Panchayat Raj Minister E. Dayakar Rao has demanded that the Central government sanction at least 16 crore man days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to Telangana, which is ranked among the best performing States.
The Centre should stop its “vindictive attitude” against Telangana and ensure that there was no cut in funds provided under the MGNREGS to the State. The Centre should also take steps to encourage the State going by its track record in the implementation of the rural employment guarantee scheme.
The Minister was speaking at the meeting of the Employment Generation Council held here on Monday. Ministers Satyavathi Rathod, Mohd. Mahmood Ali and A. Indrakaran Reddy and senior officials participated in the meeting.
Mr. Dayakar Rao requested the Centre to include agricultural works under the MGNREGS and take steps to extend the scheme to urban areas too for generating employment. Steps should be taken to make separate payments for people hailing from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the ensure that ₹97.35 crore pending dues were released to the State at the earliest.
He recalled that Telangana was ranked one in terms of utilisation of funds under the rural employment guarantee scheme and it was generating highest mandays as part of the scheme. The government was issuing job cards to workers based on the demand. The proactive steps taken by the government like the launch of Palle and Pattana Pragati programmes for accelerated development of all areas ensured that there was reverse migration to rural areas.
From a stage when there was no clarity on the kind of works that should be taken up under the rural employment guarantee scheme before formation of Telangana, the State government had ensured that the scheme was utilised for various public amenities like setting up of nurseries, maintenance of dumping yards, prakriti vanams and rythu vedikas, he said.
As a result, the number of man days which was less than 11 crore, increased to over 15 crore since the formation of Telangana and the government had spent ₹4,395 crore during the previous financial year under the scheme. The Centre had however reduced the allocation to the scheme during the current fiscal. Several requests made by the State to include agricultural works in MGNREGS went in vain and it was “atrocious” that the Centre was directly crediting labour bills into the accounts of the workers without taking the State into confidence.
Instructions were being issued to upload photographs of the works taken up under the scheme which was not practicable. The Centre had also reduced the allocations to gram panchayats as could be seen from the ₹1,380 crore allocated to the State while the XV Finance Commission recommended allocation of ₹1,830 crore. This was in turn leading to delays in release of funds to gram panchayats.
