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 labor 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 compared to the increases implemented by the Modi government.
In a written reply to a question from Venugopal 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 saw a rise, 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 a very good example of how blind the government is. In fact, the minister himself accepted the fact that in-spite of revised estimates every year, they keep reducing the budget. I want to know what the reason is because this is a demand-driven program. In spite of you budgeting 60000 crores, people of the country 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. If at all your intention is not to scrap the program, why would you do this? You have introduced all methods to stop this program. You have introduced an app in which every farm laborer has to register attendance. Do you have any idea how many people are not able to register their attendance on the app? You have deleted cards left, right, and center. Do you have any account of how many cards have been reduced? Why do you keep reducing the budget in-spite the people of this country telling you this program is important? Every year, you have to revise the budget by more than 30 to 40 crores. 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. In fact, 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, “In every year, the way the budget is done in a consultative process. Secretary of the rural development and all state secretaries sit together and they estimate this budget based on the previous year’ work and if you look at it … there are some states that will do differently. For example in 2022, state of uttar prades with twenty crore population has asked for 10000 crores and state of tamil nadu with a population of seven crores has asked for ten thousand crores and in the next year 2024, the sate of uttar pradesh has asked simplarly with a 500 crores more whereas tamil nadu asked for 2500 crores more which is 25% more. So when these things happen, there will be anamolies, they will be corrected but at the same time despite them asking 2500 crores the GOI and Modiji has given those 2500 crores extra money. So it is not true that we are not giving.”
Minister Chandra Sekhar then proceeded to address the issue of job deletion, stating, “Job deletion of cards is the functions of the State government, the central government has no role in Job deletion. So the way the job deletion hppens if they are fake applicants, duplicate applicants or if the village becomes urbanised or if the persn moves from one gram anchayat to another gram panchayat, that us when job cards will updated and delted and again it is the responsibility of the state and not centres responsibilty.”
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