An average wage payment worth Rs. 8 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is frozen for the last 7 weeks in Coimbatore district.

Inquiries with the department revealed that the last payment released to the beneficiaries was on August 22 this year.

Since August 30, the payments to the beneficiaries had been frozen by the Centre, a higher official said. The frozen payment was not only limited to Tamil Nadu. But it had been frozen since August 31 for 19 states across the nation, the official added. There was no cash handling in payment of wages to the MGNREGA beneficiaries, as the wages were directly credited to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries by the Centre.

Out of the 228 village panchayats, MGNREGA works were carried out in 226 panchayats. The official also said that IT-enabled Electronic Muster Roll (EMR) method of attendance system had been introduced from Friday to plug loopholes in the government welfare schemes and improve transparency and efficiency in the implementation of MGNREGA in rural areas, the official added.