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Congress leader and former Party President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday spoke in the Rajya Sabha and raised the issue of the allocation for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and said that it had remained "stagnant" in the Union Budget 2025. She further alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led union government has "systematically undermined" the scheme.
The Congress leader demanded that the union government raise the minimum wage for people in the scheme to Rs 400 per day. "It is deeply concerning that the present BJP government has systematically undermined this scheme. The Budget allocation remains stagnant at Rs 86,000 crores," the Congress leader said during her address. She further underlined the multiple challenges the scheme is facing, including Aadhar based payments, delay in disbursing wages and also inadequate payments. "The scheme faces multiple challenges, including an exclusionary Aadhaar-based payment system and National mobile monitoring system, persistent delays in wage payments and inadequate payments," Gandhi said. The Opposition party has further demanded that the minimum wage of the scheme to be increased to Rs 400 per day and ensure a timely disbursement of wages. Since the introduction of the Union Budget on February 1 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Congress party has accused the union government of "throttling MGNREGA." Earlier on February 2, speaking on the scheme, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari expressed concerns over reduced funding for crucial sectors such as education, rural development, and MGNREGA in the budget and questioned the government's commitment to its "Viksit Bharat" vision. "The government made income up to Rs 12 lakhs tax-free but the same person will have to pay GST. The amount that they have waived off - twice that amount people need to pay one way or another. They have reduced the education budget and then will talk about Viksit Bharat," he said. The Congress leader added further, "They have cut short the budget for rural development and MGNREGA. People are talking about Bihar - a special package was promised but the government gave a 'jhunjhuna." MGNREGA was passed in 2005, under the then United Progressive Alliance government. The scheme guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to at least one member of rural household to any adult who is looking to do unskilled manual work. Women are also guaranteed one third of the jobs under the scheme. (ANI)
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