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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Big purse for job scheme, still short

-The Telegraph

New Delhi: The Centre today proposed its highest ever budget allocation for the rural job guarantee scheme but critics rued that the increase was just Rs 500 crore over the revised allocation last year.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced Rs 48,000 crore for projects and payment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, flagging the hike from the Rs 38,500 crore allocated last year (See chart).

chart mgnrega

Social activists, however, highlighted that the finance ministry had sanctioned an additional Rs 9,000 crore for the scheme in the revised budget last year after a surge in demand. The scheme guarantees every rural household up to 100 days' paid, unskilled work in a year.

A statement from Sangh affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh said this year's allocation was inadequate when one considered the huge migration of workers back to the villages after the demonetisation dried up their earnings in cities.

Civil society activists such as Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey from the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Annie Raja from the National Federation of Indian Women, and Kamayani Swamy and Ashish Ranjan from the Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan issued a statement saying the increase was just one per cent over last year's revised allocation.

As of today, 22 among 34 states and Union territories have negative balances under the scheme, which means they lack the money to pay the workers. The Centre's own data show total wage arrears of Rs 3,469 crore under the scheme.

The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Centre to release adequate funds under the scheme to the states.

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