The mandatory use of the Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS) for payment of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is a direct assault on the law, the CPI(M) said in a statement here. Condemning the move, the party demanded the withdrawal of the order on the ABPS.
The Union Union Rural Development Ministry made the ABPS mandatory from January 1.
“MNREGA [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act], regardless of its inadequacies such as the limitation to 100 days, has proved to be a lifeline for the rural poor, particularly at this time of high rural distress caused by unemployment. The Modi government is using technology to attack a legal entitlement,” the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement.
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The party called it the “latest expression of the Modi government’s active hostility” towards the scheme.
Under the law, every rural worker has the right to a job card and every job card holder has the right to at least 100 days of work, and therefore the CPI(M) Polit Bureau pointed out that the distinction between active and inactive workers too is wrong.
An active worker is defined as someone who has worked at least once in the past three financial years. In this category too, out of the 14.35 crore eligible job card holders, as many as 12. 7%, or around 1.8 crore workers, do not have the ABPS and would therefore not be eligible to work under the MGNREGS, it said.
