About 2.5 lakh households have already exhausted their 100 days of guaranteed employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) in the first three months of this financial year.
As per the data available on the MGNREGA portal, out of 4.90 crore households that have availed work under the rural job scheme from April 1 to July 6 this year, 2.5 lakh have completed 100 days of employment that is allowed under the scheme.
MGNREGA activists say this indicates high demand for work, and that the government should increase the 100-day employment limit to ease the hardships faced because of the pandemic.
Nikhil Dey, activist with Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, said the scheme has a provision to increase the number of paid employment days in case of a calamity. "COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis, so the government should provide additional employment days. If you stop providing work at this time on the grounds because the 100 days limit has been crossed, it will be a huge crisis for these families."
Under MGNREGA, districts affected by natural disasters such as a drought can seek expansion of the scheme to allow for 150 days of work per household. Activists said the coronavirus pandemic should be declared a national disaster so that this provision can be implemented immediately across the country.
Dey said most of the demand for work goes unregistered as the governments are required to provide work to a registered applicant within 15 days of the demand, failing which an unemployment allowance is payable by the state government.
Dey added that the government should also increase the daily wage rate because inflation has increased sharply.
Debmalya Nandy, an activist with the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, said over 2 lakh families completing 100 days of work already in the fiscal indicates that the government needs to provide additional days of work under the scheme.
Nandy further noted that the MGNREGA work demand by households this year although is lower than 2020-21 is almost 38 percent higher than the demand in June 2019-20, a year when the economic activity was normal and not dented by the pandemic. While the persondays generated in 7 percent lower than 2019 and 56 percent lower than 2020 which means the work allotted is significantly lesser this year.
The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking 50 days of additional work for beneficiaries over and above 100 days as the pandemic had severely hit the poor.
It suggested that a supplementary budget can be allocated from the National Disaster Relief Fund, and that wages under the scheme should be fixed at Rs 600 per day in accordance with the recommendations of the 7th pay commission. It also suggested that the payment process should be simplified to ensure weekly payments to the workers at the worksite itself.
MGNREGA is widely attributed to have provided employment opportunities to millions of workers, who shifted back to their hometowns and villages after having lost jobs in the wake of COVID-19 in 2020.
It is a flagship scheme rolled out by the Congress-led UPA government in 2006 was later renamed MGNREGA in 2009. It guarantees at least 100 days of employment in a financial year to unskilled rural households at a pre-determined minimum wage rate.
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