During the Question Hour in Rajya Sabha when members expressed concern over various aspects of the scheme including low wages and delay in payments, Development minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that over 5.69 crore households had sought employment under the MGNREGA scheme in 2016-17 and 5.12 crore of them were provided work.
A Congress leader wanted to know that whether the households which had not been provided work were given unemployment allowance as per the provisions of the Act. For this Tomar said that people registered themselves for work but did not turn up later when called for work. But he has given an assurance to the upper house that he will make sure that the rules were being followed.
While referring to Telangana where cases have been registered of MGNREGA wages were not being paid on time, Tomar said the Centre was providing adequate funds for the scheme. Of the Rs 48,000 crore, the Centre had already disbursed up to Rs 31,000 crore and he will look more sincerely into Telangana’s matter. He has also said that he will make sure that the funds raised for MGNREGA are not diverted.
He also mentioned that the participation of women has gone up to 56% whereas participation of weaker section has gone up to 40%.
He said while those not having Aadhaar cards will not be barred from work under the scheme, but the unique identification number was being encouraged. Around nine crore Aadhaar cards have been linked.