Kolkata, Oct 6 : As the Trinamool Congress dharna, led by party’s general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, entered the second day on Friday in front of Rabhawan gate demanding state’s due shares of 100 days jobs
and other central schemes, the ruling party said its members would not move an inch until Governor C V Ananda Bose meets them.
After staging dharna in New Delhi for three days from October 2, Banerjee led a sit-in-demonstration in front of Rajbhawan gate from Thursday .The governor, who visited the flood affected north Bengal districts on
Thursday returned to New Delhi from there, sources said.
” As promised, our delegation, led by national GS Abhishek Banerjee will continue their indefinite dharna until the governor meets us,” an AITC statement said on Friday.
” It seems the Hon’ble Governor cannot see the irony behind his poetic words. Let’s make it clear”, the statement said
” We had given the call for Raj Bhavan Abhiyan to protest against the Centre’s politics of deprivation and the inhumane decision to hold the wages of 20 lakh workers who had already provided their services under MGNREGA,” Banerjee said.
” When we made this announcement, the Governor was not in Kolkata but in Kerala. As far as I know, and I might be mistaken, he was supposed to return to Kolkata on October 4. However, around 30 minutes after our programme was announced, a message was circulated from his office that the Governor would return to Delhi instead of Kolkata on October 4 and may return to Kolkata later,’ said the Diamond Harbour MP.
Meanwhile, the Union Rural Development Ministry said, ” there is no constraint of funds for the rural job scheme MGNREGA and reiterated that funds for West Bengal were not released due to non-compliance of
central directives.”.
“Funds of the State of West Bengal have been stopped from March 9, 2022 as per provision of Section 27 of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 due to non-compliance of directives of
the Central Government,’ a ministerial statement was released on Thursday.
The Union RRD ministry said by October 4, Rs 56,105.69 crore out of the Rs 60,000 crore budget for the scheme has been released.
“Availability of funds is not a constraint for the implementation of the programme,” it said.
The ministry said MGNREGA is a demand-driven wage employment programme and fund released to states and Union territories is a continuous process and the central government is making funds available keeping
in view the demand for work.
“The ministry has been making all efforts to pay wages in time. States/UTs have been advised to generate pay orders in time,” the statement said.
The ministry affirmed that in the present fiscal year till October 4, 99.12 per cent pay orders have been generated within 15 days.
“The delay in payment of wages are due to implementation issues in the states which include inadequate staffing, measurement, data entry, generation of wage list, Fund Transfer Order (FTO), etc. In case of delay in wage payment, the beneficiary is entitled for delay compensation as per the provisions,” it said.
The ministry also said the job card of a household can be deleted only in certain specific conditions, but not due to the Aadhaar Payment Bridge System (APBS).
“Updation/deletion of job cards is a regular exercise conducted by the States/UTs. A job card can be deleted in case it is a fake job card (incorrect job card)/ duplicate job card/ household not willing to work/ family shifted from gram panchayat permanently/ single person in job card and that person has expired,” it said.