MGNREGS falling far short of stated goals in U.T., says former MP

M. Ramadass blames Puducherry's govt for poor implementation of MGNREGS, resulting in only 49% of rural households employed & avg. work days of 20/yr. Aggregate loss of ₹1,435.47 cr & wage bill of ₹1,548.05 cr reduced to ₹112.49 cr. Govt urged to conduct local body elections & appoint competent personnel to oversee scheme.

The implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which envisages providing up to 100 days of unskilled manual labour per year to rural households on public works projects, falls well short of its stated goals in the Union Territory due to shortcomings in governance, former MP M. Ramadass has said.

In a statement, Mr. Ramadass said an evaluation of the scheme in Puducherry and Karaikal on the basis of official five-year data (2019-2023) revealed shortfalls in job creation and an economic loss of “colossal proportions”.

For the stated target of providing livelihood to 95,018 rural households (2011) living in 108 Gram Panchayats – the estimate is projected to have increased to 1,20,503 households in 2023 – the scheme should have distributed 1,20,503 job cards, placed the adults of these households in more than 260 projects identified by the Government of India and offered employment for 100 days at the prescribed daily wage. However, data showed that as of August, only 74,000 job cards were issued and of these, only 59,000 cards were operational. Only 49% of the total households in rural areas were employed under the scheme while 51% were outside its ambit. Worse still, not a single beneficiary could secure 100 days of employment. During this fiscal so far, a household could get work for only 26 days, as against the average work days of 20 in 2022-23; 16 in 2021-22; 22 in 2020-21; and 19 in 2019-20, Mr. Ramadass said.

Also, while the approved daily wage for the current year was ₹294, the workers were paid only ₹279. In 2022-23, the wage paid was ₹242 as against the approved wage of ₹281; ₹279 as against ₹294 in 2021-2022; ₹215 as against ₹256 in 2020-21; and ₹195 as against ₹229 in 2019-20, he said.

According to Mr. Ramadass, if the difference between the entitlement and the actual receipt from the Centre constituted the total loss, the aggregate loss would be about ₹324.28 crore this year. As for the preceding years, the aggregate loss would amount to ₹306.95 crore in 2022-23; ₹302.79 crore in 2021-22; ₹263.56 crore in 2020-21 and ₹237.89 crore in 2019-2020. Also, while the entitled wage bill for the five-year period was ₹1,548.05 crore, the actual disbursement by the Centre was only ₹112.49 crore.

Estimating the net monetary value foregone by the rural households to be around ₹1,435.47 crore, Mr. Ramadass blamed the administration headed by the Lt. Governor and the Chief Minister for blunting a noble rural job guarantee scheme of the Union government and reducing it from 100 days of work to 20 days of work per annum.

He called for immediate remedial measures, beginning with the conduct of local body elections as it would revitalise the village panchayats. As an interim measure, the government should appoint competent personnel to 108 panchayats and implement the scheme in a way that is consistent with the guidelines and subject it to rigorous oversight, he said.