Panel for hiking NREGA ex-gratia to Rs 1 lakh

The government should increase the ex-gratia amount paid under the NREGA to workers in case of their death or permanent disability from the current Rs 25,000 to Rs 100,000, a Parliamentary committee has recommended.

As per the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, if a person dies by accident arising out of and in the course of employment, implementing agency will have to pay Rs 25,000 as ex-gratia to the legal heirs of the victim and the same will be the case if someone becomes permanently disabled while working under the programme.

"The compensation paid to the victim or next of the kin of the diseased, as the case may be, is very paltry. . .," Public Accounts Committee on the implementation of NREGA said in its eighth report, tabled in Lok Sabha recently.

"The committee, therefore, recommend that this amount (Rs 25,000) should be enhanced to Rs 1 lakh," it said.

The committee also noted that there has been 'regional disparity' in the implementation of the 100-day rural employment guarantee scheme and recommended that Centre should conduct a comprehensive review to examine the reasons and take corrective measures accordingly.

While certain states like Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan have performed well, the performance of other states such as Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana were far from satisfactory, it noted.

"Ministry should conduct a comprehensive review to examine the reasons for such wide variations in the implementation of scheme in consultation with the state governments concerned and immediate corrective measures be taken to ensure that the programme is implemented uniformly across the country," it said.

The committee observed that 'several' good practices were being followed by the governments in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala in its implementation and recommended the Centre should conduct a detail study of them with a view to examine the feasibility of incorporating the same in the operational guidelines of the Act 'so that these can be followed by other states'.