Budget 2022: Activists seek highest ever allocation for MNREGS at Rs 1.5 lakh crore to tackle rural distress

A person working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MNREGA scheme (Image by PradeepGaurs/Shutterstock)

In 2021-22, the second year of unprecedented livelihood challenges due to COVID-19 for the rural poor, the UPA-era rural job guarantee scheme MNREGS continues to be a lifesaver. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme promises 100 days of work for the rural poor. In 2020-21, the first year of the pandemic, demand for work under this scheme had seen a sharp surge as livelihoods were threatened during the long, nationwide lockdown, compelling migrant labour to seek work back in their villages. Latest data show demand for work has remained robust in this fiscal too, prompting activists to demand a record high allocation of Rs 1.5 lakh crore for the scheme in the upcoming Union Budget.

As per government data, the number of person days generated so far this fiscal stands at 294.04 crore, higher than three consecutive years before the pandemic arrived in India (FY20, FY 19 and FY18). Person days denotes the number of people working under the scheme multiplied by the number of days they worked. The continued high number in this fiscal shows that demand for work under MNREGS remains robust. In 2020-21, the number of person days generated was the highest ever at 389.11 crore.

The mandate of MNREGS is to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The growth in demand for works under MNREGS for the second year in a row and ahead of the demand seen in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20 underlines significant rural distress. Of course, it also shows why the mockery of the MNREGS scheme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 was misplaced. He had termed MNREGS as a “living monument of failures” of the UPA regime.

But the government has been compelled to not just continue with MNREGS, it has also had to increase the budgetary allocation under it for two years in a row. After initially allocating Rs 61,500 crore in 2020-21, the Centre added another Rs 50,000 crore to this scheme, over and above the Budget Estimate (BE) last fiscal. And during the current fiscal, it has already provided an additional fund of Rs 10,000 crore, over and above of BE of Rs. 73,000 crore.

Now, activists are again seeking record high allocation for the scheme. Debmalya Nandi, Member of NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, says “The government should learn from its earlier mistakes and allocate adequately to avoid mid-term disruptions in ground work and delay in payments. It is a fact that in the past many years, the trend has been that in the first 6-7 months, 80-90% of the money gets exhausted and therefore the work slows down till additional allocation is made. Also, the supplementary allocations, however inadequate, take a long time to get sanctioned by the ministry and release is thereby further delayed. By then, the programme comes to a standstill”.

Nandi has sought the highest ever allocation of Rs 1.5 lakh crore BE for MNREGS in 2022-23.

A large allocation at the beginning of the financial year would mean rural workers who are interested to work under this scheme would get more work and the local administration would accelerate works allocation. Enhanced BE would also take care of arrears - every year, a significant percentage of pending wage and material gets added to the subsequent year's budget, lowering the effective availability for that particular year.

As on date, less than 10% of BE for FY22 is left for MNREGS for the next two months. The second enhancement activists are seeking this year under the scheme is increasing the number of days for which work guarantee is made available to every rural household. They want this doubled to 200 days in a year.

And of course, the festering issue of wage rates persists. A Parliamentary Standing Committee, examining the demand for grants for the department of rural development for fy22, has noted that disparity in wages in different states/UTs under MNREGS continues. “Time and again, the Committee has brought this peculiarity to the fore and has vehemently urged the Department of Rural Development to resolve this anomaly sooner rather than later. In the present instance too, the Committee strongly recommended to the Department of Rural Development to overcome this disparity in wages and ensure that MNREGS beneficiaries are paid equal wages across the States/UTs.

There is also the problem of wages under MNREGS in some states remaining below the minimum wage of that state. Since 2009, the Centre has been announcing an annual increase in MNREGS wage but discrepancies with respect to state-wise minimum wage have led to the present situation, where workers in some states get paid less than the minimum wage of that state, A senior official closely involved in wage calculations pointed out that if there is political will to correct this skew, the government could set up a committee to align the wages paid under MNREGS with minimum wages across states.

Till then, however, increased budgetary allocation and pushing for timely wage payments is the only solution. ends