The Calcutta High Court has MGNREGA scheme in West Bengal from the 1st of August, finally ending the three year suspension. MGNREGA in Bengal was suspended due to allegations of financial irregularities. The decision, taken by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee, was in response to a petition by Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity or PBKMS. The PBKMS were representing the nearly 2.5 crore rural workers who have been deprived of their statutory employment rights since 2022.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA is a social welfare program enacted in 2005 by the then Congress government. MGNREGA focuses on providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment per year to rural households. Funded fully by the union government, MGNREGA’s objectives include reducing rural poverty, curbing distress migration, and fostering sustainable development through community assets. Wages are linked to specific state minimum rates and are paid directly to workers’ bank accounts to ensure transparency.
Although court has ordered resumption of the scheme, it agrees on allowing the Centre to impose checkpoints to prevent future malpractices. Actions like direct fund transfers to beneficiaries’ accounts and ongoing probes into past irregularities will protect the centre’s aim to safeguard workers’ rights. The HC shared that it believes genuine workers should not suffer for the actions of a few.
Politically, the court’s verdict has turned into a tug of war of sorts. CM Mamata Banerjee has welcomed the mandate but also remarked that West Bengal’s state government had started a program ‘Karmashree’ in absence of MGNREGA work that stipulated 50 day’s work for those affected. The TMC party praised the CM for this major turnover where the BJP party stood opposed calling it a win against corruption instead.
