Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to request the Ministry of Rural Development to release the outstanding wage dues amount of Rs.1,056 crore accumulated so far under the MGNREGS Scheme.
In a letter to PM Narendra Modi, MK Stalin said, "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is an important wage employment scheme for rural India which not only enables the provision of livelihood to the rural households but also creates durable and sustainable assets across the villages. Tamil Nadu has always been a forerunner in the implementation of MGNREGS at the national level since the inception of the Scheme and has been one of the top-performing states under the various parameters of Employment Generation."
"In Tamil Nadu, nearly 91 lakh workers pertaining to 76 lakh households are actively participating in the MGNREGS works. 86% of employment is provided to women workers and nearly 29% workers belong to SC/ST households. In addition to that, around one lakh differently-abled workers are provided employment each year under MGNREGS," he said.
According to Stalin, during 2024-25, Tamil Nadu has already achieved 23.36 crore person-days of wage employment as against the Labour Budget of 20 crore person-days upto January 6, 2025.
"The proposal to revise and increase the labour budget for Tamil Nadu from 20 crore person-days to 35 Crore person-days has already been sent to the Ministry of Rural Development on November 23, 2024, and is awaiting sanction," he added.
"Due to the complete exhaustion of wage funds based on the labour budget, wages to the tune of Rs.1,056 crore are pending to be disbursed to the workers under MGNREGS Tamil Nadu for the past two months. I would further like to point out that, the harvest festival 'Pongal' which is a prime and important festival of Tamil people is celebrated in every household in the state during the second week of January. Delay in the release of funds has caused financial hardship to the thousands of families that have put in their hard work under the Scheme," added Stalin.
"Hence, I request that the Ministry of Rural Development may kindly be advised to release the outstanding wage dues amount of Rs.1,056 crore accumulated so far. Also, the revised labour budget 2024-2025 may kindly be approved for Tamil Nadu as has been done in the previous years," he added.
