BENGAL'S NREGA JAM

Trouble is brewing between the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal and the NDA-ruled Centre over the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGA).

- Romita Datta

The state has topped the chart in terms of providing employment under the scheme in 2020-2021, but instead of accolades, it is struggling to pay wages to workers for the last five months of the 2021-22 fiscal. This is because, the state says, the Centre has not released Rs 6,500 crore towards labour payment and cost of material. The Centre disagrees, and argues that the amount was spent on creating an additional three crore mandays without taking prior sanction, as is the practice. Moreover, the Centre has not sanctioned the new NREGA labour budget the state tabled for 2022-23, forcing it to take the unprecedented step of stopping all work under the scheme.

"The decision is impacting 1.4 crore job card holders and the rural economy," says Pulak Roy, minister for panchayats and rural development. Roy adds that dues are now Rs 7,200 crore, since the state had created 2.15 crore mandays this fiscal, even though the scheme's budget was pending. While the TMC government is citing this as an instance of the BJP's hostility to Bengal, that hides a more controversial aspect.

A central monitoring team has unearthed alleged irregularities in the implementation of the scheme in Bengal-mismatches between work shown on records and actual work done, creation of a whopping number of mandays even in lockdown months and fake muster rolls with bogus workers. It is alleged that the work done under NREGA included digging up existing ponds, constructing private roads and cleaning private courtyards.