MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT 2005

MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT 2005

Context:

• The Economic Survey 2022­23 presented on January 31, showed that 6.49 crore households demanded work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
• Of these, 6.48 crore households were offered employment by the government and 5.7 crore actually availed it.
• The survey credited the scheme on having a positive impact on income per household, agricultural productivity, and production­related expenditure.
• It added that this helped with “income diversification and infusing resilience into rural livelihoods”.

MGNREGA and its features:

• It is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’.
• It comes under administrative control of the Ministry of Rural Development.
• It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to at least one member of every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• Women are guaranteed one third of the jobs made available under the MGNREGA.
• Another aim of MGNREGA is to create durable assets (such as roads, canals, ponds and wells).
• Employment is to be provided within 5 km of an applicant’s residence, and minimum wages are to be paid.
• If work is not provided within 15 days of applying, applicants are entitled to an unemployment allowance.

• Apart from providing economic security and creating rural assets, other things said to promote NREGA are that it can help in protecting the environment, empowering rural women, reducing rural-urban migration and fostering social equity, among others.”
• There are currently 15.51 crore active workers enrolled under the scheme.
• The types of projects undertaken for employment generation under MGNREGA include those related to water conservation, land development, construction, agriculture and allied works.
• The wages of unskilled workers also have to be paid within 15 days and in case of a delay, the Centre has to compensate them.

Evaluation of the act:

• Huge impact in lockdown:
  • During the first COVID­19 lockdown in 2020, when the scheme was ramped up, and given its highest­ever budget of ₹1.11 lakh crore, it provided a critical lifeline for a record 11 crore workers.
• Compensation for loss of income during Covid:
  • Studies gave empirical evidence that wages earned under MGNREGA helped compensate somewhere between 20% to 80% of the income loss incurred because of the lockdown.

Centre’s allocation for MGNREGS:

• Budgetary allocations to the flagship scheme has increased successively since 2013 from ₹32,992 crore in the 2013­14 Union Budget to ₹73,000 crore in 2021­22.
• In recent years, the actual expenditure on the scheme has successively been higher than the amount allocated to it at the budget stage.

Challenges in the implementation of the MGNREGA:

• Less number of days available for work:
  • An analysis by PRS Legislative Research shows that since 2016­17, on average, less than 10% of the households completed 100 days of wage employment.

• Delay in wage payments:

• • As per data released by the Centre, it owed ₹4,700 crore in MGNREGA wages to 18 States as of December 14, 2022, when just three months remained for the financial year to end.

• • Notably, In 2016, the Supreme Court of India directed the government to ensure that wages were paid on time, calling the act of making workers wait for wages for months equal to “forced labour”.
• The minimum wage rate under MGNREGS is fixed by the Centre on the basis of the Consumer Price Index­ Agricultural Labourers.

• Fake job cards, widespread corruption, late uploading of muster rolls, and inconsistent payment of unemployment allowance are some of the other issues.

Way forward:

• Linking the wages to the CPI-RL instead of CPI-AL.
• Use of technology to upload muster rolls and timely payments.

Source: THE HINDU

Syllabus: GS2; Governance