Congress hits the government for the ‘negligence’ of MGNSE

The general communications of the Congress in charge, Jairam Ramesh, said that the negligence of the government of this crucial security network exposes its indifference to rural media. File | Photo credit: ANI

The Congress on Sunday (February 2, 2025) lashed out against the Government for maintaining the stagnant MGNS budget and said that the “negligence” of this crucial security network exposes its indifference to rural media.

The allocation for the Rural Employment scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Development Rural Development (MGNSGS) was ₹ 86,000 million rupees, the same as last year.

In 2023-24, the allocation for MGNGS was ₹ 60,000 million rupees, but additional funds were provided and real expense was ₹ 89,153.71 million rupees, the budget document showed. No additional assignments for MGNSGS were made in 2024-25.

In a publication on X, Jairam Ramesh, general secretary of Congress, Jairam Ramesh said that despite the growing rural anguish, the government has maintained the MGENGREGA stagnant budget at ₹ 86,000 million rupees for 2024-26.

“This effectively represents a decrease in real assignments (adjusted by price increase) made to Mngrega,” he said.

“To add insult to the lesion, estimates suggest that approximately 20% of the budget is paid to eliminate the quotas of previous years,” Ramesh said.

“This effectively reduces the scope of Mngrega, leaving rural workers in drought and the poor straight,” he added.

It also prevents any increase in salaries paid to workers, Ramesh said.

“Even in this ongoing financial year, the minimum average notification salary rate increased only by 7%. This is at a time when it is estimated that the inflation of the consumer price index (CPI) is 5%. MGENGE It is, therefore, zero for the national wage staging crisis, “he said.

The negligence of the government of this crucial security network exposes its indifference to rural livelihoods, Ramesh said.

The MGNGS provides 100 days of employment guaranteed salary in a financial year to at least one member of each home whose adult members are offered as volunteers to carry out unqualified manual work. It maintains at least a third of work for women.

In the year of the Covid Pandemia of 2020-21, when MGNGS proved to be a lifeguard when providing employment in rural areas in the midst of a great reverse migration in the blocking period, ₹ 1,11,169 million rupees were spent in the scheme, according to previous budget documents.