Rural Development Ministry, UIDAI tie-up to ensure workers' wages in time

NEW DELHI: 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," told Ramesh.

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."