The Union government owes ₹422.14 crore in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) wages to Kerala, Minister for Local Self-Governments M.B. Rajesh has said.
Replying to a submission by Anwar Sadath in the Assembly on Thursday, he said that material costs of ₹107.61 crore and administrative cost of ₹111 crore were also yet to be paid to the State. The wages for MGNREGS workers in the State had been pending since October due to the non-allocation of funds.
Mr. Rajesh said as per the rules, the wages had to be paid to the workers within 15 days of completion of the work. The panchayat-level official had to complete all the documentation within seven days of completion of the work. The MGNREGS Central mission should make available the wages in the bank account within the next eight days. In Kerala, the grama panchayat-level steps were being completed in a time-bound manner, with 96.75% of such files being cleared on time. However, the workers were not getting wages on time as wages were not being cleared from the Central mission, he said.
10.31 crore person days
He said that the State had demanded funds equivalent to 10.31 crore person days of work in the current financial year. However, the Union government had allocated only ₹1,401.72 crore, equivalent to 6 crore person days of work. The State had generated work equivalent to ₹1,823.86 crore. The State had generated 10.23 crore and 10.59 crore person days of work in the previous two financial years, proportional to which the demand for the current year was also made. The government had now sent a proposal for more funds to meet the increased demand for work.
Mr. Rajesh said that there was a need to critically approach the Modi government’s attitude towards the MGNREGS. Many of its recent steps regarding the scheme ended up creating crisis for the workers.
