There’s some good news for beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), as the wage rate per day has been revised with effect from April 1.
Daily wages have gone up from Rs. 191 in 2014–15 to Rs. 204 in 2015–16, an increase by Rs. 13 a day. However, the expenditure incurred per person per day is Rs. 360.4, which includes equipment cost (Rs. 136) and administration cost (Rs. 20.4).
With this, the wage rates have been revised nine times since the launch of the job scheme in 2006–07 by the previous UPA government. The revision in the wage rate indexed to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour. The State government spent just 51 per cent of the allocated funds during 2014–15 [Rs. 1,683.65 crore as against Rs. 3,151.76 crore]. The State is expected to get Rs. 2,587.35 crore during 2015–16 for taking up various works under the scheme. In the current fiscal year, the State will spend more than 60 per cent of the allocated amount in the most backward 69 taluks. More funds will be spent on labour budget in these taluks. The labour budget has been depressed due to poor capacity. It was proposed to generate 4.56 crore man-days work in the most backward taluks and 2.61 crore man-days work in rest of the taluks in the State in the current financial year.
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The Centre has directed the State to identify gram panchayats for the ‘open defecation free’ campaign under the scheme as a part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The planning and identification of works should be started before August to ensure completion by March 2016. The Centre said in 11 districts, the expenditure on agriculture-related works is below the statutory limit and efforts should be made to spend more money on farm works.