NREGA workers file FIR against PM Narendra Modi over non-payment of wages

Hundreds of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) across 50 districts in nine states filed FIRs against Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to non-payment of promised wages under the rural employment scheme, CNBC-TV18 reported.

FIRs have been filed in 150 police stations under Sections 116 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The workers said between October 2018 and February 1, 2019, Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) were not processed in many states due to lack of available funds for the scheme.

According to the NREGA portal, payments worth Rs 9,573 crore are due for material and employed labour as of February 2018.

The interim budget of 2019 had allocated Rs 55,000 crore for the scheme, after additional funds worth Rs 6,084 crore had been released for it in January 2019.

However, that didn't prove to be enough as over Rs 5,745 crore of the additional outlay was spent on paying liabilities that were pending before October 2018. Therefore, there are no funds left to fulfill the demands of January-March 2019 period, activist group NREGA Sangarsh Morch told CNBC-TV18.

"As funds dried up, the system has stopped accepting any more fund transfer orders. So the payment dues are adding up. Apart from labour payments, even material payments have not been made in many states," Anuradha Talwar of the West Bengal Farm Workers Union is quoted in the report as saying.

Workers have moved the Ministry of Rural Development to release Rs 25,000 crore, which would be utilised till June 2019, till the full-term budget is announced by the new government. Experts have claimed that this delay is from the government's end.

Some states have huge pending liabilities. Rajasthan, for instance, has liabilities worth Rs 778 crore. Out of this, FTOs of Rs 668 crore have been approved but the processing of these payments has been halted due to a dearth of funds.

A report by People's Action for Employment Guarantee group stated that actual wages paid on time in 2017-18 will be around 32 percent instead of the 85 percent projected by the Centre.