The Congress on Monday launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led government over reportedly mandating payments for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act through the Aadhaar-Based Payment System and demanded that it should stop “weaponising” technology, especially Aadhaar to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits.

“The fifth extension of the deadline set by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) to mandate the payments for the MGNREGA) via the ABPS ended on December 31, 2023. There are in total 25.69 crore MGNREGA workers of whom 14.33 crore are considered as active workers. As on 27 December, 34.8 per cent of total registered workers (8.9 crore) and 12.7 per cent of active workers (1.8 crore) are still ineligible for ABPS,” Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said.

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Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ramesh said, “Despite many challenges highlighted by workers, practitioners and researchers in using ABPS for MGNREGA wage payments, the Modi government has continued with its destructive ‘experiments with technology’.’’

This is Prime Minister’s “cruel” New Year gift to exclude crores of the poorest and marginalised Indians from earning a basic income, he alleged.

Ramesh, who is also the Congress’ MP in Rajya Sabha, said, “The statement issued by the MoRD dated 30 August, 2023, made certain questionable claims such as that job cards will not be deleted on the basis that the worker is not eligible for APBS, that different ‘stakeholders’ in certain ‘consultations’ have found ABPS as the best route for making wage payment and that ABPS helps workers get their wage on time and avoids transaction rejections.”

Claiming that since April 2022, an alarming 7.6 crore registered workers were deleted from the system, he said, “1.9 crore registered workers were deleted from the system nine months into the current financial year. Ground verification of deleted workers has shown that a significant number of deletions have been wrongfully done –as a result of the tearing hurry of the Modi government to implement Aadhaar authentication and ABPS.”

He said the MoRD must clarify who these ‘stakeholders’ were and when these consultations were held.

In fact, the Modi government has turned a deaf ear to the multiple concerns from numerous delegations on the implementation of ABPS and other technological interventions, alleged Ramesh.

The Congress MP alleged that ‘’PM’s well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude– such as the digital attendance (NMMS), ABPS, drone monitoring and the proposed integration of facial recognition to NMMS.

‘’ No due consultation or scientific piloting was done before unleashing these ‘experiments’ on crores of Indians.”

He said the Congress has reiterated its demand of 30 August, 2023 that ‘’the Modi government should stop weaponizing technology, especially Aadhaar to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits, release delayed wage payments and implement open muster rolls and social audits to improve transparency’’.