Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday requested the Centre to release Rs 676.57 crore to pay the wages under the MGNREGA scheme till December 2017.
In a letter to Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the Chief Minister sought his intervention for the release of the funds.
Patnaik said the Centre was supposed to release Rs 2,290.19 crore to the state by December-end but it had released only Rs 1,613.62 crore (including pending liability) till date, denoting a shortfall of Rs 676.57 crore.
The Chief Minister urged for the release of the funds or permission to the Odisha government to disburse wages to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme workers through e-FMS mode out of its own funds, subject to reconciliation of the amount on receipt of necessary allocation from the Ministry.
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