CHENNAI: The state Congress on Tuesday announced a state wide protest on November 15 condemning the union government for completely destroying the MNREGS launched by the previous Congress regimes.

In a statement, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president K S Alagiri advised his district units to hold protest in front of national banks in all blocks in condemnation of the union government for reducing allocation to the MNREGS and destroying the scheme conceived in the previous UPA regime to fight poverty in the country.

Accusing the BJP regime of not according priority to the MNREGS and reducing the allocation for the scheme from Rs 98,478 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 60,000 in 2023-24 fiscal, Alagiri said that the allocation made by the BJP led union government for the scheme was 33% less than the revised estimate of Rs 89,000 crore in 2022-23 fiscal.

Pointing to the data posted online by the union government that the scheme was being implemented with a shortage of Rs 6,147 crore in the first six months of the current fiscal, the TNCC president said that the atrociously low fund allocation by the Modi regime for the scheme has reduced the average annual work days to 17 days per year.

Describing the union government's approach to the scheme as an assault on the rights of the rural labourers, Alagiri said that about Rs 2.72 lakh crore was required to ensure 100 days work to all under the scheme and the union government was being vengeful against states by not allocating funds for the scheme.

Pointing out that the current allocation for the scheme was only 0.198% of the GDP, the TNCC president said that the Modi regime, instead of allocating required funds for the scheme, was imposing unnecessary conditions to reduce the wage allocation to the labourers.

Claiming that the current allocation by the union government has enabled only 10% of the 6.49 crore beneficiary households to get 100 days work and it has forced the rural labourers to migrate owing to denial of work, the TNCC president advised his party workers to gather in big numbers for the state wide condemnation protest against the Modi regime for destroying the scheme.