‘1.29 crore NREGA workers have no bank accounts’

According to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) website, banks have so far opened 25.78-crore accounts under the scheme, with deposits totalling more than Rs 74,321.55 crore.

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Leaders protest against the demonetisation outside the Assembly on Thursday. (Source: Pradip Das)

Even as the BJP government at the Centre pushes for migration to cashless transactions, the state has found that around 1.29 crore workers registered with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) across Maharashtra have no bank accounts. While officials claimed Gram Rojgar Sevaks were actively working towards getting the labourers to open savings accounts in banks or post-offices and the process to phase out cash payments began as early as 2014, NREGA’s own data paints a different picture.

According to data 1,29,66,672 active workers working under NREGA scheme have no bank accounts, while around 77,721 workers have no Aadhaar cards. “The number of workers without an account number is high because it is not just for a single financial year. The figures are for the total number of active workers enlisted to work under NREGA for many years now. After demonetisation, our Gram Rojgar Sevaks are trying to ensure that all the labourers get an account, as payment cannot be made in cash,” an official said.

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“We have 23 lakh active workers in the financial year 2016-17 and most of them have account numbers. Those who do not will have to open accounts in banks or post-offices soon,” said Abhay Mahajan, state NREGA commissioner. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ambitious Jan Dhan Yojna, a financial inclusion mission that sought to provide access to banking services to every household.

According to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) website, banks have so far opened 25.78-crore accounts under the scheme, with deposits totalling more than Rs 74,321.55 crore. Earlier this year, the Centre had decided that Aadhaar numbers of all workers would be seeded by the government into the NREGA online database and their bank accounts linked with this. It has set a December 31 deadline for all electronic payments under NREGA to transition to an Aadhaar-based and authenticated payment system. Mahajan added, “We have managed to seed bank accounts of almost 95 per cent of active workers working with us to Aadhar and we are working as per the deadline.”

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