Centre removing 27L workers from MGNREGS rolls a cruel act, says CPM

CHENNAI: CPM State secretary P Shanmugam on Monday accused the Union government of carrying out a “cruel attack” on the rural poor by removing lakhs of workers from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) rolls.

He said that between October 10 and November 14 alone, 27 lakh beneficiaries across the country have been removed from the list, with the authorities citing the non-submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) details as the reason. He pointed out that multiple layers of verification, including mandatory Aadhaar linkage, had already been imposed on workers over the years.

Shanmugam alleged that the Union government had steadily been weakening the scheme by reducing budget allocations, cutting the number of workdays and lowering the number of active beneficiaries. “The long-term plan of the BJP government is to dismantle the 100-day employment scheme itself and push the rural poor towards hunger,” he said.

He called on the people to rise in opposition to what he described as the Union government's anti-poor policies.