and centre. Do you have any account of how many cards have been reduced? Why do you keep reducing the budget despite the people of this country telling you this programme is important. Every year you have to revise the budget more.. Is the government so blind and insensitive?”
Pemmasani then reiterated that every year, the budget is being increased and it is decided between the centre and the states. “The budget is a consultative process and it is estimated on previous year’s worth… There will be anomalies and they will be corrected,” said Pemmasani.
“Job deletion card is a function of the state government. The central government has no role. The way job deletion happens is there are fake, duplicate applicants or if a village becomes urbanised, that is when it is updated. Again, it is the responsibility of the state and not the centre’s responsibility,” Pemmasani added.
In response to Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee’s question flagging disruption of funds under the scheme to West Bengal, Chouhan said that the state government under the TMC had made beneficiaries into non-beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries into beneficiaries.
“West Bengal government has tried to belittle major works by trying to benefit a few people. Under this scheme, beneficiaries were made non-beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries have been made beneficiaries,” said Chouhan.
“This has been proved. The names of rural schemes have been changed. Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana has been changed and given their own name. Under that scheme also, non-beneficiaries have been made beneficiaries and beneficiaries have been shunted. This money (for MGNREGA) is not for misappropriation,” added Chouhan.