Planning Commission member Dr. Mihir Shah has said that Kerala has been giving fruitful suggestions for revising the guidelines of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Dr.Mihir Shah,who chairs the committee on formulating new guidelines for the implementation of MGNREGA, was delivering a lecture on MGNREGA Employment Growth and Development in Rural India at Thiruvananthapuram last evening. He said so far,five crore families have been benefited through the programme.Two lakh crore rupees have been spent. Of this, seventy per cent have been utilised for paying wages. He said fifty per cent beneficiaries are from the SC,ST sections and fifty per cent wages have gone to women. MGNREGA is a crucial link between democracy and development. If wages are not paid within fifteen days of completion of work,officials will be held responsible under Section 25 of MGNREGA,he said. He said MGNREGA is the biggest employment programme in world history and aims at creating assets for sustainable livelihoods. The lecture was organised by the Kerala State Planning Board.