100 days of employment guarantee under MGNREGA; Assam cuts a sorry figure

 STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The provision of 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to job cardholders under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) keeps falling every successive year in the state. Providing 100 days of guaranteed-wage employment is one of the objectives of MGNREGA.

The performance of Assam in providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to job cardholders under the MGNREGA has cut a sorry figure in the statistics of the Department of Rural Development under the Ministry of Rural Development.

According to statistics, Assam provided 100 days of work to 71,268 job cardholders in the financial year 2020–21, to 51,954 in 2021–22, and to 21,546 in 2022–23. In the current financial year (2023–24), as of today, the state has provided 100 days of work to only 2,937 job cardholders.

Almost six months of the current financial year are about to elapse. It is not likely that the state will reach the last financial year’s figure of providing 100 days of work in the remaining six months of the fiscal year. This statistic has revealed that the performance of providing 100 days of work under the MGNREGA keeps deteriorating in the state.

The performance of six districts of the state is so low in the current financial year that they provided 100 days of work only to ten or less than ten job cardholders until today. According to the statistics, Bajali district provided 100 days of work to only ten job cardholders, Morigaon district to seven job cardholders, and Cachar, Kamrup (M), Tamulpur, and West Karbi Anglong to five job cardholders each. The Charaideo district could provide 100 days of work to 340 job cardholders this financial year so far.

Only job cardholders get MGNREGA work. The state has 41.92 lakh active job cards, with 64.34 lakh workers under them. The Panchayat and Rural Development Department monitors the works under the MGNREGA, and the local gaon panchayats implement the schemes.

The poor performance of the state in providing 100 days of work under this flagship programme of the Central Government needs attention from the authorities concerned, especially Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass, who holds the Panchayat and Rural Development portfolio.

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