Centre blocks Rs 6,366 crore in MGNREGS funds, West Bengal worst hit

The Centre has informed the Parliament that it has not disbursed funds to the tune of ₹6,366 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which helps generate employment for the rural poor.

The information was given by Minister of State for Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, in Lok Sabha on Tuesday (August 1) while responding to a question by Congress MP Ramya Haridas.

MNREGS was started in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for the upliftment of the rural poor by guaranteeing them employment for 100 days a year.

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Interestingly, it is West Bengal to which the Centre owes ₹2,770 crore in largest amount of blocked funds under the scheme. Jyoti said West Bengal is the only state to which the Centre owes the huge amount in pending dues for the past five months.

The Centre cited “corruption” in West Bengal government in the implementation of MNREGS for the stoppage of disbursal of funds. The Centre used Section 27 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to block the funds disbursal to the state. Section 27 of the Act allows the Centre to block funds and inquire into charges of corruption in the implementation of the scheme.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a critic of the scheme and has often referred to it as a living monument of UPA government’s failure to uplift the rural poor. His government, however, reinforced the scheme in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown to reach out to the rural poor.

Also read: Budget allocates Rs 73,000 crore to MGNREGA scheme

The Centre has slashed the MNREGS FY-24 funds layout to ₹60,000 crore, even though the government ended up spending ₹89,400 crore against the budgetary estimates of ₹73,000 crore in the previous fiscal year. The MNREGS job guarantee cards have also seen largest number of deletions.

According to Union Minister Rural Development Giriraj Singh, more than five crore job cards under the MGNREGS were deleted in 2022–23, which is 227 per cent more than the number of job cards deleted the previous fiscal. Apart from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, were among the states which witnessed the highest number of removal of MNREGS job cards, Singh told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

(With inputs from agencies)