Soubhagini Podh of Kusmal village under Birighat gram panchayat in Khariar block worked for 14 days under the MGNREGS in February, but she would not get her wage because her account is not enabled under APBS (Aadhaar Payment Bridge System). Her attendance in Muster Roll has been marked “A” which means absent.
Mohini Jued of Mandosil village has also the same problem.
When these women worked under the MGNREGS after the MR was generated, they didn’t know that they would face such problems.
“There is no restriction in enrolling job cardholders in MR even if she is not APBS-enabled, not even during NMMS (National Mobile Monitoring System) for capturing daily attendance. The problem arises when generating wage lists; and at this stage, there is no option for making any corrections. Therefore if there is a single “not enabled” worker in the MR, wage entry would not be possible for others even if they are APBS-enabled,” say the field-level officials.
The number of APBS "not enabled" workers in Birighat GP is 315, i.e., 18% of the total workers of the GP.
Mandosil GP has also the same percentage of workers successfully authenticated by UIDAI but yet to be enabled under APBS. The field officials say that about 10% of them would have worked under the MGNREGS but will not get wages as their accounts are not enabled under APBS.
APBS, created by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), is used by different departments implementing Government schemes for crediting funds under the DBT schemes like crediting subsidies and other benefits and wages, etc., to Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts of beneficiaries. The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) informed the State Governments in January-end that all payments to the MGNREGS beneficiaries would be mandatorily made through ABPS functional under APBS from February 1, 2023.
According to NPCI, the APBS has been developed to eliminate inordinate delays and to make the payment process less cumbersome so that the benefits and subsidies can be transferred in a seamless and timely manner and directly into the Aadhaar-Enabled Bank Account. But it doesn't hold good for all at least for those who cannot get their accounts enabled under APBS like Mohini and Soubhagini who are being deprived of their right to wage due to such anomalies.
There are thousands of such Aadhaar-seeded but not yet APBS-enabled account holders who would be deprived of the benefits of DBT schemes, and cannot work under the job scheme.
"Exclusion of the poor who are dependent on MGNREGS for their livelihood would make them the worst sufferers. Their number in Koraput district is 2.37 lakh, who are eligible for ABPS but would be deprived of all benefits as they are not enabled under the Aadhaar Payment Bridge System of NCPI," says Bidyut Mohanty, head of NGO SPREAD.
In Odisha, the percentage of such deprived MGNREGS workers who have eligibility under ABPS but are not enabled under the APBS is about 53%, which means above 66 lakh workers in Odisha would be deprived of getting benefits from Government schemes. According to government officials managing MGNREGS, the last authentication done by NCPI was on February 3, 2023; and before that, the authentication was on December 12, 2022. "So, it is difficult to say when the next authentication would be done," say the officials. The job scheme till then would remain out of reach of many.
