Only 51 days of work per household given under MNREGS in 2018-19

Govt said the total number of individuals who worked under the scheme in 2015-16 was 72.2 million

Only 51 days of work was provided per household across the country in 2018-19 as against 100 days mandated in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), the Centre said on Tuesday. While the Centre said the number of beneficiaries and budgetary allocation towards the rural employment scheme have increased over the years, the rural development ministry is struggling to meet the targets of the prime minister’s housing for all scheme for rural areas.

According to Rural Development Minister Narendra Tomar’s reply in the Lok Sabha, under the PM Awaas Yojana (Grameen) — restructured from the erstwhile Indira Awaas Yojana from April 1, 2016 — as many as 198,608 houses have been constructed as on November 15 against the target of 527,552 houses.

The minister said total 1,98,136 houses have been completed in Phase I (2016-17 to 2018-19) against the target of 327,552 houses. In Phase II (2019-20 to 2021-22), a mere 472 houses have been completed against the target of 200,000 houses.

On the MNREGA, in a reply to a question by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pritam Munde, the minister said the scheme is demand-driven. He said the Centre is engaged with state governments to set up systems to ensure the provision of work according to demand, transparency and accountability, and also take steps to create awareness about the scheme. According to the data, Mizoram topped the list providing 92 workdays, followed by West Bengal (77 workdays) and Kerala (66 workdays)…

Centre to meet state officials to discuss PM-KISAN scheme on Thursday

States would also be convinced to reconcile their PM-KISAN database with the Centre’s to prevent duplication and deletion of eligible beneficiaries

With a view to enrolling nearly 90 million farmers under the expanded PM-KISAN scheme by July, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has called a high-level meeting with state agriculture ministers on Thursday.

So far, senior officials said database of almost 57.6 million eligible farmers is available with the Centre of which a sizeable chunk has received the first installment of Rs 2,000 under PM-KISAN and have become eligible for the second tranche States would also be convinced to reconcile their PM-KISAN Scheme database with the Centre’s to prevent duplication and deletion of eligible beneficiaries.

“For example, in case of Punjab, as per the last agriculture census, around 37.7 million farmers would have been eligible for the scheme, but the state has uploaded details of over 16 lakh farmers in the PM-KISAN portal which is even more than the total number of cultivators in the state,” a senior official said.

West Bengal, which hasn’t yet participated in the scheme, has not confirmed its attendance Apart from PM-KISAN, the Centre’s ambitious programme to provide pension to almost 80 million eligible farmers in the age group of 18-40 years will also be discussed with the states along with expanding the ambit of Kisan Credit Cards, the officials said.