Will Not Insist on e-KYC for Left Behind VB G-Ram-G Workers, Says Govt
New Delhi: In response to 57 lakh active workers likely to be excluded from its newly-created VB G-Ram-G scheme, the Union government has said their e-KYC is not essential. The Hindu had earlier reported that migration to the new scheme in place of the guaranteed 100 days of work under the now-defunct rural employment guarantee act, was leaving behind 57 lakh active workers who could not perform the electronic verification of their 'job cards'.
The Union government on Sunday (July 31) assured that this e-KYC step was non-mandatory for the 57 lakh workers who were at risk of losing employment days.
"Every worker registered under MGNREGA, irrespective of whether e-KYC has been completed, has been migrated to VB-GRAM G. Pending e-KYC does not prevent a worker from demanding or receiving employment. An appropriate exception mechanism is also available to facilitate employment demand and the provision of work for workers whose e-KYC is pending,” a statement from the Union rural development ministry, which oversees the work scheme said.
It also said that the e-KYC is "simple" and takes less than "30 seconds".
Earlier the Union minister of rural development Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said the government would work under the condition that the older job cards under MG-NREGA would remain valid only until the new scheme's Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Cards had been issued.
The earlier MG-NREGA had two categories of workers, those considered active and those considered simply as registered.
So far, e-KYC has been completed for 15.89 crore workers in total. Of these, 10.27 crore, or approximately 95%, are active workers out of a total 10.84 crore active workers. The remaining roughly 5% of workers are 57 lakh in actual figures.
It is these workers who, the government said on Sunday, will be able to find work under the VB G-Ram-G even if their e-KYC is incomplete.
MG-NREGA workers were repeatedly denied work or faced payment issues due to hassles with registration, securing OTPs and validating their identity through various electronic systems and platforms.
Those troubles seem to have worsened under the new system.
Two months into its launch, almost 30% of the total workers were still unable to electronically re-verify themselves under the new system. This, as per the Hindu report, is showing up in the number of days people have managed to find work under VB G-Ram-G
"Official data (as of August 9, 2026) show that only 7.67 crore person-days were generated under the VB-GRAM G scheme in July 2026, which was 49.94% lower than the 15.33 crore person-days generated under MGNREGS in the same month last year," it reported.
“The ministry is continuously supporting and monitoring States/UTs in this exercise while ensuring that no willing worker is deprived of employment merely because e-KYC is pending,” the ministry said in its statement.
This article went live on August thirty-first, two thousand twenty six, at twenty minutes past four in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
