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Initiative towards Energizing MGNREGA. ……………

Over 51 mn households employed under

MGNREGA scheme in FY17: Tomar

Figures were provided by Rural Development minister

Narendra Tomar during the Question Hour in RS

Press Trust of India July 31, 2017 Last Updated at

16:34 IST

MGNREGA job card

Over 5.69 crore households had sought employment

under the MGNREGA scheme in 2016-17 and 5.12

crore of them were provided work, the government

said on Monday.

The figures were provided by Rural Development

minister Narendra Singh Tomar during the Question

Hour in Rajya Sabha when members expressed

concern over various aspects of the scheme including

low wages and delay in payments. Congress leader

Digvijaya Singh sought to know whether the

households which had not been provided work were

given unemployment allowance as per the provisions

of the Act.

Tomar said at times, people registered themselves for

work but did not turn up later when called for and

sought to assure the House that the rules were being

followed. Another Congress member Renuka

Chowdhary asked what steps were being taken in cases

MGNREGS UPDATE News for Internal Circulation No. 71/ July 16, 2017 – July 31, 2017 Foundation for Ecological Security

Inside News

• Aadhaar not must for MGNREGA: Tomar • MGNREGA has helped in checking distress

migration • Monsoon Session of Parliament: Over five crore

people provided jobs under MGNREGA, says Narendra Singh Tomar

• Measures taken to check irregularities in MGNREGA

• Govt quickens pace on linking of Aadhaar with NREGS accounts

• Haryana tops MG-NREGA wage list with Rs 277 per day, Bihar lowest

Articles

• MGNREGA Workers Need and Deserve Better Wages

Government Order

• Minutes of GeoMGNREGA Review Meeting • MGNREGS – camps for seeding of Aadhaar in

the accounts of MGNREGS workers for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) – regarding

• Issuance of Indicative Framework for Case Record/Work File under MGNREGA-Reg.

• Minutes of Meeting of the Workshop/Hands on Training on registration of account(s) of state program implementation units in PFMS and orientation on GRIP for MGNREGS.


where MGNREGA wages were not being paid on

time, while referring to Telangana in this regard.

Tomar said the Centre was providing adequate funds

for the scheme. Of the Rs 48,000 crore, the Centre had

already disbursed upto Rs 31,000 crore, he said while

assuring that he would look into the matter relating to

Telangana.

Responding to related queries, he said there had been

an increase in the wages under MGNREGA over the

years. He said the participation of women under the

scheme was up to 56 per cent and of the weaker

sections 40 per cent. He said that over one crore assets

created under the scheme had been geo-tagged.

He said while those not having Aadhaar cards will not

be barred from work under the scheme, but the unique

identification number was being encouraged. Around

nine crore Aadhaar cards have been linked, he said.

He said that efforts were also being made to ensure

that funds meant for MGNREGA are not diverted. He

said that a clarification has been sought from West

Bengal government regarding repair of water tanks etc

under the scheme.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-

affairs/over-51-mn-households-employed-under-mgnrega-

scheme-in-fy17-tomar-117073100700_1.html

Aadhaar not must for MGNREGA: Tomar

Special Correspondent, New Delhi, July 31, 2017

22:22 IST, Updated: July 31, 2017 22:22 IST

Nearly nine crore Mahatma Gandhi National Rural

Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) card

holders have been linked to Aadhaar and over five

crore of them have their UID numbers linked to bank

accounts, the government said in the Rajya Sabha on

Monday.

Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural

Development, Drinking Water & Sanitation and

Panchayati Raj. (File Photo) | Photo Credit: Kamal

Narang

Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar

said that of the 12 crore people holding job cards under

the scheme, 10.5 crore could be considered active

workers. Nearly 5.5 crore of them were actually

engaged in work. The Minister, however, clarified that

Aadhaar was not mandatory for job allocations.

Mr. Tomar said the workers were receiving 98%

payments directly through their bank accounts. The

government also gave emphasis on asset creation,

which were geo-tagged.

31,000 crore disbursed

The Centre said there was no delay in the release of

funds to the States under the programme and that of


the Rs. 48,000 crore allocated this fiscal, Rs. 31,000

crore had already been disbursed.

Tapan Kumar Sen, MP, however, said the reality was

different from what the government had projected in

its reply. Though NREGA stipulated 100 days of

work, the average number was below 50, he said.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/aadhaar-not-must-

for-mgnrega-tomar/article19397791.ece

MGNREGA has helped in checking distress

migration

Delhi July 31, 2017 Last Updated at 00:20 IST

The Government today informed that it has taken

various steps to check distress migration. Replying to a

question in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for

Rural Development Shri Ram Kripal Yadav said that

the Ministry has been taken steps like giving additional

50 days of unskilled employment under MGNREGA

to drought affected areas. During 2016-17, seven

drought affected States were allowed 150 days of work

under MGNREGA.

In the current year Kerala and Puducherry have

already been given this provision. He said that the

Ministry is also developing rural clusters under

Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission, with the

objective of bridging the rural-urban divide and

reducing migration from rural to urban areas.

The Minister also informed that a study conducted

by Ministry through independent evaluators has

reported that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural

Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has

resulted in reduction of seasonal migration. Other

studies also indicated direct and positive impact of

MGNREGA in reduction of distress migration by

providing work closer to home and decent

working conditions. He said that the gist of such

studies has been brought out by the Ministry in a

publication named MGNREGA Sameeksha.

Further, on the recommendation of Ministry of Rural

Development, National Institute of Rural Development

and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR) has commissioned

two studies on migration, namely, Impact of Mahatma

Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee

Programme on Distress Migration: A study of selected

states of India and Impact of Mahatma Gandhi

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on the

Migration of Tribal Folk: A Case Study in

Junglemahal districts of West Bengal.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/government-

press-release/mgnrega-has-helped-in-checking-distress-

migration-117073100637_1.html

Monsoon Session of Parliament: Over five crore

people provided jobs under MGNREGA, says

Narendra Singh Tomar

India PTI Jul, 31 2017 17:51:32

New Delhi: Over 5.69 crore households had sought

employment under the MGNREGA scheme in 2016-

17 and 5.12 crore of them were provided work, the

government said on Monday.

The figures were provided by Rural Development

Minister Narendra Singh Tomar during the Question

Hour in Rajya Sabha when members expressed

concern over various aspects of the scheme including

low wages and delay in payments.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh sought to know

whether the households which had not been provided


work were given unemployment allowance as per the

provisions of the Act.

Representational image. Reuters

Tomar said at times, people registered themselves for

work but did not turn up later when called for and

sought to assure the House that the rules were being

followed.

Another Congress member Renuka Chowdhary asked

what steps were being taken in cases where

MGNREGA wages were not being paid on time, while

referring to Telangana in this regard.

Tomar said the Centre was providing adequate funds

for the scheme. Of the Rs 48,000 crore, the Centre had

already disbursed upto Rs 31,000 crore, he said while

assuring that he would look into the matter relating to

Telangana.

Responding to related queries, he said there had been

an increase in the wages under MGNREGA over the

years. He said the participation of women under the

scheme was up to 56 percent and of the weaker

sections 40 percent.

He said that over one crore assets created under the

scheme had been geo-tagged.

He said while those not having Aadhaar cards will not

be barred from work under the scheme, but the unique

identification number was being encouraged. Around

nine crore Aadhaar cards have been linked, he said.

He said that efforts were also being made to ensure

that funds meant for MGNREGA are not diverted. He

said that a clarification has been sought from West

Bengal government regarding repair of water tanks etc

under the scheme.

http://www.firstpost.com/india/monsoon-session-of-

parliament-over-five-crore-people-provided-jobs-under-

mgnrega-says-narendra-singh-tomar-3877137.html

Measures taken to check irregularities in

MGNREGA

Delhi July 24, 2017 Last Updated at 00:21 IST

The Government today said that the launching of

National Electronic Fund Management System

(NeFMS) in 21 States and one UT for direct transfer of

wages into workers account, eFMS, Direct Benefit

Transfer, Aadhaar based payment System are among

the several measures being taken to tackle issues like

misappropriation of funds, corruption and other

irregularities under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural

Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from time

to time. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the

Minister of State for Rural Development Shri Ram

Kripal Yadav said that since the responsibility of

implementation of MGNREGA is rested with the State

Governments, all complaints received in the Ministry

are forwarded to the concerned state Governments for

taking appropriate action including investigation, as

per law.

The Minister said that adequate measures for assuring

transparency and accountability have been built in the

MGNREG Scheme. There are provisions of Social


Audit, Grievance Redressal Mechanism, State Quality

Monitor(SQM), National Level Monitors (NLM).

Moreover, information pertaining to all transactions

are in public domain (www.nrega.nic.in) and the

payments to the workers are made through Bank/Post

Office account. The e-Muster system has been

introduced to avoid bogus attendance and to check

instances of tampering and misuse of muster rolls.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/government-press-

release/measures-taken-to-check-irregularities-in-mgnrega-

117072400728_1.html

Govt quickens pace on linking of Aadhaar with

NREGS accounts

Jul 28, 2017 02:31 PM IST |

Even though the rural development ministry has the

details of about 85 percent NREGA workers, bank

accounts of only 50 percent of the workers have been

linked with Aadhaar number.

Moneycontrol News

The government has set up several camps for over a

month in villages across the country to fasten the

linking of Aadhaar with the National Rural

Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) accounts,

according to an Economic Times report.

Out of the 10.7 crore active NREGS workers, the rural

development ministry has the details of about 85

percent workers. Bank accounts, though, of only 50

percent of the workers have been linked with Aadhaar

number for want of firsthand consent, a senior rural

development official told Economic Times.

The camp, which is being organised from July 25 to

September 10 by the rural development ministry in

consultation with the department of financial services,

is likely to enhance the speed of seeking consents from

the beneficiaries for seeding their bank accounts with

Aadhaar numbers.

How Aadhaar will transform India in the future

Government had missed the Centre's December 31

deadline last year to link all the NREGS accounts with

Aadhaar in the hustle of removing black money

through demonetisation.

However, the delay did not change government's

decision to link the two because linking NREGA

accounts with Aadhaar will help the ministry to

prevent the leakage of funds and clean the duplicate or

invalid NREGS cards within the system.

Earlier, Chief Executive Officer of the Unique

Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Ajay

Bhushan Pandey had told Moneycontrol that Aadhaar

is a great enabler because it can potentially de-

duplicate any system and remove duplicates, bogus

and fake data from the system.

"With Aadhaar, the government knows who has been

given benefit and who hasn’t been, who has been

excluded and who has not been excluded," Pandey had

said.

According to Economic Times, about 1.12 crore

NREGS cards were removed from the system on

accounts of being fake. The number includes over 10

lakh workers who surrendered their job cards to the

government withdrawing themselves from the scheme

due to varied reasons. The move will help the

government eliminate one of the major criticisms of

the scheme, delayed payment.

Of the 93.4 crore person days of work that was

generated between April and July, payments for only


86 percent were made on time under the scheme,l

reported Economic Times.

The payments were delayed for rest 14 percent of the

workers despite the release of Rs 23,443 crore, half the

budgetary allocation for the scheme, to the states in

April.

The ministry is expected to release the rest amount to

the states after the submission of a detailed audit report

in September.

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/economy/govt-

quickens-pace-on-linking-of-aadhaar-with-nregs-accounts-

2335823.html

Haryana tops MG-NREGA wage list with Rs 277

per day, Bihar lowest

Trisha Thomas 2017-07-27 FIRST ON ULTRA

The North Indian state of Haryana has emerged as the

state with the highest daily wage under the Mahatma

Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee

Scheme at Rs 277.

Bihar and Jharkhand came at the bottom with daily

wages of Rs 168.

The second highest wages was in Chandigarh,

followed by Kerala at 265 and Nicobar region at 249

per day.

Goa came fifth with Rs 240 per day.

Among the low wage states were Madhya Pradesh and

Chhattisgarh at 172, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh at

Rs 175.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed

in 2005 and was later renamed after Mahatma Gandhi.

It aims to fight poverty by guaranteeing 100 days of

manual labor to at least one member of each

household.

Workers typically create common infrastructure such

as canals, bunds etc or engage in activities such as

cleaning of roads and so on.

The scheme also provides for working on private

property as well.

The act was first proposed in 1991 by Narasimha Rao.

In 2006, it was finally accepted in the parliament and

commenced implementation in 200 districts of India.

Based on this pilot experience, NREGA was scoped up

to covered all the districts of India from 1 April 2008.

Over Rs 50,000 cr is spent on the scheme every year.

With tens of millions of workers, it is considered the

‘largest public works programme in the world’ by

number of participants.

The wages are set every year by the central

government based on the state- wise Consumer Price

Index for Agricultural Labourers compiled by the

ministry of commerce.

State Wage State Wage

Haryana 277 Mizoram 194

Chandigarh 265 Gujarat 192

Kerala 258 Rajasthan 192

Nicobar 249 Assam 183

Goa 240 Bengal 180

Lakshadweep 237 Himachal (NS) 179

Karnataka 236 JK 179

Andaman 236 Arunachal 177


Punjab 233 Nagaland 177

Himachal (sch) 224 Sikkim 177

Haveli 218 Tripura 177

Tamil 205 Odisha 176

Puducherry 205 Meghalaya 175

Manipur 204 Uttar 175

Maharashtra 201 Uttarakhand 175

Andhra 197 MP-C’garh 172

Telangana 197 Bihar 168

Daman Diu 195 Jharkhand 168

https://ultra.news/t-t/32457/haryana-tops-mg-nrega-wage-list-rs-

277-per-day-bihar-lowest

MGNREGA Workers Need and Deserve Better

Wages

Saturday 22 July 2017, by Bharat Dogra

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment

Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted to ensure

economic security to those most deprived of it by

providing them a guarantee of employment close to

their home. However, the real life experience of many

workers, who have toiled at these work sites, is that

due to low wage rate as well as frequent delays in

wage payment this security is often denied to them.

The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha is a national level

platform of people’s organisations, trade unions and

others devoted to the proper implementation of the

NREGA in keeping with its original aims and spirit.

This Morcha has recently written in detail to the Rural

Development Ministry of the Union Government

regarding its concerns and demands relating to the

NREGA.

This submission, made on June 26, has pointed out that

at present the prevailing wage rates for the NREGA in

some States are below the wage rates for agriculture

and construction workers. The revision of wage—that

has taken place in some States recently—is very low,

that is, just Re One increase in Assam, Bihar,

Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

This submission has demanded that the Government of

India should declare a floor level minimum wage rate

for the country based on the recommendations of the

15th Indian Labour Conference, the Akroyd

Committee and the Supreme Court orders in the

Raptakos Brett case. The Morcha has said that this

should be the wage for the MGNREGA and all

minimum wages declared by the States should be

equal to or above this minimum floor. The Consumer

Price Index (rural) should be used to revise the wages

every year.

In addition another serious problem is that at times

there are long delays in payments of the NREGA

wage. While travelling to several remote villages it has

been a very distressing experience to hear people

speak about very long delays in the payment of wages.

At times this has happened even in the middle of

serious drought situations. This is even more unjust

and timely payment of the NREGA wages must be

ensured. Bharat Dogra is a freelance journalist who has

been involved with several social movements and

initiatives.

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7329.html


This information bulletin is a part of our initiative towards improving

water conservation through leveraging NREGA.

Supported by: Hindustan Unilever Foundation

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