Between 2021 and July 2026, the Assam government undertook a major administrative audit of its rural job registries, resulting in the cancellation of more than 12.95 lakh job cards under the central rural employment framework. This extensive verification process has impacted roughly 41 lakh individual workers across the state, fundamentally reshaping the administrative records of the rural workforce dependent on government wage employment. The scale of deletions varied significantly across the years as state officials intensified digital checks and field-level audits. Starting with 71,556 card deletions in 2021, the numbers steadily climbed to 1,74,286 in 2022 and 2,59,381 in 2023. The purge reached its absolute peak in 2024, during which a record 5,52,030 job cards were removed from the state database in a single year. Following this massive cleanup, deletions moderated to 92,615 in 2025 before picking up again to reach 1,45,237 cards removed through late July 2026.
These database corrections coincided with a major central transition of the rural welfare framework. Effective July 1, 2026, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was officially rebranded as the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB-G RAM G. Alongside the administrative rebranding, the central initiative expanded the minimum wage employment guarantee from 100 days to 125 days per rural household each year. Because an active job card is an absolute legal prerequisite for obtaining work under VB-G RAM G, maintaining exact worker tallies is critical to allocating state funds and issuing wages smoothly.
According to directions from the Union Ministry of Rural Development, state and district administrations are responsible for conducting routine reviews to clean up beneficiary databases without disenfranchising eligible families. Standard Operating Procedures require local officials to verify reasons such as duplicate card registration, permanent out-migration, or the transformation of rural Gram Panchayats into urban municipalities before removing entries. Mandatory safeguards, including advance public notice periods and grievance reviews are intended to ensure that ghost cards and illegal entries are weeded out while genuine rural workers retain their access to guaranteed employment.
Distipanna Bhuyan