NEW DELHI, October 11 — The Ministry of Rural Development on Sunday released the mid-year operational audit for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), confirming that 99.4 percent of all active workers nationwide have been successfully onboarded onto the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) alongside real-time drone surveillance of created community assets.
According to Ministry disclosures, integrating ABPS wage transfers with twice-daily geo-tagged, time-stamped attendance captured via the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) application has eliminated ghost muster rolls and pilferage, generating estimated fiscal savings surpassing ₹14,000 crore annually. Over 98 percent of Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) are now generated within the statutory 15-day mandate, with women accounting for a record 59.3 percent of total person-days generated in FY 2026-27.
Concurrently, over 5.6 crore rural water harvesting, check-dam, and Amrit Sarovar assets have been geo-tagged onto ISRO's Bhuvan 'Geo-MGNREGA' spatial portal, supplemented by third-party drone inspections and Gram Sabha Social Audits to verify structural durability.
Statutory provisions of the MGNREGA Act 2005 (guaranteeing 100 days of unskilled manual wage employment per rural household, expanding to 150 days in drought/calamity-notified blocks and for Forest Rights Act beneficiaries; minimum 33% statutory reservation for women; and mandatory unemployment allowance if work is not allotted within 15 days of demand) are staple topics across UPSC Civil Services (GS-II: Welfare Schemes & Social Audit; GS-III: Inclusive Growth) and State PSC examinations.