HRF expresses concern over mass deletion of job cards

Visakhapatnam: The Human Rights Forum (HRF) expressed concern over the large-scale deletion of job cards and names of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) during 2022-23. Such deletions, they pointed out, have resulted in a deprivation of the right to work of the people in the rural and tribal areas. A three-member team of HRF along with Lib Tech India team visited three villages in the Gummalakshmipuram, Chintalapadu and Balesu and Kurupam, Durbili mandals of Parvathipuram Manyam district to get a picture of the reports of deletion of job cards and names of wage seekers under the MGNREGA programme. The visit was paid following a recent report by Lib Tech, a group of researchers and activists that highlighted the issue of large-scale deletions under the NREGA in AP and several other states. According to the report, 77.9 lakh workers were deleted during 2022-23 in Andhra Pradesh, resulting in a net deletion of 59.6 percent out of the total 1.22 crore workers in the state. The team, including HRF Visakhapatnam district president P Raghu, district general secretary K Anuradha and Lib Tech India functionary B Kishore, interacted with 30 workers in the villages whose names were wiped away from the NREGA records. The reasons for the deletion were mentioned as ‘unwilling to work’ or ‘person died’ or ‘person non-existent in the panchayat’. During the survey, it was learnt a number of names were wrongfully removed. Also, such deletions followed the shifting of the payment system to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the Central government database and the mandatory shifting to Aadhar-based payment system from the earlier bank account based system. In tribal areas where services of banks and Aadhar centres are poor, Adivasis have been subjected to a lot of drudgery, making multiple visits to Aadhar centres and banks so as to correct details of job cards, and for the NPCI mapping, the HRF members pointed out. NREGA functionaries are supposed to help the workers rectify errors in the job cards and in NPCI mapping with banks. However, due to lack of training and strict deadlines on shifting to the Aadhar based payment system, the functionaries deleted many workers by mentioning random reasons like ‘death’ or ‘unwilling to work’, they shared. Consequently, a number of workers have lost the right to work under NREGA for the past one year. “Also, we found that many who worked under NREGA were not paid wages. The impression we gather is that the scheme is dying a slow death because it has been rendered into a centralised digital maze where resolving of issues takes months and in some cases even years,” the HRF members informed. HRF and Lib Tech India demand that functionaries of MGNREGA at district and state level should respond more seriously and in time-bound manner to resolve the problems of the Adivasis.