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Women, employed under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme across the country, get only 78 per cent of the minimum wages paid to men, according to Indian Express report. The Ministry of Rural Development panel report said that not a single state has been able to enforce the payment of full minimum agricultural wages to its women workers. This comes after the panel had recently recommended that there was no need to bring MGNREGA wages on a par with minimum wages. It has been learnt that West Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Assam had done better but the ratio of women to men wages is only marginally higher than the national average, the report says.
22 states including Puducherry received wage payment directly through National Electronic Fund Management System. The Centre along with states is working on direct transfer of wages into the bank accounts of the workers. Over 85 per cent of active MGNREGA workers have their Aadhaar details seeded with their consent and 4.85 crores workers are already on the Aadhaar payment bridge linked Bank accounts, the statement added. The thrust of the MGNREGA is on water conservation and sates have adopted mission water conservation guidelines to focus on 2,264 water stressed and irrigation deficient blocks of the country, the report says.
Source: Financial Express
