KOLKATA: After the state achieved its approved labour Budget of 27 crore mandays under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme, the Bengal government has written to the Centre seeking approval for 8 crore more mandays under the 100-days' job scheme in the current financial year.
State Panchayat minister Pulok Roy said the communication for the same was sent to the Centre as 27 crore mandays was insufficient for the state for the ongoing fiscal.
However, the state government is yet to get a response from the Centre in this regard, a senior official said. The BJP-led government at the Centre had earlier approved an additional 5 crore mandays for the state in the ongoing fiscal.
The Central government has granted an estimated budget of Rs 73,000 crore for the MNREGA scheme for 2022-23. In 2021-22, the revised estimate for the scheme was Rs 98,000 crore.
Roy said the state would stick to its demand even as the Centre had reduced its outlays on MGNREGA in the Budget 2022-23. According to reports, the Centre had approved a labour Budget of 22 crore mandays for the state for the ongoing fiscal. But, the state achieved its target by October last year due to the increased demand of work in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. Following this, the Centre had approved another 5 crore mandays acting on the request of state government. However, even the 5 crore mandays were exhausted by December last year.
Considering the demand of jobs, sources said the state government had continued the 100 days' work even after it exhausted its sanctioned 27 crore mandays. The state had anticipated that the Centre would give its consent to more labour Budget or mandays.
Sources claimed that the state had already created about 4.01 crore mandays over the approved budget of 27 crore mandays. During the pandemic, the state had issued about 4 lakh new job cards. These new job cards were mostly given to labourers, who returned from other states.
The Bengal government had provided jobs to lakhs of people under the scheme during the Covid pandemic when Subrata Mukherjee was the minister of the state Panchayats and Rural Development department.
With the demise of Mukherjee, the Chief Minister gave the department's responsibility to Pulak Roy. "Following the Chief Minister's direction, it had been our constant endeavour to ensure that the rural mass do not get deprived of the benefits of the scheme. It helped us to create more person days than that of the initial allocation," Roy had said earlier.