By IANS,
Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh government Saturday demanded a hike in the financial assistance provided to it under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
“We have urged the central government to provide us an additional grant of Rs.24 crore annually to reimburse the hike in wages under NREGS,” state Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Minister Jai Ram Thakur told reporters.
He called on union Rural Development Minister C.P. Joshi in New Delhi to apprise him of this demand.
“The daily wage for labourers under NREGS has been fixed at Rs.100 per day by the central government but the state enhanced the wages to Rs.110 per day from March 1. Likewise, the wages of the labourers in the tribal areas have been increased to Rs.138 per day. So we urged the central government to provide us additional grants,” he said.
NREGS, the flagship scheme of the central government, promises 100 days of employment to rural people.
The central government has allocated a whopping Rs.39,100 crore for 2009-10 for the scheme, a hefty 144 percent hike over the previous budget estimates.