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Workers, who are dependent on the MGNREGS in Virudhunagar, say they have been left in the lurch.
| Photo Credit: File Photo
With the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) facing fund shortage, hundreds of workers under the rural employment programme have been left in the lurch in Virudhunagar district as they have not been paid their wages for the past nine or 10 weeks.
The lives of the workers, most of them hailing from below poverty line families, were dependant solely on the flagship programme for 100 days of work. Struggling to make ends meet, the workers have now started taking fresh meals to their families.
“The wages for 11 weeks were pending; we received one-week’s wages about 10 days back,” said one of the field in-charge persons under scheme, claiming that the workforce strength dwindled from 200 persons to about 70 workers who are registered in her union.
The wages were last disbursed on August 3.
Only one member of the families are allowed to take up work under the scheme – be it clearing the bushes, strengthening the side of the roads, digging canals or deepening ooranis.
They used to earn ₹245 as daily wages (now revised to ₹250 per day), which would be credited to their bank accounts every Monday. However, for the past 10 weeks, the workers have not received their wages. “I was left with no other choice but to ferociously borrow money for the last three months,” said the field in-charge person, who gets paid ₹290 a day.
Already struggling to relay instalments of previous loans she was forced to take fresh loans to buy groceries. “I’ve not paid the grocery shop for several weeks the loan amount has been piling up,” she brooded, expressing distress over her husband’s drinking problems adding to her plight.
Sources said only those families with more than two earning members have been able to manage the daily expenses amid the undue delay in disbursing the wages.
Virudhunagar district secretary of All India Agricultural Workers’ Union, M. Sundarapandian, said, “This scheme (MGNREGS) is more beneficial for elderly persons abandoned by their children, and widows and physically challenged persons. The wages they earn, how much every meagre, by working for two weeks a month, help them meet both ends.
Virudhunagar MP B. Manickam Tagore, who has been overseeing the MGNREGS works in his constituency, said he has received complaints over the inordinate delay in wage disbursal. In a letter written to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Mr. Tagore said the delay in disbursal of wages have been a cause of distress for the workers ahead of the Deepavali festival.
Stating that the scheme was introduced in 2006 with an aim to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of job in a financial year, the Congress MP said, “Reduced allocation of funds in recent times has created significant hurdles for the stakeholders involved in the implementation of the scheme.”
Seeking immediate action towards settling the pending wages, Mr. Tagore said that wages under the MGNREGS is not just a legal obligation, but also a moral imperatives that ensured the well-being and dignity of the rural workforce.
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