The State Government on Monday informed the Legislative Assembly that the Centre has cut allocations by over Rs 1,000 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MNREGA) in the current fiscal year citing no reasons.
In a reply to the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department’s demands, RDPR Minister H.K. Patil criticised the Centre’s attitude towards the State and said the execution of the 15-point programme would be slowed down if the Centre reduced over Rs 1,000 crore to the job scheme.
Even as the Tamil Nadu Government had spent 73 per cent of the funds last year, it has been allocated Rs. 3,943 crore. Karnataka had been allocated Rs. 1,829 crore in 2014-15, nearly Rs. 1,000 crore less compared to 2013-14. The Andhra Pradesh had been given Rs. 4,100 crore at one in April last, he said and strongly opposed the Centre’s discrimination against the State.
Noting that severel E-governance steps have helped to flug the leakage in the funding of the MNREGA, Mr. Patil said 1697 playgrounds were created and work on another 2,250 grounds under progress.
On the issue of E-Swathu, he said number of pending applications has reduced to 0.5 per cent in GPs across the State and it helped reduction in currption. However, several members cutting across partylines demanded revamping of the software.
