The number of villagers in Meghalaya who availed 100 days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has come down in 2020-2021 as compared to the previous years.
According to official data, 1.74 lakh people in the rural areas of the State availed 100 days of employment under MGNREGS in 2020-21.
In the previous year (2019-20), the number of people who availed 100 days of employment under MGNREGS was 1.81 lakh.
In 2016-17, the number of people in the State who availed 100 days of employment under MGNREGS was only 87,000. It went up to 1.15 lakh in 2017-18 and 1.61 lakh in 2018-19.
MGNREGS is a demand driven scheme. As per the scheme, a rural household is eligible for at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment against their demand for wage employment.
In case of non-offering of work, the beneficiary is eligible for unemployment allowances to be paid by the State as per provision of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mahatma Gandhi NREGA).
As per the provisions mentioned in Schedule-II of the NREGA, wage seekers shall be entitled to receive payment of compensation for the delay, at the rate of 0.05 per cent of the unpaid wages per day of delay beyond the sixteenth day of closure of muster roll.
As per Schedule-II para 29 (1) (d) of the Act, the State government shall pay the compensation upfront after due verification within the time limits as specified above and recover the compensation amount from the functionaries or agencies who are responsible for the delay in payment.
In addition to this, there is a provision for additional 50 days of unskilled wage employment in a financial year in drought or natural calamity notified rural areas.
There is no financial allocation made under this demand driven scheme to states and union territories. Funds are released to the states and union territories on the basis of ‘agreed to’ Labour Budget (LB) and their performance during the financial year.
