The Ministry of Rural Development and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) are jointly working out a pilot project to ensure that workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MNREGA) get their wages in time.

Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said today his department was working out such a project in Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal where the state departments of Rural Development are registrars to the UIDAI project for enrolment.

"We will work out a project with UIDAI in the states where the department of Rural Development are the registrars to UIDAI for enrolment of 'Aadhar'. It will be a joint inititive with the UIDAI and the Ministry of Rural Development," Ramesh told PTI.

Ramesh said this after a meeting held between him and other ministry officials with the UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani and his team.

A meeting to chalk out other modalities for the joint initiative would be done within the next three weeks and another meeting between the two is expected by the end of this month.

Ramesh said what is being attempted is to see that there is a two-way traffic between the UIDAI and the Rural Development Ministry so that both can benefit from each other.

"What we are trying to do is whether the UIDAI can make use of NREGA or the other way around", he added.

He said "the idea is that we can use the UIDAI infrastructure for reducing the delays in payments of wages to workers under MREGA in these five states." PTI SKC

"The idea is that if we can work with state governments to ensure that within a reasonable time frame all payments to workers be paid through Aadhar-linked bank accounts," Ramesh said.

This, he said, was necessary to ensure the delays in payment of wages to workers under MNREGA are reduced. "By law, you have to pay within 15 days, but payments can take anywhere from two months to a lot of months," he said.

Ramesh said such a project was attempted in these five states, as the responsibility of enrollment through the registrars lies with Rural Development department. "That is because we have some dialogue with the state Rural Development departments and we have some control over them," he said.

"Unfortunately what has happened in the last two years -- nothing much has really materialised. We are trying to see that both benefit from each other. We are having a meeting by the end of October to finalise this joint initiative," the minister said.

When asked if this pilot project can be extended to other states as well, Ramesh said, "first we have to start in states where we can have some control. Because in many other states, we don't know which department is the registrar."

"If we can demonstrate in these states that there is a benefit to be had from the linkage with UIDAI, then we can have with other states certainly," the minister said.