Over 7.43 lakh 'fake' MGNREGA job cards deleted in 2022-23, highest in UP

More than 7.43 lakh "fake" job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) were deleted in 2022-23, of which over 2.96 lakh were in Uttar Pradesh alone, the Union government has said in the Lok Sabha.

In a written response to a question this week, minister of state for rural development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti shared data on fake job cards, which showed that 7,43,457 fake job cards were deleted in 2022-23 and 3,06,944 in 2021-22.

Uttar Pradesh accounted for the highest number of deletions on account of job cards being fake. As many as 67,937 fake job cards were deleted in Uttar Pradesh in 2021-23 and the number increased to a whopping 2,96,464 in 2022-23.

Odisha came second with 1,14,333 job cards being deleted in 2022-23 and 50,817 in 2021-22. In Madhya Pradesh, 27,859 fake job cards were deleted in the last fiscal and 95,209 in 2021-22. The corresponding figures for Bihar was 80,203 and 27,062. In Jharkhand, 70,673 job cards were deleted in 2022-23 and 23,528 the previous year.

In Andhra Pradesh, while the number of deleted fake job cards was 1,833 in 2021-22, it increased manifold to 46,662 in the last fiscal. Rajasthan saw deletion of 45,646 fake job cards in 2022-23 and 14,782 in 2021-22.

In West Bengal, whose Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) payments have been pending for the last two years over allegations of corruption, 5,263 job cards were deleted in 2022-23 for being fake and 388 in 2021-22.

Jyoti said the deletion and updation of job cards is a "continuous process" and as per Section 25 of the act, whoever contravenes its provisions shall on conviction be liable for a penalty which may extend to Rs 1,000. "Also, Aadhaar seeding has been made it mandatory for the de-duplication of the beneficiaries database to prevent fake job card issuance," she said.

Meanwhile, 6,47,8345 new job cards were issued in 2022-23, Jyoti informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply to another question. In 2021-22, 1,20,63,967 new job cards were issued, while in 2020-21, the year that saw a Covid-induced lockdown, 1,91,05,369 new job cards were issued.

According to a reply given by rural development minister Giriraj Singh in the Lok Sabha during the monsoon session, job cards entailing over 5.18 crore workers were deleted in 2022-23, which was an increase of 247.06 per cent compared to 2021-22, when the figure stood at more than 1.49 crore.

Jobs cards are deleted for various reasons, including them being fake, or when a beneficiary moves out of a panchayat area, or dies.