It appears there are few rural poor left in Maharashtra. How else would one explain that while the central government’s flagship rural employment initiative, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), is a big hit across the country with states utilising more than 80% of funds allocated by the Centre, state spent only 50% of its share last year. The Union ministry of rural development is headed by a former chief minister of the state, Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Of the Rs638 crore provided to the state under the scheme in 2009-10, it was able to utilise only 50% — Rs321 crore. In 2008-09, the unutilised funds stood at 42%, while in 2007-08, the funds returned to the Centre were a whopping 61% of the allocation. Official sources in the ministry of rural development were unable to explain the high level of unutilised funds. “Our task is to provide funds and monitoring. We have no role in their disbursement,” said an official.
The scheme provides a legal guarantee for up to 100 days of wage employment a year to every rural household for doing unskilled manual work on demand. In 2009-10, the Centre pumped around Rs49,579 crore, while Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has allocated nearly Rs60,000 crore for the next fiscal. Even the number of people provided jobs dwindled in state. About 5.91 lakh people were employed under the scheme in 2009-10, as against 9.06 lakh in 2008-09. The number is also dismal during 2010-11 (upto January) with 3.30 lakh people employed under the scheme.
The man-days employed during 2009-10 in Maharashtra were 419 lakh, they fell sharply this year up to January to 127 lakh.
