'Stop weaponising technology': Cong slams govt over Aadhaar-based system in MGNREGA payments
New Delhi (PTI): With an Aadhaar-based system reportedly becoming mandatory for MGNREGA payments, the Congress on Monday said the Modi government should "stop weaponising technology", especially Aadhaar, to deny the most vulnerable Indians their social welfare benefits.
The opposition party also condemned it and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "well-known disdain for MGNREGA has translated into a slew of experiments designed to use technology as a weapon to exclude".
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the fifth extension of the deadline set by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) to mandate the payments for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) through the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (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 December 27, 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," 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", he said.
"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 pointed out that a statement issued by the MoRD dated August 30, 2023, made certain questionable claims such as job cards will not be deleted on the basis that the worker is not eligible for APBS and that different "stakeholders" in certain "consultations" have found ABPS as the best route for making wage payment.
It also claimed that ABPS helps workers get their wage on time and avoids transaction rejections, Ramesh noted.
"First, since April 2022, an alarming 7.6 crore registered workers were deleted from the system. 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 alleged.
Ramesh said the ministry 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," he claimed.
"The MoRD's claims regarding the increase in payment efficiency with the ABPS, which remain unsubstantiated, have been thoroughly debunked by a LibTech India working paper. The study analysed 3.2 crore wage transactions to demonstrate that there is no statistically significant difference in the time taken to process account and Aadhaar based payments by the Union government," he said.
The working paper also shows that the difference in rejection rates between ABPS and the account-based payments is statistically negligible, he added.
"The 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," Ramesh alleged.
No due consultation or scientific piloting was done before unleashing these experiments on crores of Indians, he claimed.
"The Indian National Congress reiterates its demand of August 30, 2023, that the Modi government should stop weaponising 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," Ramesh said in his statement.
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Nitish Kumar's son Nishant among 32 to take oath as Bihar ministers
Patna (PTI): In a major expansion of the Cabinet of Bihar's first BJP-led government, JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar's son Nishant Kumar and 31 others took oath as ministers on Thursday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Altogether 32 leaders, drawn from all constituents of the five-party NDA in the state, were administered the oath of office by Governor Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain at a grand ceremony that was also attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Health Minister J P Nadda and BJP president Nitin Nabin.
Prominent inductees included Nishant Kumar, the son of JD(U) president Nitish Kumar, who stepped down as chief minister last month to enter the Rajya Sabha.
The BJP, which is the single largest party in the 243-member assembly with 89 MLAs, has 15 ministers, who took oath on Thursday.
Most of the inductees were those who were part of the Nitish Kumar cabinet formed in November last year after the NDA stormed back to power in the assembly polls.
The JD(U) is represented by a total of 15 ministers, 13 of whom took the oath at the Gandhi Maidan on Thursday. Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav had taken oath in April along with Samrat Choudhary and were designated as deputy chief ministers.
Sanjay Kumar Singh and Sanjay Kumar Paswan, both from the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan, are back as ministers, and so are Santosh Kumar Suman and Deepak Prakash, sons of Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha and Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Morcha, respectively.
