All workers shifted to VB-G RAM G; e-KYC is not mandatory, says Centre

Why in the News

The Union Ministry of Rural Development has said that every worker registered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been migrated to the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB-G RAM G, irrespective of whether electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) verification of the job card is complete. The statement answers reporting that the job cards of 57 lakh active workers have not completed that verification. The Ministry has not disputed those numbers and says e-KYC is a database authentication measure rather than a precondition for exercising the statutory right to demand employment. The tension is that a verification requirement introduced to clean the worker database sits directly on top of a right that is meant to be exercisable on demand.

What did the Ministry actually commit to?

1. Migration is unconditional: Every worker registered under MGNREGA has been moved to the new mission regardless of e-KYC status.
2. Pending verification does not block work: A pending e-KYC does not prevent a worker from demanding or from receiving employment.
3. An exception route exists: An exception mechanism is available to facilitate the employment demand and the provision of work for workers whose verification is pending.
4. The right is characterised as statutory: The Ministry’s position is that e-KYC authenticates the database and does not condition the statutory entitlement.

What do the coverage numbers show?

1. The verified total is large: e-KYC has been completed for 15.89 crore workers overall.
2. Active worker coverage is near complete: 10.27 crore of 10.84 crore active workers have been verified, approximately 95 percent.
3. The residual is the disputed group: 57 lakh active workers remain unverified, a figure the government has not contested.
4. Employment provision is reported separately: Around 2.11 crore workers have so far been offered employment under the new mission, and the Ministry states that every worker who demanded employment was offered work as per demand.

Where does responsibility for the verification sit?

1. The task is with the States: e-KYC of workers is the responsibility of the concerned State and Union Territory governments.
2. The stated purpose is database integrity: It is being undertaken to strengthen authentication and maintain an accurate and credible worker database.
3. The Ministry characterises it as trivial: The process can ordinarily be completed in less than 30 seconds.
4. The Centre’s role is advisory and supervisory: States have been advised to expeditiously complete verification of all active workers, with the Ministry monitoring the exercise.

Challenges to biometric authentication of rural workers

1. Fingerprint authentication fails for manual labourers: Sustained manual work erodes fingerprint ridges, so the biometric most commonly used for authentication is least reliable for the population the scheme is designed for. Eg. Authentication failures among elderly and manual workers were a documented cause of denied ration entitlements after Aadhaar seeding of the Public Distribution System. Fix. Make iris and face authentication, and offline verification against a signed identity document, equally valid at the field level.
2. Connectivity gaps convert a 30 second process into a multi day one: Online authentication in low network blocks requires repeat visits to a common service centre at the worker’s own cost. Eg. Workers in remote blocks routinely travel to block headquarters for banking correspondent services because village level connectivity is intermittent. Fix. Permit offline capture at the gram panchayat with batch upload, so the worker’s trip does not depend on live connectivity.
3. Database cleaning has historically deleted genuine workers: Bulk verification drives produce deletions of active job cards recorded as duplicates or as non existent. Eg. Crores of job cards were deleted during MGNREGA database cleaning exercises, with State level audits later finding genuine workers among them. Fix. Require a written, appealable deletion order served on the worker before a job card is removed.
4. The exception mechanism is only as good as its field awareness: A right that survives on paper still fails where the panchayat functionary treats verification as mandatory. Eg. Aadhaar Based Payment System rollout saw wage payments stall for workers whose seeding was incomplete despite instructions that work could not be denied. Fix. Issue the exception route as a numbered circular to every gram panchayat with a stated escalation officer, rather than as a press statement.

Conclusion

The Ministry’s clarification settles the legal position and leaves the administrative one open, since the entitlement is denied at the panchayat counter rather than in the policy document. What to watch is whether the exception mechanism is actually invoked for the unverified workers in the coming employment season, measured by work provided to them rather than by the verification percentage.

Back2Basics

1. Statute: Enacted in 2005 and administered by the Ministry of Rural Development, it is the legal basis of the rural employment guarantee.
2. The guarantee: It provides at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
3. Demand driven design: Work must be provided within 15 days of a demand being registered, failing which the worker is entitled to an unemployment allowance from the State.
4. Delivery unit: The job card issued to a household is the document that records registration, demand and days of work provided.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2011] Among the following who are eligible to benefit from the “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”? (a) Adult members of only the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households (b) Adult members of below poverty line (BPL) households (c) Adult members of households of all backward communities (d) Adult members of any household ANSWER: (d)”