Agartala (Tripura): The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) took to the streets in Agartala to protest against the union government for curtailing Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Hundreds of DYFI cadres took part in the protest procession demanding for sanction of more jobs under the MGNREGA for Tripura.
According to protestors the union government has curtailed several lakhs of men-days of the rural people which shall have a cascading affect on the state development and economy.
“Central rural development department curtailed the men-days of MGNREGA for Tripura despite the state since 2012 being in the top in implementation of MGNREGA. In adjacent state Assam when average 31 job per household is created, in Tripura the men-days has been 94. So it is the duty of the central government to give more men-days for the youth of this state but the central government is not doing this. That is why they are organising this protesting rally and they have given the memorandum to us and we will place it in the Parliament and before the Rural Minister of the country,” said Sankar Prashad Das, Member of Parliament (MP).
Tripura has been providing the highest average jobs for the past seven years under the MGNREGA, the rural jobs scheme – 94 days per household in fiscal 2015-16 against the national average of 45 days. However, the union government had sanctioned fund for 87 men-days for the state and to which the state government had earlier protested and demanded for sanctioning of more fund to the union government.
The MGNREGA was introduced in February 2006 by the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. The scheme mandates 100 days of work in a financial year to at least one member of each rural household in the states – but this has never been acheived in any state. The scheme aims to generate rural assets and create rural infrastructure like roads.
According to the report of the rural development ministry, Maharashtra came second with 47 person days per household, followed by Tamil Nadu with 44 person days. As per the facts available with the union rural development ministry, which operates the scheme, the average days of employment provided per household in 2014-15 were only 40.17, significantly lower than in 2013-14 when the figure was 46.
Last year was the scheme’s worst performance – 40.07 days – and 2009-10 was the best performance year – 54 days – in the 10 years since the scheme was introduced.
Of the total jobs created across the country, 47.46 percent males and 52.54 percent females worked under the scheme.
Various political parties, including the Communist Party of India-Marxist, has been demanding that the person days be increased from 100 to 150 in a year.
The central government to make the payment of MGNREGA systems transparent, hassle- and error-free and paperless besides eliminating administrative delays, from April 1 has introduced the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for the monetary chain – from the central and state governments allocating funds for payment to labourers – revoking the previous e-FMS (Electronic Fund Management System).
