Centre turns miser on MGNREGS

Hyderabad: The Centre’s lacklustre policies continue to affect the poor, depriving them of an honourable livelihood under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The BJP government at the Centre, which reduced the man-days in Telangana under the scheme from 16 crore to 10 crore impacting the livelihood of labourers in the State, has now failed to make payments to workers in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. This has resulted in an exodus of villagers to metro cities to eke out a livelihood.

According to reports in the national media, payments pertaining to the MGNREGS cardholders are said to have been pending in several villages of Uttar Pradesh, particularly the Bundelkhand region for over a year. While it is not clear whether the delay in payment was due to the laxity of local authorities or the Centre itself not clearing the payment, the villagers are left with no option now but to migrate to other States such as Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, among others.

Under MGNREGS, the Yogi Adityanath government had claimed that it created over 116 crore man-days and provided employment to about 1.5 crore workers. But at the ground level, people are not getting any work in their villages and those who have worked are yet to be paid their wages.

In Telangana, the MGNREGS recorded a steep decrease in employment after the Centre reduced the man-days from 16 crore in the last financial year to 10 crore this fiscal. Further, several works such as the construction of school compound walls, plantation, digging trenches for water and other such works, which earlier received funds, are said to be kept pending by the Centre.

Currently, around 55.52 lakh job cardholders in Telangana are unable to find adequate work and officials fear that a Uttarakhand-like situation may visit Telangana forcing labourers to migrate to urban areas for livelihood. The State government has already taken up the issue with the Centre but has not received any response so far.

 

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