Chandra S Pemmasani, Minister of State for Rural Development and Communications, delivered a strong rebuttal to the opposition’s attempts to portray the BJP-led central government as trying to undermine the MGNREGA program by slashing its budget and deleting labour cards.
In a question raised by Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil, DMK MP T.R. Baalu, and others about budget cuts for the scheme, Pemmasani clarified that MGNREGA is a “demand-based” program. He also pointed out that, under the UPA regime from 2009-10 to 2012-13, budget allocations were lower than the increases implemented by the Modi government.
In a written reply to Venugopal’s question on MGNREGA budget allocations, Union Minister of Rural Development Shivraj Singh Chouhan confirmed that the funding had increased significantly—from ₹60,000 crore in 2019-20 to ₹86,000 crore in 2024-25. The revised estimates for funds released also rose, going from ₹71,687.71 crore in 2019-20 to ₹74,976.84 crore in 2024-25.
During the discussion, Senthil highlighted that the budgetary allocation had consistently been lower than the revised estimates of the previous financial year and raised concerns, asking, “This program is an excellent example of how blind the government is. The minister accepted that despite revised estimates yearly, they keep reducing the budget. I want to know the reason for this being a demand-driven program. Despite your budget of 60000 crores, the country’s people keep saying this is not the demand. What is stopping the government from going with the revised estimate every year? Every year, you revise the budget back to 60000. Why would you do this if your intention is not to scrap the program? You have introduced all methods to stop this program. You have introduced an app where every farm labourer must register attendance. Do you have any idea how many people are not able to register for attendance on the app? You have deleted cards left, right, and centre. Do you have any account of how many cards have been reduced? Why do you keep reducing the budget despite the people of this country telling you this program is important? You must revise the budget by more than 30 to 40 crores every year. Is the government so blind and insensitive to the people of the country?”
Today, on the 3rd of December, in response to Shri T.R. Balu’s question about MGNREGS, the Minister of State for Rural Development, Shri Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani performed a fascinating act of joomla. Truly, the circus never ends!
The BJP seems to be on a relentless mission to… pic.twitter.com/aU3XzsD2tj
— Sasikanth Senthil (@s_kanth) December 3, 2024
In response to Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil’s allegation about a reduction in the budget, Minister of State Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani strongly rejected the claim, saying, “You said that the budget has been reduced, as I said earlier, the budget has not been reduced. Every year, 10,000 to 20,000 crores more are allocated to the budget.”
Addressing the issue of a lower budget, Chandra Sekhar further explained, “Every year, the budget is done in a consultative process. The secretary of rural development and all state secretaries sit together, and they estimate this budget based on the previous year’s work. If you look at it, some states will do differently. For example, in 2022, the state of Uttar Pradesh, with twenty crore population, has asked for 10000 crores and the state of Tamil Nadu, with a population of seven crores, has asked for ten thousand crores and in the next year, 2024, the state of Uttar Pradesh has asked similarly with 500 crores more. In contrast, Tamil Nadu asked for 2500 crores more, which is 25% more. So when these things happen, there will be anomalies, and they will be corrected, but at the same time, despite them asking 2500 crores, the GOI and Modiji have given those 2500 crores extra money. So it is not true that we are not giving.”
Minister Chandra Sekhar then addressed the job deletion issue, stating, “Job deletion of cards is the function of the State government; the central government has no role in Job deletion. So the way the job deletion happens is if there are fake applicants or duplicate applicants if the village becomes urbanised, or if the person moves from one gram panchayat to another gram panchayat, that is when job cards will be updated and deleted, and again, it is the responsibility of the state and not the centre’s responsibility.”
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