Underfunding, misleading claims: The story of MGNREGA in New India -Debmalya Nandy

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published Published on Jul 22, 2019   modified Modified on Jul 22, 2019
-Down to Earth

Govt has made tall claims on NREGA implementation; but it is neither keen on providing dignified wages nor allocating adequate funds for the scheme

The Union Budget for 2019-20 ignored issues of social security and employment and did not show any intent to boost rural India. The Budget tabled by Nirmala Sitharaman on July 5, 2019 was a disappointment for 13 crore rural households dependent on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

The act continues to fight widespread corruption and administrative negligence 13 years since its inception. Technology-based, centralised, faulty implementation has thrashed local accountabilities and increased leakages.

Anyone who has closely observed the jobs scheme based on the act (MGNREGS) will acknowledge that it can be revived only through:

* Adequate allocation of Budget funds
* Timely payments to workers
* Completely decentralising implementation
* Improving entitlements (ie, wages, compensations and worksite facilities)

The central government failed to acknowledge these issues and tried to paint a false picture — that implementation of MGNREGA has has improved in the last five years.   

It has made tall claims time and again on MGNREGA implementation through faulty MIS (Management Information system), flawed studies and surveys; but the government is neither keen on providing dignified wages nor allocating adequate funds.

The Centre has also unlawfully denied paying minimum wages to workers. Agricultural minimum wages exceed MGNREGA wages in almost all states.

The 2019-20 Budget has Rs 60,000 crore for MGNREGA, lower than the Rs 61,084 crore revised estimate for 2018-19. This reduction in the budget has no explanation.

Independent activists, researchers and organisations working on MGNREGA have repeatedly claimed with rationales that the scheme can't function properly with anything less than Rs 88,000 crore.

The Centre had to allocate supplementary budgets for three straight years after original allocations were exhausted in the first few months of the respective financial years due to heavy demand from workers. Supplementary allocations, hwoever, were considerably delayed and slowed down work across the nation.

The government has the power to release funds centrally to workers’ accounts and the luxury to control the pace of the programme through slowing down administrative processes, non-release of funds to states and delay allocating supplementary budget. Therefore, it becomes easy for them to play with the numbers on the MIS and keep the figures well below targets set at the beginning of the year.

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Down to Earth, 15 July, 2019, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/economy/underfunding-misleading-claims-the-story-of-mgnrega-in-new-india-65627?fbclid=IwAR0WAms2R4Exeo8NEvAXkJfKIVRn7vNsTFxHD3DGTwXNMx


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