Govt. extends deadline for Aadhaar-based payments for MGNREGA

Subject : Scheme

Concept :

The Union Rural Development Ministry has extended the deadline for mandatory payments of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme via Aadhaar Based Payments System (ABPS) to August 31.
The Ministry announced this on social media platforms though did not share the order in public.
This is the fourth time the Ministry is extending the deadline, since the State governments have complained that reconciling the differences in Aadhaar data and the job card details of the beneficiaries is taking some time.

MGNREGA Scheme Payment System

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) implements a wage payment system that combines different models.

Wage settlement followed two methods:

National Automated Clearing House (NACH) based electronic payment:

NACH was set up by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
NACH is an electronic platform for clearing funds that enables interbank transactions to occur on a recurring basis.
Under this system, the bank account of the person is used for transferring funds to the beneficiary account.

Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS):

This system was first introduced in 2017.
This system utilises the Aadhaar number of the recipient to identify them for the purpose of transferring funds.
This system promotes transparency in wage payments and helps to prevent any unauthorised access.
It prevents any disruptions in workers’ wage payments caused by issues with their bank accounts.
Present usage:
As per the government data, 84% of the transfers in March ’23 were based on ABPS.
If the beneficiary was previously associated with the ABPS, payment would exclusively occur via this system.