The Calcutta High Court has sought response from the Government of West Bengal and the Centre over payment of unemployment allowance to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) beneficiaries.
On October 7, the court referred to the ongoing row between the Centre and the State over the release of MGNREGA funds. This led to non-payment of wages for several beneficiaries.
Advocate General Kishore Datta, who appeared for West Bengal, said they were unable to implement the MGNREGA scheme due to a March 9, 2022 order from the Centre. This order froze State’s MGNREGA funds and asked them to follow certain directives.
Mr. Datta, appearing before the Division Bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Bivas Pattanayak, urged that the freeze be lifted and that they had taken several measures in compliance with the directives.
Mr. Datta said, “The Centre has paid 49 visits, but did not find any substantial irregularities. We sent 20 action taken reports to the visiting team, but there has been no response.”
“Whether their paymaster pays or not, it is the obligation of the State government to provide employment,” argued advocate Purbayan Chakraborty, representing the Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity. He said the tiff between the Centre and the State could not be a reason for not providing work to thousands of rural workers, which affected their lives adversely.
The High Court said, “Employment has not been provided by the State government citing the reason that the Centre has stopped releasing the funds. If that be the case, it goes without saying that the people are unemployed. If people are unemployed, in terms of Section 7, they are entitled for unemployment allowance and sub-section (3) of Section 7 fixes the liability for payment of unemployment allowance on the State government.”
The Bench asked the Union government to file a report addressing the claims made by the State’s advocate about 20 action taken reports submitted by them.
Appeal to Modi
About a month ago, around 4,700 MGNREGA workers had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to resume the scheme in West Bengal which had been suspended over a face-off between the two parties.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had accused multiple times that the Centre had failed to release their long overdue MGNREGA funds.
On February 2, while sitting on a 48-hour dharna demanding unreleased funds from the Centre, Ms. Banerjee said she did not want alms from the Modi government. “We do not want to beg from the BJP. By February 21, we will transfer money to the bank accounts of 21 lakh workers who did not get the money from the Central government even after working under the 100-day work scheme [MGNREGA] in the last three years. This is my first step.”
Published - October 09, 2024 08:04 pm IST
