Bengal Panchayat Department asks district judges to compile list of MGNREGS job card holders who haven't received pay

All district judges have been asked by the Bengal Panchayat Department to compile a comprehensive list of MGNREGS job card holders whose pay are still owed even after working under the program.

The directive was given in response to Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee's pledge, made on October 3 in Delhi, that all 20 lakh MGNREGS workers who had not yet received their due pay would do so by June 30 of 2024, with 10% interest.

Abhishek, who is currently demanding workers' pay outside Raj Bhavan on the fourth day of his "indefinite protest," also declared earlier that the salaries of the party's elected officials would be used to pay the 2,500 MGNREGS employees who participated in the Trinamul protest on October 2 and 3.

You are required to furnish a list of rural unskilled workers who worked for the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS in 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 but have not yet received pay. The letter from the commissioner of the panchayat department, who oversees MGNREGS implementation in Bengal, requests that you deliver the aforementioned report by affirmatively 10.10.2023.

In December 2021, the national government stopped making payments to Bengal under the MGNREGS, citing money embezzlement.

According to sources, a large number of cardholders in Bengal participated in projects funded by the scheme between December 2021 and March 2022 since the state government carried out the program in anticipation of funding from the federal government.

Officially, representatives from the panchayat department stated that a list was being created to identify the names of people who were not paid.

"We don't receive the names of people who haven't received their rightful wages through our site. The list is being created for this reason, according to an official.

However, officials in the administration noted that a number of factors could be at play, particularly given that the action was taken soon after Abhishek committed to pay their debts.

Although Abhishek claimed 20 lakh workers were deprived, the panchayat department has no official list. The real number and names will be disclosed on the list, which would be created at the gram panchayat level. Additionally, according to sources, the state government may try to find a solution to pay the debts owed by the disadvantaged employees.

Third, after the union rural development minister, Giriraj Singh, declared that 25 lakh bogus employment cards had been destroyed in Bengal, the list is being developed to make sure that no phony job card holder is included in the list of disadvantaged beneficiaries.

Following the failure to seed Aadhaar with work cards, several job cards were canceled. We must verify that there are no fictitious cardholders on the list of beneficiaries before making it public. If not, it will give the BJP a tool to oppose our movement, a Bengal minister warned.

Finally, the list may benefit the ruling party politically because it will allow it to contact each beneficiary directly before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 through elected officials.

Before the Lok Sabha elections, "the state government can reach out to the disadvantaged beneficiaries individually and talk to them, it would definitely benefit the ruling party," said a source.

But senior government officials argued that the likelihood of the second scenario was low. Since MGNREGS is a government supported program, the state finance has little flexibility to pay employees under a central program. Additionally, a reasonable estimate places the total amount owed at almost Rs 2,700 crore, which would be difficult for the state exchequer, which is already struggling, to bear.

According to sources, it will be intriguing to watch what turns up after the list is made.

"It is obvious that Trinamul is not prepared to let the matter go away before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. After the list of beneficiaries is created, the governing establishment might have other ideas to keep the protest going, an official stated.