New Delhi: The parliamentary standing committee on rural development has pulled up the Union Rural Development Ministry for what it termed as “sidelining” of a specific query of the committee about existing pendencies under the material components of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).“It is unfathomable how a specific query of the committee can be sidelined..on such an important matter,” said the committee headed by Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka on Monday (August 11), as it tabled its report on action taken on its recommendations made on the 2025-26 demand for grants, reported Deccan Herald.The committee told the Ministry that it should clear all pending bills to avoid delays in the disbursement of wages to labourers.In its report on the 2025-26 budgetary allocation, the committee said that wages worth Rs. 12,219.18 crore were pending, while Rs 11,227.09 crore remained uncleared against the material component for a welfare-oriented schematic intervention like the MGNREGS.It added that this accounted for 27.26% of the current budget, which meant that more than one-fourth of the allocated funds would be used to clear previous years’ dues. The report also said that the actual working budget for the current financial year was reduced to Rs 62,553.73 crore.The committee felt that both aspects of the MGNREGS including a demand-driven nature of the scheme and the creation of assets under the scheme were severely hampered owing to such pendencies, the report stated.Expressing its concern over the pendency, the committee recommended that the Department of Rural Development take immediate steps to ensure the timely release of the Central government’s share of funds under wages and materials, strengthen coordination with state governments, and adopt effective measures to prevent further delays in disbursement, said the DH report.