Twelve States are running the rural job guarantee scheme MGNREGA in negative balance, a group of activists and economists has claimed, citing papers accessed from the Central and State governments through the Right to Information Act.

Urging the Centre to release an additional ₹5,000 crore immediately to these States, activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey and economist Jayati Ghosh said the situation was critical as the demand for jobs had risen due to severe drought in various States.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the civil society activists said that over the last few years, the scheme had been facing acute shortage of funds. “This ‘supply side control’ is in blatant contravention of its ‘demand-based legal guarantee’,” they said, adding that the period of fund starvation began in the last years of UPA-II, and peaked at the beginning of the NDA government, when mid-year Budget cuts were imposed.

Citing reports from various States, Roy claimed that scarcity of funds had resulted in distress for workers and inordinate delays in payment of wages. “It also fundamentally undermined the credibility of the law,” they said.

Insufficient funds Reminding Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of his assurance of providing sufficient funds to the scheme, the activists said fund availability, and efforts by the Ministry and State governments to capture demand, resulted in accelerated job generation, but more funds were required.

“The payments being made on time have increased considerably from 27 per cent last year to 45 per cent this year. However, as the correspondence between the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance dated December 30, 2015, shows, 95 per cent of the funds allocated for the programme so far have already been spent,” they said, citing a letter by Rural Development Minister Birender Singh to Jaitley.

“There are multiple requests from State governments for additional fund releases to meet current and anticipated demand. Twelve States have already exhausted their funds and are showing a negative balance, thus effectively shutting down the programme in those States,” they said, citing a report from Andhra Pradesh and statistics of the Rural Development Ministry.

Asserting that MGNREGA cannot even “afford temporary shortages” as it will only exacerbate fear and permanently damage the programme,” Roy said if funds aren’t released it would affect 1.82 crore workers, who are currently on muster rolls in the 12 States with negative balance.

“This vicious cycle of fund rationing, leading to the choking of the programme, needs to be broken. A demand pull system for funds for the scheme needs to be implemented and permanently institutionalised,” she added.

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