Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan has alleged that the Centre had not released about ₹1,000 crore due for Tamil Nadu under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
The arrears - ₹671 crore in cash and ₹300 crore in materials - were pending for the last two-and-a-half months. “It is painful contradiction that the Centre announced an increase in wage of ₹20 per day for the job scheme workers on one side and had kept two-and-a-half month wages pending on other side,” he said in a letter addressed to Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar.
Alleging that only 7% of job card holders received full 100-day work a year under the scheme, he said when the situation was such a cruel reality, denial of wage arrears that too in a critical juncture was highly atrocious.
Stating that merely tendering apology by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the poor people who were subjected to untold hardships under the lockdown was not enough, he said the apologies would not fill the hungry stomachs.
He said the nation-wide lockdown due to COVID-19 threat had made the lives of the rural poor miserable, as their livelihood sources had been shut down. So the ₹1,000-crore arrears must be released immediately, he said.
