The Union Rural Development Ministry has sent teams to 15 districts of Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh to investigate the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the State.
Recently, the Ministry had carried out a similar exercise with Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)-ruled Telangana where its inspection teams pointed out many lapses and asked the State government to take the corrective measures.
Since January this year, the Centre has stopped paying MGNREGS wages claiming that West Bengal has not conducted social audits and had rebranded a Central scheme as the State’s own for political gain. Despite protests from the State government and the MGNREGS workers the Centre remains unmoved. The Centre’s dues, meanwhile, are piling up and currently it owes more than ₹7,000 crores to West Bengal.
