Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The Assam government deleted as many as 12,54,029 job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the past six financial years. The other states in the Northeast together deleted 2,89,247 job cards during the period. Assam deleted the highest number of job cards among the states in the Northeast during the period.
Union Minister of State, Rural Development, Kamlesh Paswan made this revelation on the floor of the Lok Sabha today. The minister said this while replying to an unstarred question of MPs Lalji Verma and Kalyan Banerjee, who sought information on the deletion of job cards under MGNREGS.
According to information from the minister, Assam deleted 12,54,029 job cards from the financial years 2019-20 to 2024-25. The financial year-wise breakup of job card deletion is 65699 in 2019-20, 96586 in 2020-21, 76244 in 2021-22, 157138 in 2022-23, 282142 in 2023-24, and 576220 in 2024-25. Assam deleted the highest number of job cards in the fiscal year 2024-25.
In the past six financial years, Arunachal Pradesh deleted 60,453 job cards; Manipur deleted 34,862; Meghalaya deleted 53,968; Mizoram deleted 44,122; Nagaland deleted 28,218; Sikkim deleted 8,942; and Tripura deleted 58,684 job cards.
The minister further informed the Lok Sabha that the country as a whole deleted 3,859,976 job cards under MGNREGS in 2024-25.
Minister Kamlesh Paswan said, “The updation/deletion of job cards under MGNREGS is a regular exercise undertaken by the states/UTs. Job cards are deleted mainly for reasons such as fake/duplicate/incorrect job cards, families shifting from gram panchayat permanently, gram panchayat classified as urban, etc. To streamline the process of deletion of job cards, the Ministry of Rural Development issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on January 25, 2025, to all states/Union Territories, with clear guidelines for deletion and restoration of job cards. The SOP ensures compliance with the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS guidelines, promotes transparency, and protects the rights of workers by defining conditions for deletion, setting up a grievance redressal mechanism, and ensuring the settlement of pending liabilities, if any, before deletion/cancellation. Here it is stated that as per guidelines issued by this department, the name of the worker cannot be removed for the reason of reluctance to work.”
The question from the two MPs was the total number of job cards removed under the MGNREGS from the financial year 2019-20 to 2024-25, along with the reasons for removal, state-wise and year-wise.
A job card is mandatory for a worker to work under MGNREGS.
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