<p>The Union government, by introducing the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin) [VB-G RAM G] Bill, has repackaged the scale and scope of rural employment. This goes beyond a mere renaming of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The political idea in replacing the Mahatma with Ram in the nomenclature will not be missed, but what the Bill signals is a shift from a rights-based employment guarantee scheme to a centrally-controlled plan with limitations and conditionalities. MGNREGA was a game-changing scheme; a powerful, welfare-based governance model with poverty alleviation as the driving idea. The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticised MGNREGA, but the Modi government retained the scheme, and has acknowledged that it provided wage support to rural households in the last two decades. It is being dismantled now.</p><p>In MGNREGA, the government provided the entire cost of wage payment and up to 75% of the material component outgo in the works. The new scheme proposes a 60:40 Centre-state fund-sharing pattern with some relaxation for the North-Eastern and Himalayan states. This will impose a substantial burden on states that are already financially stressed. It is estimated that the states will have to bear an additional Rs 50,000 crore as cost to run the scheme in its present size. It may create a situation where the scheme becomes unviable, with the states blamed for its non-implementation. The states may ask why they should provide 40% of the funds when the scheme is controlled by the Centre. In MGNREGA, the Central allocations depended on the states’ estimates of the demand for work. While it made a statutory guarantee of work for those who demanded it, the proposed scheme empowers the government to decide the norms for employment and allocations. If the states decide to run an employment scheme on their own, the norms for that programme will also be decided by the Centre. If the Centre lays down a threshold in the poverty index as one of the criteria, some states which have performed better in poverty alleviation may find themselves excluded.</p><p>The Bill proposes to increase the number of guaranteed minimum workdays from 100 to 125. It could have been done by amending the existing law. With the conditionalities built into the design of the new scheme, it may not be possible to offer even 100 days’ work. The move goes against federal principles and the idea that the right to work is basic and the government should honour it.</p>
<p>The Union government, by introducing the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin) [VB-G RAM G] Bill, has repackaged the scale and scope of rural employment. This goes beyond a mere renaming of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The political idea in replacing the Mahatma with Ram in the nomenclature will not be missed, but what the Bill signals is a shift from a rights-based employment guarantee scheme to a centrally-controlled plan with limitations and conditionalities. MGNREGA was a game-changing scheme; a powerful, welfare-based governance model with poverty alleviation as the driving idea. The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticised MGNREGA, but the Modi government retained the scheme, and has acknowledged that it provided wage support to rural households in the last two decades. It is being dismantled now.</p><p>In MGNREGA, the government provided the entire cost of wage payment and up to 75% of the material component outgo in the works. The new scheme proposes a 60:40 Centre-state fund-sharing pattern with some relaxation for the North-Eastern and Himalayan states. This will impose a substantial burden on states that are already financially stressed. It is estimated that the states will have to bear an additional Rs 50,000 crore as cost to run the scheme in its present size. It may create a situation where the scheme becomes unviable, with the states blamed for its non-implementation. The states may ask why they should provide 40% of the funds when the scheme is controlled by the Centre. In MGNREGA, the Central allocations depended on the states’ estimates of the demand for work. While it made a statutory guarantee of work for those who demanded it, the proposed scheme empowers the government to decide the norms for employment and allocations. If the states decide to run an employment scheme on their own, the norms for that programme will also be decided by the Centre. If the Centre lays down a threshold in the poverty index as one of the criteria, some states which have performed better in poverty alleviation may find themselves excluded.</p><p>The Bill proposes to increase the number of guaranteed minimum workdays from 100 to 125. It could have been done by amending the existing law. With the conditionalities built into the design of the new scheme, it may not be possible to offer even 100 days’ work. The move goes against federal principles and the idea that the right to work is basic and the government should honour it.</p>
