Centre revives MGNREGA in Bengal after 3 years; Mamata calls terms 'insulting', tears up letter

The state has also been directed to submit its labour budget for FY26 within 30 days.

The Centre has agreed to restart MGNREGA work in West Bengal after a three-year freeze; however only under a stringent oversight framework designed to curb alleged irregularities in the scheme’s implementation.

In an order issued on December 6, the Ministry of Rural Development said the programme would resume “with immediate effect”, subject to full compliance with conditions laid down by the Calcutta High Court.

The state has also been directed to submit its labour budget for FY26 within 30 days.

According to the new norms, no work costing more than Rs 20 lakh will be sanctioned, and the state must conduct a comprehensive review of all job cards within a month. All workers must complete electronic KYC, and wage disbursals will be routed solely through Aadhaar Payment Bridge System-enabled transactions.

District magistrates will approve detailed project reports for all works, gram panchayats may undertake no more than 10 concurrent projects, and officers carrying out pre-estimation field visits must be geo-tagged and time-stamped. Works with muster rolls left unfilled for a month will be automatically suspended and reinstated only with district-level approval.

The Centre has further instructed the state to arrange annual audits of material and administrative spending by the Principal Accountant General and to ensure regular social audits.

District magistrates and block development officers will function as programme coordinators at their respective levels. The order also calls for time-bound action, including recoveries, FIRs, and departmental proceedings against officials found responsible for violations.

These measures are tied to the Centre’s invocation of Section 27 of the MGNREGA Act, under which it halted funds to the state in March 2022, citing large-scale corruption, the presence of bogus beneficiaries and persistent non-compliance.

The resumption order has triggered a sharp political response, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee publicly tearing up a copy of the Centre’s directive during a rally in Cooch Behar on Tuesday.

Describing the conditions as “restrictive”, “insulting” and “valueless”, she accused the Central government of using funds as a political tool and stalling rural development out of “jealousy and hatred”. Banerjee said the state would instead expand its own employment scheme, Karmashree, from 70 to 100 days of work without relying on “Delhi’s charity”. She also dismissed the requirement of quarterly labour budgets and mandatory training before work as impractical in an election year.

The Chief Minister alleged that the Centre still owes West Bengal Rs 51,627 crore under MGNREGA and accused it of withholding funds ahead of elections, leaving the state without adequate time for implementation. She noted that Bengal had ranked among the best-performing states in MGNREGA, rural housing and rural road development before funds were stopped.

Banerjee also announced a change to the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, stating that beneficiaries would now automatically qualify for old-age pensions without separate applications.

Meanwhile, the Centre has informed Parliament that it has released Rs 68,393.67 crore under MGNREGA to states and Union Territories in FY26 up to November 26. Of this, Rs 57,853.62 crore has been disbursed as wages and Rs 10,540.05 crore towards material and administrative components. Pending liabilities across the country stand at Rs 10,127.58 crore, with the highest dues in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

The Centre’s response did not list any pending dues for West Bengal for the current year and reiterated that all wage arrears up to FY25, except those of West Bengal, have been cleared.