Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to request that the Ministry of Rural Development release the outstanding wage dues amounting to ₹1,056 crore accumulated so far under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

MGNREGS is an important wage employment scheme for rural India. It not only enables the provision of livelihood to rural households but also creates durable and sustainable assets across the villages.

Since the scheme’s inception, Tamil Nadu has been a forerunner in implementing MGNREGS at the National Level and has been one of the top-performing States in terms of employment generation.

In Tamil Nadu, nearly 91 lakh workers from 76 lakh households are actively participating in the MGNREGS works. It is to be noted that 86 per cent of employment is provided to women workers, and nearly 29 per cent of workers belong to SC/ST households. In addition, around 1 Lakh differently abled workers are employed each year under MGNREGS.

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 up to 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 was sent to the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, on November 23, 2024, and is awaiting sanction.

Exhaustion of wage funds

Due to the complete exhaustion of wage funds based on the Labour Budget, wages to the tune of ₹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 Tamil Nadu during the 2nd 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,” he said in a letter to the Prime Minister.

“I request that the Ministry of Rural Development may kindly be advised to release the outstanding wage dues amount of ₹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 year,” the letter said.

Published on January 13, 2025