JOIN USActivists want govt to pledge more funds for MGNREGS
Tens of thousands of migrant workers fleeing the cities in the wake of the lockdown are set to find it harder to earn livelihood back in the villages even after the curbs are lifted unless the Union Government commits more funds for the rural job scheme and expands its scope.
A routine annual hike in the rates of wages for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) will come into effect on Wednesday, just as it did on the first days of the past financial years too. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government, however, projected the hike in wages as a component of its package to help the poor in the villages and alleviate the distress on the rural economy due to the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The social activists keeping tabs on implementation of the MGNREGS argued that the rural job scheme was one of the best tools available with the government, not only to help the migrant workers leaving the cities and going back to the villages, but also to rebuild the economy after the current crisis. “The government must pledge more funds for the scheme and make arrangements to do away with the limit of providing just 100 days of work in a year as well as to make it more flexible,” Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sangathan said. “The Ministry of Rural Development should allow more such works under the scheme that would help reconnect the supply chain, revive the rural economy and, most importantly help rebuild the lives of migrant workers, who had to go back to the villages due to the lockdown,” Dey told the DH.
The MGNREGS – mandated by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – is designed to guarantee at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household having adults ready to do unskilled manual work.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 61,500 crore for the MGNREGS in the Union Budget for 2020-21.
The Government had allocated Rs 60000 crore for the scheme in the Budget for 2019-20. Though the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) had asked for a hike of Rs 20000 crore in the revised allocation, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) had only increased it by Rs 11002 crore to Rs 71000 crore. The allocation for the scheme in 2020-21 is even Rs 9500 crore less than what was earmarked for it in the revised estimate of the previous financial year.
“The migrant workers, who have now gone back to the villages, may not return soon, because not much employment opportunities may be available for them in the urban areas immediately after the lockdown is lifted,” economist Jean Drèze said. “The government will have to spend much more for the MGNREGS to support the migrant workers going back to the villages as well as the rest of the rural population once the lockdown is lifted and the crisis gets over,” Drèze, a visiting professor at Ranchi University, said. He also said that the government should use the public distribution system to deliver food to the migrant workers going back to the villages, in addition to providing cash.
A spokesperson of the MoRD said that the ministry was “according top priority to liquidate the wage and material arrears” under the MGNREGS. “An amount of Rs 4,431 crore has been released recently to the various States and Union Territories to liquidate the liabilities of the current (2019-20) fiscal year and the remaining such liabilities along with first tranche for the year 2020-21 will be released before April 15,” said the spokesperson.