Government of India declared use of MGNREGA linked Post Office Accounts for Direct Cash Transfer

The Union Government of India in the third week of January 2013 amended the August 2008 notification to allow MGNREGA beneficiaries to receive other Government benefits and deposits in their post office saving account.

With this order of the Union Finance Ministry more than 3.5 crore post office accounts in existence has turned up to be ready for the Aadhaar-linked Cash Transfer Scheme of Government of India. Earlier, the accounts linked with the MGNREGA workers of the country were used for receiving the wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme. As per the guidelines of the August 2008 notification of the Union Finance Ministry of India no deposit other then NREGA can be made to these accounts.  

The Aadhaar number would be used for authentication of the identities of the beneficiaries under the new Direct Cash Transfer initiative. This identification would be of a great help in transferring the benefits offered by the Government directly into the accounts of the beneficiaries. There exists of a total of 8.26 crore MGNREGA accounts in the country and out of this 43 percent (3.5 crore) of the accounts exists in post offices of India.