Odisha CM urges Centre to release Rs 676.57 crore under MGNREGA

KalingaTV News Network

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday wrote to Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar urging him to release the due Rs 676.57 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme for payment of the labourers.

The Chief Minister in his letter informed Tomar that the Government of India was supposed to release Rs 2290.19 crore to the Odisha government by the end of December, 2017. However, only Rs 1613.62 crores (including pending liability) has been released till date and thus there is shortfall of Rs 676.57 crore.

“In the meanwhile, FTOs of Rs 130.53 crores are pending with Ne-FMS to be credited to the accounts of MGNREGA workers. The State Government has declared 5958 villages under 1097 Gram Panchayats of 70 Blocks in 15 Districts as drought affected. Yet, labourers are not evincing interest in availing MGNREGA work due to non-receipt of wages on time, which may cause distress migration. On its part, the State Government has ensured that all FTOs are generated on time without any delay,” Naveen said in the letter.

Alternatively, the letter suggested Odisha should be allowed to revert to e-FMS system from Ne-FMS to enable the state government to ensure timely payment of wages utilising the corpus as and when required.