MGNREGS wages increased to Rs.126; 'State conceals increase'
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, February 04, 2011:
The Government of India has increased the wages of unskilled labour under the MGNREGS from Rs.81.80 to Rs.126, but the concerned authority in the state is concealing the fact by not notifying the order of the central government.
The modification to the MGNREGS Act 2005, Section 6, sub section 1 which mentions the minimum wages of unskilled manual worker, was made by an extraordinary gazette notification by the Union government sanctioned on January 14 this year.
The notification also mentioned that the revised rate of unskilled workers will be effective from January 2011.Under the notification, the minimum wages for unskilled workers of Manipur will be Rs.126.Andaman and Nicobar islands have the highest rates with Rs.170 for Andaman and Rs.181 for Nicobar while Meghalaya has lowest rate with only Rs.117.In the NE, Assam has highest rate at Rs.131.Arunachal Pradesh has Rs.118, Mizoram Rs.129, Nagaland Rs.118, Sikkim Rs.118 and Tripura Rs.118.In Manipur there have been many incidents of mishandling of wages of job card holders by the higher officials.
District Programme Coordinators, District Officers, Zilla Parishads, Pradhans, Members and even local MLAs are eyeing the scheme as a source of personal income instead of providing the job card holders their rightful jobs.
They are also not paying any attention to the directives of Ombudsmen and deputy Ombudsmen to solve the various complaints of the workers.
Many job card holders have requested the Ombudsmen of Imphal East to give them unemployment allowances since they could not get jobs even after 15 days of application to provide jobs.
The complaints were made to Programme Officer, CD Block Keirao Bitra, Th Priyochandra and secretary of Top Naoriya Gram Panchayat Md Baktachaman.
Under the act of the scheme, the state government should bear the amount of unemployment allowance to be given to the job card holders.
Implementing agencies are not doing anything to address the complaints of the workers.