The status of active workers with Aadhaar-based payment system in Nagaland as on August 23 according the ‘ABPS Enablement Tracking Dashboard’ maintained by the Union Ministry of Rural Development. (Morung Photo/Screenshot)
Over 89,000 active workers in Nagaland might be affected
Morung Express New
Dimapur | August 24
The deadline for implementing the Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS) as the sole mode of payment to workers under the national rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGS will not be extended beyond August 31, the PTI news agency reported on Thursday, citing government sources.
In January of this year, the Union Government made the use of the ABPS mandatory for paying wages to those enrolled under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
According to the report, the initial deadline for the mandatory adoption of the ABPS mode was February 1, which was later extended to March 31, then further extended to June 30, and eventually until August 31.
However, officials in the Rural Development Ministry have stated that the deadline will not be extended any further, as over 90% of active workers’ accounts have already been linked with Aadhaar, PTI added.
Meanwhile, if the deadline is not extended beyond August 31, many workers in Nagaland might be affected, as the State had the third highest percentage of active workers whose account numbers are yet to be linked with Aadhaar numbers in India.
As per the data provided by the Union Minister of Rural Development, Giriraj Singh, in the Lok Sabha on August 8, the accounts of 79,525 active workers in Nagaland were yet to be seeded with Aadhaar numbers. This status, as of August 3, represents 37.19% of the active workers under the MGNREGS.
Across India, based on the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) mapper, over 1.13 crore workers were yet to have their Aadhaar numbers linked, representing 8.93% of the total active workers.
Meghalaya had the highest percentage of active workers yet to be linked at 70.09%, followed by 42.99% in Assam.
Nagaland’s latest status
Meanwhile, as per the ‘ABPS Enablement Tracking Dashboard’ maintained by the Union RD Ministry, as of August 23, Nagaland had over 607,707 active workers, out of which 271,169 or 44.44% had their Aadhaar seeding activated.
Out of these 271,169 active workers with activated Aadhaar seeding, a total of 215,306 (79.40%) had been successfully ‘authenticated’, it highlighted.
Furthermore, among the 215,000+ ‘authenticated’ Aadhaar numbers, 126,233 (58.63%) active workers in Nagaland have been successfully authenticated with NPCI, the umbrella organisation operated by banks for the Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) of various Government schemes, including MGNREGS.
Accordingly, as per the Dashboard, only 126,233 individuals in Nagaland are currently eligible for ABPS, representing just 20.29% of the total active workers.
If the percentage is based on the number of workers with active Aadhaar seeding (271,169), only 46.6% are eligible for ABPS.
However, it calculated on the basis of those who have successfully authenticated their Aadhaar seeding, the number of active workers not yet eligible for ABPS is around 89,073 (215,306-126,233), which is higher than what the Union RD Minister provided in the Lok Sabha.
In terms of percentage, this comes out to over 41%.
“The rate of enablement needs to be increased to meet the August 31 timeline,” the Dashboard added.
