More than five crore job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) were cancelled in the FY 2022-23,  the Centre told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh said in a written reply that in 2021-22, MGNREGA job cards of 1,49,51,247 workers were deleted while in 2022-23 the number was 5,18,91,168.

West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana were among the states which saw the highest number of deletions.

Singh said the deletions were made due to reasons such as fake job cards, duplicate job cards, people not willing to work anymore, the family shifting from Gram Panchayat permanently, or deaths.

In reply to another question, Singh said 2.95 crore people in the age group of 18-30 years were registered under the scheme up to the 2020-21 financial year which was increased to 3.06 crore up to financial year 2022-23.

In 2021-22, as many as 6,25,514 job cards were deleted in Andhra Pradesh, while in the following fiscal, the number shot up by 1147% to 78,05,569.

In West Bengal, 1,57,309 job cards were deleted in 2021-22, which increased by over 5000% in 2022-23, when 83,36,115 job cards were cancelled.

Similarly, in Telangana, 61,278 job cards were deleted in 2021-22, while 17,32,936 cards were deleted in 2022-23, an increase of 2,727%.

In 2022-23, 57.43% of MGNREGA workers were women.