Coronavirus Lockdown: MGNREGA provides relief, not enough to counter the crisis

Back in focus

Residents of Mugalolli village of Bagalkot district protest demanding work under MGNREGA; farm pond being constructed in Kushtagi under MGNREGA.

Maremma Hennur and her fellow workers are busy constructing a bund when we meet her early in the morning. “We got work under MGNREGA only after June 6, that too after we staged a series of protests at the Gram Panchayat (GP) office,” the middle-aged woman says, wiping the sweat off her forehead. “The government should increase the number of days under MGNREGA,” adds Maremma, who lives in Farhatabad in Kalaburagi taluk.

On June 8, around 300 families went on a strike in front of the Gram Panchayat office in Mugalolli village of Bagalkot district demanding work under MGNREGA. Of them, 50 families had returned to the village on the night Lockdown 1.0 was announced.

Read: COVID-19: Several schemes, little progress for agrarian economy

Anil Jadhav, 22, who stays in Chennur Tanda in Chincholi taluk in Kalaburagi, recently returned from Mumbai. He was briefly employed under MGNREGA in the Lingadahalli GP limits, but the work stopped soon. Jadhav can only stay back in his village if he finds a job locally that can match the Rs 700 per day her earned in Mumbai.

The panic due to COVID-19 has caused thousands of workers like Jadhav across state borders to return to their homes in Northern Karnataka. After travel relaxations under Lockdown 4.0, over 12,000 migrant labourers from the neighbouring states have returned to Dharwad, Gadag and Haveri districts.

Rendered jobless, many of these returnees have placed their hopes on the MGNREGA to provide them with employment.

This year, Karnataka has seen a huge surge in households seeking employment under MGNREGA, with demand for work under the scheme in May being the highest since the inception of the scheme. In places like Belagavi, where the number of job card holders averaged around 75,000, the number has surpassed 95,000 post the lockdown.

However, many of those returning home have found that not enough work is being undertaken under the MGNREGA scheme. They also face a hostile environment in their villages, where residents are wary of Covid-19 and see every new returnee to the village as a potential threat.

Also Read: Karnataka: With no hope in their villages, migrants return to Bengaluru amid lockdown

The returnees are asked to produce medical fitness certificate from the local public health centre or district hospital; the mandatory quarantine, sometimes extending up to 28 days (14 days in institutional quarantine and 14 at home), has proved to be costly for people who have returned empty-handed.

Anusha, 24, returned to Dharward during the Lockdown 4.0. She was earning Rs 15,000 per month working as a household help but back home, all of her efforts to gain employment under different government schemes have failed. Anusha, like thousands of other returnees, urgently needs work to sustain herself and her family.

Delayed payments

Shivakumar Sharma, an ex-GP member in Farhatabad, in Kalaburagi, says a good government scheme is failing because of laxity of government officials. His chief complaint is that the labourers who are supposed to be paid within 15 days of completing work, are not being paid on time.

DH also saw people violating social distancing norms at MGNREGA worksites.

“We are not denying job cards to anybody. Job cards are issued for the migrant workers after completing the mandatory quarantine period as per the government guidelines,” Kalaburagi Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Dr P Raja told DH.

In Dharwad, the Zilla Panchayat CEO B C Sateesh says that “Of 144 gram panchayats in the district, 107 have issued 1,085 nominal muster roll based on demand and 1,121 works are under progress. As many as 3,546 families have submitted demand for work and 1,414 have been provided.”

With the social distancing norms in place, however, he says that work under the MGNREGA is focusing on individual farms rather than community initiatives. Sateesh also said that this year, he number of job cards provided has been increased and the Zilla Panchayat has also launched a toll free helpline at 1800-4258-666.

However, a district-level official, under the condition of anonymity, told DH that there is immense pressure on the government from political leaders to not allot work under MGNREGA during the monsoon, as there will be a shortage of labourers to work in the agriculture fields.