Hyderabad: NREGS labour budget reduced by 12 per cent

Hyderabad: The Gram Panchayats (GPs) have submitted the labour budget to the Centre under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) with 12 per cent less works.

The GPs have held meetings in December last year and finalised the labour budget for the next financial year 2020-21. According to the proposals submitted, they have proposed 12.2 crore labour budget, i.e. number of workdays to be given to wage seekers in a year.

In the present financial year, the total labour budget being proposed was 13.9 crores of workdays. The GPs have reduced the workdays by 1.7 crore of days in the next financial year.

As a rule, the GPs have to submit labour budget to the Union Rural Development department to get sanction for the next financial year. The GPs have to hold Gram Sabhas to identify the works and to submit their details to the RD department.

According to the report submitted, Medchal district has reduced the workdays by 26 per cent. In the same way Karimnagar district has reduced the budget by 22 per cent.

Medak district reduced the works by 18 per cent and Mahbubnagar and Kama Reddy districts have reduced them by 17 per cent. Sources in the Rural Development department said that the labour budget has been reduced as some of the villages have been made into municipalities. The number of municipalities has been raised to 120 from 70 in the past.

Most of the villages around Hyderabad have been converted into municipalities or corporations. The villages around cities like Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Khammam have also been converted into urban local bodies.

The NREGS applies only to the rural villages and it would not be implemented in the villages which have been merged with the municipalities and corporations. Hundreds of villages have lost rural status due to the merger with the ULBs.

The other reason for the reduction in the labour budget is that workers in some of the districts are not showing interest to take up NREGS works.

Due to good rainfall and availability of water in the major reservoirs, agriculture works are going on well in the villages.

The daily wage being paid in the agriculture works are more than double of the wages being paid under the NREGS.

Under the scheme, the daily wage is about Rs 140. As wage seekers find more work and more wages in agriculture works, they have been staying away from the NREGS works.