Here is some good news for beneficiaries of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).
The wage rate per day has been revised with effect from April 1. It has gone up from Rs. 174 in 2013–14 to Rs. 191 in 2014–15, an increase of 9.7 per cent.
Revised eight timesWith this, the wage rates have been revised eight times since the launch of the job scheme in 2006–07 by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
In 2006–07, the daily wage was Rs. 69. The revision in the wage rate, indexed to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour (CPIAL), came into effect retrospectively from April 1 and will be for 2014–15.
‘Poll code not an issue’Officials at the Chief Electoral Officer and the MGNREGA Directorate told The Hindu that the enforcement of the model code of conduct would not come in the way of implementing the revised wage rate as the Centre issued the notification for wage revision on February 25, 2014.
MNREGA Director Munish Moudgil told The Hindu that 7.18 crore days of work had been generated under the Act in 2013–14.
The State had spent Rs. 2,133 crore in 2013–14 and set a target of spending Rs. 2,783 crore in 2014–15 by generating 9.35 crore days of work. The deployment of Panchayat Development Officers (PDOs), panchayat secretaries and other staff of rural local bodies for election duty had not slowed down the implementation of the scheme. Generally, the execution of the scheme was slow in April owing to delay in the preparation of action plans by rural local bodies.
In other StatesAccording to the Centre’s notification, unskilled workers in Haryana would get the highest daily wage of Rs. 236. It has been fixed at Rs. 212 in Kerala, Rs. 167 in Tamil Nadu, and Rs. 169 in Andhra Pradesh.
