No unemployment allowance, delayed payments, paucity of work: Parliamentary panel decries state of MGNREGS  

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Rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGS has been unable to provide employment to all households seeking work. It has also not been offering any unemployment allowance to these households, which is a guarantee under the scheme. Wages offered to those who do find work continue to be below the minimum wage in several States. And the budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Rural Development, which helms MGNREGS, continues to be well below the level needed to fulfil demand for work under the scheme.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has found several shortcomings in the implementation of this scheme and has again asked the Centre to increase its annual budgetary allocation. Also, the issue of inadequate work being made available, poor wages, shocking negligence in not offering unemployment allowance, delay in payments for works completed and many other anomalies have been listed out by the panel.

MGNREGS is the largest welfare scheme of the government. In 2020-21, the first pandemic year, when widespread lockdowns forced migrant workers to return to their villages and seek work under the scheme, the allocation was raised to the highest ever level of Rs 1.1 lakh crore at the RE stage. But the BE for 2021-22 was kept at Rs 73,000 crore; subsequently, the Centre had to allocate more funds to the scheme. For 2022-23, the BE has been retained at Rs 73,000 crore. This, despite demand for work in rural areas remaining elevated and not everyone getting paid on time.

Demand

In the current fiscal (FY22, till November 5), 1,558 lakh households were issued job cards. A job card is an entitlement to any household from which an adult member has demanded employment under MGNREGS. The number of job cards issued till November in FY22 is in any case more than the number issued in the 12 months of 2021-22 (1,532 lakh). But of the 1,558 lakh issued job cards, only about 606 lakh households have been given any work.

The scheme is not only supposed to provide work to any household that demands work, it has to guarantee that work for 100 days each year. Data from the parliamentary panel shows that less than 2 percent of households could complete 100 days of work in FY22 (till November) — only 7.76 lakh households out of 537.78 lakh completed 100 days of work.

In FY21, nearly 9.5 percent of households were able to complete 100 days of work whereas in FY20, the percentage was about 7.5. So, even when work has been allowed, 98 percent of households have not been able to earn wages for the guaranteed 100 days in FY22, as of November.

Work guarantee

The panel has not only pulled up the ministry of rural development for failing to guarantee 100 days of work to all households demanding work under MGNREGS, it has also asked for extension of the guarantee to 150 days in a year. “MNREGS is a last ‘fall back’ option for numerous rural people and the amount of expenditure under it also elicits a keen interest in the scheme by the poor and marginalized. It is ‘high time’ that the scheme be revamped, keeping in view the changing times and emerging challenges particularly in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the panel has said.

Wages

As per the MGNREG Act, payment of wages must be done within 15 days of the closure of muster rolls, but in reality, wage payments are delayed. The panel has said that over Rs 2.76 lakh wage liabilities existed as on November 5 and that it felt “sorry at the ‘state of affairs’ in this scheme. No reason is good enough for such huge pendencies and hence the committee, in all earnest, calls upon the department of rural development to ‘pull up its socks’ and take all possible measures to wipe off the wage liabilities as soon as possible.”

Not only are pending wages a concern, even the wage rate is abysmal. In Chhattisgarh, the wage in 2021-22 was just Rs 193 per day, and Rs 198 in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. The parliamentary panel has urged the Centre to link the wage rate under MGNREGS to inflation so that there is a substantial increase in the amount a worker is entitled to. Another recommendation of the panel is to remove disparities in wage rates in different States.

Budget

Activists as well as Members of Parliament on the panel that examined MGNREGS have exhorted the Centre to increase the annual budgetary allocation for the scheme. The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has pointed out that despite revised estimates for the current financial year coming in at around Rs 98,000 crore, the budgetary allocation for 2022-23 has stayed the same as last year, at Rs 73,000 crore. “Out of this, about Rs18,350 crore is the pending liability from previous years. Therefore, only about Rs 54,650 crore is available for next year. If the government wants to provide a legal guarantee of work to all the active job card holding households…then considering the current budgetary estimate, it will only be able to provide some 16 days per person, per day.”

The panel has said that “budgetary allocation of a scheme of such enormous magnitude should be done in a more pragmatic manner so that there is no dearth of funds mid-year and flow of funds for payment of wages, material share, etc. is maintained seamlessly. The committee recommends that the department of rural development review its budgetary demand pertaining to MGNREGS and ensure that the ‘agreed to labour budget’ is made at the concerned level keeping in view the expenditure of previous years.”