Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday, March 14, 2024 wrote to the Union government requesting to disburse the MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) total wage liability amount to the tune of ₹1,678.83 crore accumulated up to January 5, 2024.
In his letter to Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Giriraj Singh, Mr. Stalin sought his personal intervention in this regard.
Till March 6 this year, Tamil Nadu have achieved 40.51 crore persondays as against the labour budget of 37 crore persondays by providing employment to 79.28 lakh workers pertaining to 68.68 lakh households.
During 2023-24, a sum of ₹8,734.32 crore was sanctioned to Tamil Nadu for the wages up to November 6 this year, however, only ₹7,712.03 crore has been disbursed to the workers leaving the wage liability of ₹1,022.29 crore for November 2023 and December 2023 as on January 5 this year, Mr. Stalin said.
As the wages for unskilled has not been disbursed to the workers since the last week of November 2023, the liability amount has also accumulated to ₹1,678.83 crore (to be disbursed to 24.21 lakh households), who have worked under MGNREGS during December 2023 to February 2024.
The MGNREGS was among the key schemes for providing employment opportunity to all registered households in the rural areas and as far as Tamil Nadu was concerned, it was implemented inclusively by providing 86% of employment to the women and 29% of total workers belonged to the SC/ST communities, he pointed out.
“It is to be noted that, Tamil Nadu has been a forerunner at national level in providing employment to differently-abled people. Further, Tamil Nadu has always been a top performing State since the inception of the Scheme in various parameters.
So far, the Union Government has approved 37 crore persondays in three spells.
Recalling his communications to the Ministry and the subsequent release of ₹1,388.91 crore, the Chief Minister extended his gratitude.
