Nearly nine crore Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) card holders have been linked to Aadhaar and over five crore of them have their UID numbers linked to bank accounts, the government said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that of the 12 crore people holding job cards under the scheme, 10.5 crore could be considered active workers. Nearly 5.5 crore of them were actually engaged in work. The Minister, however, clarified that Aadhaar was not mandatory for job allocations.
Mr. Tomar said the workers were receiving 98% payments directly through their bank accounts. The government also gave emphasis on asset creation, which were geo-tagged.
₹31,000 crore disbursed
The Centre said there was no delay in the release of funds to the States under the programme and that of the ₹48,000 crore allocated this fiscal, ₹31,000 crore had already been disbursed.
Tapan Kumar Sen, MP, however, said the reality was different from what the government had projected in its reply. Though NREGA stipulated 100 days of work, the average number was below 50, he said.
