New Delhi: The Modi government is yet to clear pending dues worth Rs 6,434 crore it owes states as wages for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) workers in this current financial year, Minister of State for Rural Development Kamlesh Paswan told the Lok Sabha Tuesday.
This includes Rs 2,867 crore the Centre needs to pay Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh for the payment of wages to MGNREGS workers.
The Centre also owes Rs 6,130.61 crore to 19 states and Union Territories for material components used in the implementation of the scheme.
According to social activists, despite the programme running on a deficit of over Rs 12,000 crore, the central government did not increase the MGNREGS allocation in the revised budget for this financial year.
The Modi government has allocated Rs 86,000 crore for the rural employment scheme for the financial year 2025-26 as well.
In a written response to a question by Congress MP from Katihar (Bihar) Tariq Anwar in the Lok Sabha, MoS Kamlesh Paswan provided the break-up of wage liability as of January 27.
Of the Rs 6,434 crore, the Centre is yet to pay Rs 1,652.45 crore to Tamil Nadu and Rs 1,214.85 crore to Uttar Pradesh, according to the data provided.
Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are among the few states with a high employment or number of person-days—26.27 crore person-days in TN and 29.94 crore in UP—as provided under the Centre’s flagship rural employment scheme in 2024-25 to date.
For the past few months, state governments have been asking the Centre to clear the dues, especially for the wage component.
On 13 January this year, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the release of Rs 1,056 crore for the payment of wage dues.
“Due to complete exhaustion of wage funds, based on the labour budget, wages to the tune of Rs 1,056 crore are pending to be disbursed to the workers under MGNREGS Tamil Nadu for the past two months,” according to the state government’s release posted on X.
The Tamil Nadu CM also said the state government’s request for an increase in the labour budget (or person-days) from 20 crore to 35 crore is awaiting approval from the rural development ministry.
Social activist Chakradhar Buddha, a senior researcher with Libtech India, highlighted the adverse impact the Centre’s decision to not revise the MGNREGS budget will have on workers.
“According to the scheme, workers should be paid within 15 days of completion of work. With pending wages, workers are finding it difficult to get work. The central government’s liability is roughly Rs 12,000 crore for this financial year, but it has still not increased the allocation in the revised budget,” said Buddha.
He added, “The NREGA budget for 2025-26 remains unchanged at Rs 86,000 crore, the same as 2024-25. Notably, there was no mid-year revision in 2024-25, unlike previous years when allocations typically received an upward revision.”
“As a result, a portion of this year’s budget might go towards clearing pending dues from 2023-24, further limiting funds available for new works and wage payments.”
1.55 crore active workers deleted
The deletion of MGNREGS workers has been a contentious issue, especially after the Centre made the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) and Aadhaar Based Payment System (ABPS) mandatory for attendance (though there were some exceptions) in 2023 and then wage payment in 2024.
According to the information provided by the rural development ministry, 1.55 crore active MGNREGS workers were deleted from the list between 2022 and 2024. A worker is considered active if he/she has demanded pay for even one day of work in the last three financial years.
Over 14 lakh active workers were deleted in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh each in 2022-23. In 2023-24, 16.27 lakh active workers in Madhya Pradesh were deleted.
“A total of 86,17,887 and 68,86,532 active workers have been deleted/cancelled during the financial year 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively, for reasons such as fake/duplicate/ incorrect job card, or the family shifted out of the Gram Panchayat permanently, the village became classified as urban, etc.,” Paswan said in a written response to a question by Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Madurai, S. Venkatesan.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: Parliamentary panel recommends increase in MGNREGS wages, linking it to an inflation index