Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to listing the plea alleging non-payment of wages to lakhs of employees below the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA).
The plea by advocate Prashant Bhushan has stated that there’s at the moment a grave disaster confronted by crores of employees below the scheme within the nation, with their pending wages piling up together with destructive balances in a lot of the states.
It has added that as of November 26, 2021, the state governments are going through a scarcity of Rs 9682 crores and 100% of the allotted funds for the 12 months have been exhausted with 5 months of the 12 months nonetheless remaining.
“This is despite this excuse of shortage of funds being a gross violation of the law…” The petition states.
The plea by Swaraj Abhiyan says that the actual demand for work from registered job cardholders will not be precisely registered within the system, denying the job card holders their statutory proper to employment or failing which ‘unemployment allowance’.
It seeks pressing instructions to redress this example and supply reduction to lakhs of rural poor.
The petitioner additionally seeks pressing instructions from this courtroom to offer 50 ‘additional days of employment’ below the Act to every family and to precisely enable registration of demand for work straight on the official web site.
The petition talks concerning the Preamble and the Act gives assured wage employment of a minimum of 100 days for each rural family. It says that that is a very powerful provision to be fulfilled.
“It allows households facing distress due to unemployment, underemployment, or other economic hardships to get at least 100 days of work at the wage rate stipulated by the Government, and use the wage for survival and basic income security,” it stated,
The plea notes that achievement of those targets depends on work being offered as per the legislation.
“If work is not provided as per the guarantee, all the other aspects of this comprehensive social safety net fail to be realized. The social safety net falls flat if the job cardholders are unable to exercise their statutory right to apply for and get work on demand,” it’s argued.
The petition contends that the worth of the scheme will increase exponentially throughout occasions of calamities and disasters, and due to this fact it’s much more essential in such occasions that the employees can safe their entitlements below the legislation seamlessly.
“In truth, the MGNREGA makes particular provisions for extra days of employment to be offered in occasions of catastrophe and calamity,” it added.