Brinda Karat wrote a letter to Tomar, raising questions on the different payment categories of SC, ST under MNREGA

Senior CPI(M) Brinda Karat writes to Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, questioning the intention behind the advice sent to states to segregate wage payments under MGNREGA into different categories for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and others. Is raised. He said the advisory mandates states to ensure social categorization in every aspect of the implementation of the law- from projected expenditure in the labor budget to projected demand among SC/ST households, state-level accounting for wage payments to SCs. to separate. and for ST categories, Utilization Certificate etc. “However, no reason has been given for this extreme bureaucracy, which, in view of the past experience of delays in various matters on payment of wages, will rightly affect the SC/ST sections that fall prey to these different accounting and banking procedures. will go, ” said. Karat is a politburo member of the CPM. “Why is this necessary? The advisory of the state governments does not give any concrete reason for this. However, there is a sentence in the advisory which casts serious doubts on the intention of the government.

It said: “All stakeholders may ensure action is taken in a time bound manner so that funds are released accordingly.” Stating that MGNREGA is a universal program for any adult living in rural India who is willing to do manual work, he said, “The budgetary provisions are made for the implementation of the law as a whole. Thus, it cannot be determined by any new interpretation of the law to introduce a policy of divisible allocation by social categories, which appears to be advisory. In a demand-based universal program for provision of work, it said “allocation can be based only on the expected demand for work. Linking classification with allocation would weaken the basis of the law, as stated above, it is demand based and also universal in its eligibility criteria. He asked the government to explain the reason for issuing the advisory. .