19 May 2014
The Panchayati Raj Department of Odisha has asked all the district collectors to conduct a special drive to integrate the Aadhaar information of job card holders under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA).
Since the Ministry of Rural Development has been insisting on migration to Aadhaar-based payment system for the wage earners, the State Government has stepped on the peddle. It has asked all the collectors to launch a special drive for updating account information of the job card holders, upload them in NREGASoft, a dedicated software for the employment programme and complete the work by June 25, reports the New Indian Express.
During the drive, all the districts have been asked to seed the Aadhar account information of the card holders in the NREGASoft so that it is easy to move to a Aadhar-Based Payment (ABP) system.
Not long ago, the Ministry had made electronic fund management system (e-FMS) mandatory in a bid to streamline the wage payment system and reduce delay. Under the system, wages are credited to the bank accounts of the workers electronically. This system is based on either National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT)of the Electronic Clearing System (ECS).
After the RD Ministry decided to move to ABP, districts were asked to begin the account update and merger process. However, the progress has been slow.
Though there are 64,42,259 job cards issued under NREGA with 1.70 crore persons enlisted, only 64.30 lakh have any kind of accounts as of now. Of them, 35.61 lakh are active workers. The job card holders have accounts in commercial banks, regional rural banks, cooperative banks as well as in post offices.
However, the information convergence on accounts has been slow. While only 25.85 lakh accounts have been frozen in NREGASoft, the link to Aadhar has been paltry, to say the least. Across the State, just about 5,175 accounts have been uploaded in the management information system so far while 3,191 of them are linked to bank accounts.
The Department has asked the collectors to use the field functionaries in linking of the accounts. The BDOs have been vested with the responsibility of verifying accuracy of the information.