Timely and reliable payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is meant to be one of the initial applications of Aadhaar - the unique identity number that is supposed to be given to every resident of India. Pilot experiments with Aadhaarenabled payment systems were initiated in Jharkhand a few months ago. This article reports the fi ndings of an informal study of this experiment, based on a quick survey conducted in Ratu block of Ranchi district in March 2012.