Modi favours NREGS recast to help poorest

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged key discrepancies in the jobs guarantee scheme at a recent review meeting on the rural sector, the central government has set up a panel to study its flagship welfare programme in its 16th year, officials said.

Modi had expressed concerns that the utilisation of the funds earmarked for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was skewed in favour of more affluent states instead of poorer states getting more money, two senior officials said, asking not to be named.

“The PM made a valid point that the programme is aimed at poverty alleviation, but the poorer states are not getting the required share of the MGNREGS funds,” one of the officials present at the meeting said.

Modi also pointed out anomalies in the amount of work in different states that need to be addressed, a second official said. “The Prime Minister also pointed out that in some states, a MGNREGA beneficiary has to work equivalent of digging a 2ft hole in the ground, whereas in some other states more labour would be required to complete a person day,” said the second official, who was also present at the meeting held in the second week of November.

Six states — Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh — have so far spent ₹17,814 crore out of ₹45,770 crore in wages for unskilled labour in the jobs scheme in the current financial

PM MODI HAS ALSO POINTED OUT ANOMALIES IN THE AMOUNT OF WORK IN DIFFERENT STATES THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED, AN OFFICIAL SAID