New Delhi, March 28 -- The Union Ministry of Rural Development has issued new guidelines for the deletion and restoration of job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), following mounting criticism over the removal of more than 15 million active workers from the scheme in the past two years.

Between 2022 and 2024, approximately 15.5 million workers were deleted from MGNREGA rolls. The government has attributed these deletions to a range of reasons, including duplicate or incorrect entries, families migrating out of their registered Gram Panchayats, or rural areas being reclassified as urban settlements.

A job card under MGNREGA serves as proof of eligibility, allowing rural households to access ...