The Centre, in a recent directive, has asked Joint Secretary-level officers to have a “weekly interface” with the programme heads of the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) across states following reports of many states not spending the budget under the scheme, News18 has learnt.
According to officials, in a meeting held recently, top officials from the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) asked joint secretaries to hold discussions with all state programme heads on a weekly basis so as to follow up on the expenditure made under the scheme.
Officials said the move was prompted mainly due to several opposition-ruled states such as Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, among others, not spending the given outlay under the scheme, putting the beneficiaries at a “disadvantage”.
With just a few months away from 2024, when the next general elections are due, the ministry is making sure that the budget assigned to it is utilised and welfare works are completed by the year-end.
Among the opposition-ruled states, the Centre has withheld funds under the scheme to West Bengal since 2021, invoking a section under the MGNREG Act citing “misuse of funds”. This is despite the fact that the move has deprived its beneficiaries as well as denied their right to demand work as provisioned under it. A workers’ union has also filed a case against it in the Calcutta High Court.
MGNREGA guarantees 100 days of unskilled manual work to the adult members of a rural household in a financial year who have registered under it. The scheme worked as a safety net for thousands of migrant workers who went back to their native places during the pandemic years.
A Parliamentry Standing Committee on rural development, in a report released on implementation of MGNREGS during the Monsoon Session this year, said the Centre’s action taken replies to the recommendations made by the panel were “stereotypical” and “evasive”. It raised concerns that the benefits of the scheme were not reaching its intended target, the marginalised workers.
The report also highlighted the massive pendency in the liability of wages. “As on January 1, Rs 6,231 crore in wages and Rs 7,616 crore in material component was pending liability on the Centre’s part,” the panel observed.
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