THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after Union finance minister Arun Jaitley made the highest-ever budget allocation of Rs 48,000 crore to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act for 2017-18, the BJP leaders in the state started attacking the state government for not utilising funds properly. They have been highly critical of the social justice department not providing reports and statistics in time resulting in beneficiaries getting only 45 days of labour a year. But MGNREGA State Mission vehemently denies this.
Mr Jaitley announced an increase in MGNREGA allocation to a record Rs 48,000 crore for 2017-18, up from Rs 37,000 crore in 2016-17. At the same time, he also ensured 55 percent women participation in the employment guarantee scheme. Former State BJP president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai told DC that Kerala leads in the country in not utilising the MGNREGA funds. “Usually when Central funds are sanctioned, the concerned department would have to provide reports on utilisation. The Central government do not release funds in a go, but in instalments only," he said.
A former top social justice department official told DC that MGNREGA was initially a demand driven programme which has forced the authorities now not to give them market rates. He said if initially Rs 800 was the remuneration, it has since been relegated to a mere Rs 240 – Rs 243 per day. “Kerala, Haryana and Punjab lead in not utilising the funds under MGNREGA. Of late, fortunately, the women labourers are demanding jobs which are a remarkable change,” said a retired government official.
However, a top official at MGNREGA’s State mission functioning at Swaraj Bhavan here at Nanthencode denied the allegations. He said out of the 307 days in the ongoing 2016-17 fiscal year, Rs 1883 crore has been utilised which has all been published on the website. “Currently an average of Rs 243 per day is given to labourers, the majority of them being women. If during 2012-13 there were 93 percent women who utilised the Act, now it has come down to 90 percent. I can guarantee that during the 2016-17 period, Kerala will cross Rs 2000 crore which would be more than 10 percent of the State’s plan allocation expenditure,” said an MGNREGA State mission official.
