The job cards issued to over five crore villagers to avail the benefits of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) were cancelled across the country in 2022-23, registering a 247 per cent year-on-year rise in cancellations.
Karnataka cancelled over eight lakh job cards issued to MGNREGS workers in 2022-23 – a 222.10 per cent rise from just 2.5 lakh the previous year.
The job cards issued to 5,18,91,168 beneficiaries of the MGNREGS were cancelled in the 2022-23 financial year, whereas only 1,49,51,247 job cards had been cancelled in 2021-22, according to a written reply Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh gave in response to a question in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Puducherry are among the States and Union Territories, which saw the highest number of cancellation of MGNREGS job cards in 2022-23.
Karnataka had cancelled job cards issued to 2,50,665 MGNREGS beneficiaries in 2021-22, but the state had done the same with 8,07,397 in 2022-23.
Singh said that the job cards had been cancelled for a variety of reasons – like ‘fake’ job cards, duplicate job cards, people not willing to work at present, families shifted from Gram Panchayat permanently, or death of beneficiaries.
In 2021-22, 1,57,309 job cards were cancelled in West Bengal, while the number of cancellations shot up by over 5199 per cent as 83,36,115 job cards had been cancelled. In Andhra Pradesh, 6,25,514 job cards were deleted in 2021-22, which increased by 1,147 per cent in 2022-23, when 78,05,569 cards were cancelled.
Similarly, in Telangana, 61,278 job cards were deleted in 2021-22, while 17,32,936 cards were deleted in 2022-23, an increase of 2,727 per cent. Gujarat deleted 1,43,202 job cards in 2021-22 and 4,30,404 in 2022-23, a jump of over 200 per cent.