Fund-starved states turning down MNREGS job pleas?

NEW DELHI: The pace of job demands under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) picked up in the first half of the current financial year and the government has already released 95% of the budgetary allocation with more demand for funds from states pending, according to rural development minister Birender Singh.

Singh has written to finance minister Arun Jaitley seeking the release of more funds to “liquidate pending liabilities (of states) and for smooth implementation of the MGNREGS during the fourth quarter”.

Activist Aruna Roy, who released Singh’s letter to the finance minister obtained under the RTI Act, alleged that job applications are being denied in several states to show lower demand.

“This supply-side control is in blatant contravention of its demand-based legal guarantee. The period of fund starvation began in the last years of UPA 2, and peaked at the beginning of the NDA government when mid-year budget cuts were imposed in MGNREGS,” Roy told reporters here on Wednesday.

She said this has resulted in distress for MGNREGS workers, as many did not get work as per demand, and faced inordinate delay in the payment of their wages. “It also fundamentally undermined the credibility of the law,” she alleged.

The rural development minister, in his letter to the finance minister, has stated that employment generation in the second and third quarter of this financial year was 36% and 8%, respectively, and more than the employment generation in the corresponding quarters in the previous year.

The activist, however, admitted that cases of payments being made on time has also increased considerably from 27% last year to 45% this year.

Roy said 12 states have already exhausted their funds and are showing a negative balance, thus effectively shutting down the programme there. “At this time it is clear that the MGNREGS cannot even afford temporary shortages as it will only exacerbate fear and permanently damage the programme,” she added.