The Congress launched a scathing attack on the Central government following revelations that nearly 27 lakh workers were deleted from the MGNREGA database between October 10 and November 14, a figure that far exceeds the total deletions recorded over the previous six months.
Citing a report by The Hindu, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh accused the government of systematically dismantling the rural employment guarantee scheme. “Another day, another attempt to deny India’s rural poor their legislative right to employment,” he posted on X.
Andhra Pradesh sees sharp fall in employment under MGNREGS
The spike in deletions coincides with the rollout of the e-KYC verification process, which the government says is aimed at weeding out ineligible beneficiaries. The government, however, has ruled out a correlation between the two and said that verification of MNREGA workers is a continuous process. However, activists and data analysts from Lib Tech have flagged the deletions as “unusual” and potentially exclusionary. States with high e-KYC completion rates, such as Andhra Pradesh (78.4%), Tamil Nadu (67.6%), and Chhattisgarh (66.6%), have reported the highest number of deletions.
