TIRUCHY: Beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) staged a protest demanding the release of the wages that is pending for more than four months after submitting a petition with the Thanjavur Collector on Monday.

According to the protesting members, the MGNREGS works were stopped without information in several areas in the district citing no fund release from the union government.

Since the works were stopped, the construction of ponds and other water bodies that had undergone particularly at Buthalur union in the district was stopped.

The members said that they were not disbursed the wages for more than 12 weeks and the officials claim that they were not aware of the time when the fund might be released.

“The workers earned their livelihood through the programme and the officials told them to stop the works ahead of monsoon and they were maintaining unusual silence about the resuming of the works,” said Tamil Selvi from CPM who led the protest and added that they were planning to approach the court for their pending wages.