MNREGA wage payments delayed
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 5, 2016
As per government data, close to 66% of the all the wage payments made under the MNREGA were delayed in 2015-16. Close to 10% of the wage payments were delayed for more than 3 months and only 1.2% of the delay compensation is paid so far.
The annual performance report of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) for the year 2015-16 was released recently. As per data available with the government, Rs 35062.93 crore was the total wage payments for the year 2015-16. Out of this amount, payment of 65.6% or Rs 23017.6 crore was delayed beyond the stipulated 15 days.
More than 3/4th of the wage payments were delayed in 14 States/UTs
In a total of 14 States/UTs, more than 75% of the wage payments in 2015-16 were delayed beyond the stipulated 15 days.  Top of the charts is Meghalaya where 99.2% of all the wage payments in 2015-16 were delayed. 92% of the wage payments were delayed in Chattisgarh followed by 85.6% in Punjab. More than 80% of the wage payments were delayed in 10 different States/UTs. The percentage of wage payments delayed was more than the national average in 20 different States/UTs.  Manipur performed the best among states with only 16.9% wage payments delayed beyond the 15 day limit. Less than 50% of the wage payments were delayed in only seven States/UTs.
More than 24 Crore transactions received delayed payment in 2015-16
Out of the 38.6 crore wage payment transactions in 2015-16, 24.1 crore transactions were delayed beyond the stipulated 15 days (around 62%). More than 90% of the transactions were delayed in 3 States/UTs and more than 80% were delayed in 12 different States/UTs. More than 60% of the transactions were delayed in 23 different States/UTs. Less than 20% of the transactions were delayed in only Manipur and Andhra Pradesh.
Close to Rs 3400 Crore Wage Payments were delayed for more than 3 months
Out of the wage payments made in 2015-16, Rs 3397.8 crore were delayed for more than 3 months, which is 10% of all the wage payments made. The North Eastern states reported strange trends. More than 70% of the wage payments were delayed for more than 3 months in Arunachal Pradesh, the highest for any state. Next in the list were Meghalaya, Nagaland & Assam, all of them in the North East. At the same time, Manipur & Mizoram reported less than 1% of the wage payments delayed for more than 3 months. In terms of transactions, close to 2.9 crore transactions were delayed for more than 3 months.
Only 1.2% of the delay compensation is paid so far
As per the new guidelines, the MNREGA workers are entitled to receive delay compensation at the rate of 0.05% of the unpaid wages per day for the entire duration of delay beyond the 16 day. As per data available, a total of Rs 444.38 crore is the payable amount of compensation for a total of 821 crore delay days. Out of this amount, only Rs 9.6 Crore is approved (about 2.2%) and only Rs 5.1 crore (about 1.2%) is paid so far. Not a single rupee of delay compensation is approved in 19 States/UTs though Rs 127 crore of delay compensation is pending from those states.
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