West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand are on the top of the list of states where payment of wages to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) workers has been delayed for a year due to funds not being released by the Centre, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
The condition of West Bengal, ruled by Trinamool Congress, is the worst in terms of delay in payment of wages and the number of people falling out of the ambit of the scheme for not being paid. While Rs 833 crore are pending to be released to the state for the current financial year 2022-23, funds of Rs 1,916 crore are yet to be released for 2021-22, data shared by the ministry in the Upper House showed.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State (MoS) Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti shared details of state-wise pending liabilities for wage payment under the scheme as of December 16, 2022-23.
According to the details, West Bengal is followed by UP, which has pending wages of Rs 318 crore, Bihar with Rs 301 crore and Jharkhand at Rs 276 crore. A total of Rs 4,919 crore wage liabilities across 34 states are pending with the Centre under its flagship scheme.
West Bengal also tops states that have the maximum pending liabilities under the ‘material’ (for example, bricks, cement etc) component of the scheme in which states have to bear 25 per cent of the cost while Centre releases funds for the rest 75 per cent. The state has pending liabilities of Rs 467 crore as of December 16 this year and Rs 2,221crore pending for 2021-22.
The other states with high ‘material’ liabilities include Andhra Pradesh at Rs 706 crore, Karnataka with Rs 346 crore, Madhya Pradesh Rs 299 crore, Bihar at Rs 226 crore, Rajasthan at Rs 202 crore and Telangana with Rs 182 crore. Total liabilities of Rs 5,485 crore under this component are pending in 2022-23, the data showed.
MGNREGA is a demand-driven wage employment scheme, which guarantees 100 days of unskilled work per household in rural areas. The demand for work under it had gone up exponentially during the pandemic years. For lakhs of people who had lost their jobs, wages under the scheme were the only source of basic income security.
“The ministry releases funds periodically in two tranches with each tranche consisting of one or more instalments, keeping in view the “agreed to” labour budget, demand for work, opening balance, pace of utilisation of funds, pending liabilities, overall performance and subject to submission of relevant documents by the states,” the minister stated in her reply.
According to People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) — a group of activists who have been advocating for MGNREGA since 2004 — not being paid for the work they have done for as long as a year is resulting in people not signing up for work at all. PAEG says this could eventually lead to the collapse of the scheme in states like West Bengal.
“There are various cost-cutting measures that are being taken by the Centre. It has stopped payments for states it has disputes with where it has alleged corruption and even sent teams to inspect. Taking action against the corrupt can go on but holding on to peoples’ wages for their hard labour is making them suffer to an extreme. This is despite the apex court directing the Centre to release funds for compensation has to be paid to workers even if there are issues, which could be handled alongside,” said Nikhil Dey, a PAEG member.
Based on data from the NREGA Management Information System (MIS), PAEG said the number of people who asked for work but did not get it have doubled during this year. Starting from 7 per cent in January, the number of people being denied work went up to 14 per cent by November this year.
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