Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 or MNREGA, earlier known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA,
[ is an ]Indian labour law
Indian labour law refers to law regulating labour in India. Traditionally, the Indian government at the federal and state levels has sought to ensure a high degree of protection for workers, but in practice, this differs due to the form of gove ...
and social security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work
The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and should not be prevented from doing so. The right to work is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized i ...
'. This act was passed in 23 August 2005 under the UPA government
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single party ...
of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...
following tabling of the bill in parliament by the Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (6 June 1946 – 13 September 2020) was an Indian socialist politician. In the Lok Sabha, he represented the Vaishali constituency of Bihar and was the national vice president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal political par ...
.
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. That is, if the government fails to provide employment, it has to provide certain unemployment allowances to those people. Thus, employment under MGNREGA is a legal entitlement. 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
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly the ...
and fostering social equity
Social equity is concerned with justice and Social justice, fairness of social policy. Since the 1960s, the concept of social equity has been used in a variety of institutional contexts, including education and public administration.
Overview
D ...
, among others."
The act was first proposed in 1991 by P.V. Narasimha Rao
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known for introducing various liberal reforms to Ind ...
. It was finally accepted in the parliament and commenced implementation in 625 districts of India. Based on this pilot experience, NREGA was scoped up to cover all the districts of India from 1 April 2008. The statute was praised by the government as "the largest and most ambitious social security and public works programme in the world". In 2009 the World Bank had chided the act along with others for hurting development through policy restrictions on internal movement. However in its World Development Report 2014, the World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
termed it as a "stellar example of rural development". MGNREGA is to be implemented mainly by gram panchayats
Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bod ...
(GPs). The law stated it provides many safeguards to promote its effective management and implementation. The act explicitly mentions the principles and agencies for implementation, list of allowed works, financing pattern, monitoring and evaluation, and detailed measures to ensure transparency and accountability.
History
Since 1960, 30 years were expended in struggling to find suitable employment schemes in India's vast rural hinterland. The experiences of these decades provided important lessons to the government. These included the 'Rural Manpower Programme' which exposed the tribulations of financial management, the 'Crash Scheme for Rural Employment' on planning for outcomes, a 'Pilot Intensive Rural Employment Programme' of labour-intensive works, the 'Drought Prone Area Programme' of integrated rural development, 'Marginal Farmers and Agricultural Labourers Scheme' of rural economic development, the ‘ Food for Work Programme’ (FWP) of holistic development and better coordination with the states, the ‘National Rural Employment Programme’ (NREP) of community development, and the ‘Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme’ (RLEGP) of focus on landless households. The Planning Commission later approved the scheme and it was adopted on national scale.
In April 1989, to converge employment generation, infrastructure development and food security in rural areas, the government integrated NREP and RLEGP into a new scheme Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). The most significant change was the decentralization of implementation by involving the local people through local village governments or Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and hence a decreasing role of bureaucracy. In October 1993, the Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) was initiated to provide employment to agricultural hands during the lean agricultural season. The role of PRIs was reinforced with the local self-government at the district level called the ' Zilla Parishad' as the main implementing authority. Later, EAS was merged with Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana (SGRY) in 2001.
On 1 April 1999, the JRY was revamped and renamed to Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) with a similar objective. The role of PRIs was further reinforced with the local self-government at the village level called the ‘Village Panchayats’ as the sole implementing authority. In 2001, it was merged with SGRY. On 25 September 2001 to converge employment generation, infrastructure development and food security in rural areas, the government integrated EAS and JGSY into a new scheme SGRY. The role of PRIs was retained with the 'Village Panchayats' as the sole implementing authority. Due to implementation issues, it was merged with NREGA in 2006. In January 2001, the government introduced a FWP similar to the one that was initiated in 1977. Once NREGA was enacted, the two were merged in 2006. The total government allocation to these precursors of NREGA had been about three-quarters of . Employment generation programmes created after 2005 include the Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP).
Provisions
The registration process involves an application to the Gram Panchayat and issue of job cards. The wage employment must be provided within 15 days of the date of application. The work entitlement of 100 days per household per year may be shared between different adult members of the same household. The law lists permissible works: water conservation and water harvesting; drought proofing including afforestation; irrigation works; restoration of traditional water bodies; land development; flood control; rural connectivity; and works notified by the government. The Act sets a minimum limit to the wage-material ratio as 60:40. The provision of accredited engineers, worksite facilities and a weekly report on worksites is also mandated by the Act. The Act sets a minimum limit to the wages, to be paid with gender equality, either on a time-rate basis or on a piece-rate basis. The states are required to evolve a set of norms for the measurement of works and schedule of rates. Unemployment allowance must be paid if the work is not provided within the statutory limit of 15 days. The law stipulates Gram Panchayats to have a single bank account for NREGA works which shall be subjected to public scrutiny. To promote transparency and accountability, the act mandates 'monthly squaring of accounts'. To ensure public accountability through public vigilance, the NREGA designates ‘social audits’ as key to its implementation.
The most detailed part of the Act (chapter 10 and 11) deals with transparency and accountability that lays out role of the state, the public vigilance and, above all, the social audits. For evaluation of outcomes, the law also requires management of data and maintenance of records, like registers related to employment, job cards, assets, muster rolls and complaints, by the implementing agencies at the village, block and state level. The legislation specifies the role of the state in ensuring transparency and accountability through upholding the right to information and disclosing information proactively, preparation of annual reports by the Central Employment Guarantee Council for the Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
and State Employment Guarantee Councils for state legislatures, undertaking mandatory financial audits by each district along with physical audit, taking action on audit reports, developing a Citizen's Charter
The Citizen's Charter was a British political initiative launched by the then prime minister, John Major, on 22 July 1991, less than a year into his premiership.
Aims
It aimed to improve public services in the UK by:
*Making administration acco ...
, establishing vigilance and monitoring committees, and developing a grievance redressal system.
The Act recommends establishment of 'Technical Resource Support Groups' at district, state and central level and active use of information technology, like creation of a 'Monitoring and Information System (MIS)' and a NREGA website, to assure quality in implementation of NREGA through technical support. The law allows convergence of NREGA with other programmes. As NREGA intends to create ‘additional’ employment, the convergence should not affect employment provided by other programmes.
The law and the Constitution of India
The Act aims to follow the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Part IV of the Constitution of India
The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
. The law by providing a 'right to work' is consistent with Article 41 that directs the State to secure to all citizens the right to work. The statute also seeks to protect the environment through rural works which is consistent with Article 48A that directs the State to protect the environment.
In accordance with the Article 21 of the Constitution of India
The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...
that guarantees the right to life with dignity to every citizen of India, this act imparts dignity to the rural people through an assurance of livelihood security. The Fundamental Right
Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Sustai ...
enshrined in Article 16 of the Constitution of India guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment and prevents the State from discriminating against anyone in matters of employment on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, place of residence or any of them. NREGA also follows Article 46 that requires the State to promote the interests of and work for the economic uplift of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and protect them from discrimination and exploitation.
Article 40 mandates the State to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government. Conferring the primary responsibility of implementation on Gram Panchayats, the Act adheres to this constitutional principle. Also the process of decentralization initiated by 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India that granted a constitutional status to the Panchayats is further reinforced by the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA that endowed these rural self-government institutions with authority to implement the law.
The law in action
Independent academic research
Academic research has focused on many dimensions of the NREGA: economic security, self-targeting, women's empowerment, asset creation, corruption, how the scheme impacts agricultural wages.
An early overall assessment in 2008 in six north Indian states suggested that NREGA was "making a difference to the lives of the rural poor, slowly but surely." The composition of NREGA workers included the poorest and socially and economically deprived. A majority of them live in kaccha houses, belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...
, are illiterate and do not have electricity at home. Self-targeting evidence suggests that there is a lot of unmet demand for work.
Agricultural wages have increased, especially for women, since the inception of the scheme. This indicates that overall wage levels have increased due to the act, however, further research highlights that the key benefit of the scheme lies in the reduction of wage volatility. This highlights that NREGA may be an effective insurance scheme. A particular focus has been to understand whether the scheme has reduced migration into urban centres for casual work.
Studies have suggested that women's participation has remained high, though there are inter-state variations. One study in border villages of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat studied the effect on short term migration and child welfare and found that among children who do not migrate, grade completed is higher. The study found that demand for NREGA work is higher, even though migrant wages are higher.
A few studies focusing on the potential for asset creation under NREGA suggest that (a) the potential is substantial; (b) in some places, it is being realized, and (c) lack of staff, especially technical staff, rather than lack of material are to blame for poor realization of this potential. Others have pointed out that water harvesting and soil conservation works promoted through NREGA "could have high positive results on environment security and biodiversity and environment conservation" A study conducted by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute wa ...
and other collaborators found that activities related to natural resource management under the MGNREGA can capture 249 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030. India has placed emphasis on MGNREGA as a contributor to carbon sequestration
Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. Carbon dioxide () is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes. These changes can be accelerated through changes in land ...
in its Third Biennial Update Report submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...
in 2021.
Improvements in reducing corruption are attributable to the move to pay NREGA wages through bank and post office accounts. Some of the success in battling corruption can also be attributed to the strong provisions for community monitoring. Others find that "the overall social audit effects on reducing easy-to-detect malpractices was mostly absent".
A few papers also study the link between electoral gains and implementation of NREGA. One studies the effect in Andhra Pradesh - the authors find that "while politics may influence programme expenditure in some places and to a small extent, this is not universally true and does not undermine the effective targeting and good work of the scheme at large." The two other studies focus on these links in Rajasthan and West Bengal. Several local case studies are also being conducted to identify the regional impacts of NREGA.
Assessment by the constitutional auditor
The second performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India covered 3,848 gram panchayats (GPs) in 28 states and 4 union territories (UTs) from April 2007 to March 2012. This comprehensive survey by the CAG documents lapses in implementation of the act.
The main problems identified in the audit included: a fall in the level of employment, low rates of completion of works (only 30.3 per cent of planned works had been completed), poor planning (in one-third of Gram Panchayats, the planning process mandated by the act had not been followed), lack of public awareness partly due to poor information, education and communication IEC) by the state governments, shortage of staff (e.g., Gram Rozgar Sewaks had not been appointed in some states) and so on. Not withstanding the statutory requirement of notification, yet five states had not even notified the eight-years-old scheme.
The comprehensive assessment of the performance of the law by the constitutional auditor revealed serious lapses arising mainly due to lack of public awareness, mismanagement and institutional incapacity. The CAG also suggested some corrective measures.
Even though the mass social audits have a statutory mandate of Section 17 (As outlined in Chapter 11 of the NREGA Operational Guidelines), only seven states have the institutional capacity to facilitate the social audits as per prescribed norms. Although the Central Council is mandated to establish a central evaluation and monitoring system as per the NREGA Operational Guidelines, even after six years it is yet to fulfill the NREGA directive. Further, the CAG audit reports discrepancies in the maintenance of prescribed basic records in up to half of the gram panchayats (GPs) which inhibits the critical evaluation of the NREGA outcomes. The unreliability of Management Information System
A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves peop ...
(MIS), due to significant disparity between the data in the MIS and the actual official documents, is also reported.
To improve management of outcomes, it recommended proper maintenance of records at the gram panchayat (GP) level. Further the Central Council is recommended to establish a central evaluation and monitoring system for "a national level, comprehensive and independent evaluation of the scheme". The CAG also recommends a timely payment of unemployment allowance to the rural poor and a wage material ratio of 60:40 in the NREGA works. Moreover, for effective financial management, the CAG recommends proper maintenance of accounts, in a uniform format, on a monthly basis and also enforcing the statutory guidelines to ensure transparency in the disposal of funds. For capacity building, the CAG recommends an increase in staff hiring to fill the large number of vacancies.
For the first time, the CAG also included a survey of more than 38,000 NREGA beneficiaries. An earlier evaluation of the NREGA by the CAG was criticized for its methodology.
Evaluation by the government
The Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...
released an anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
of research studies on the MGNREGA called "MGNREGA Sameeksha" in New Delhi on 14 July 2012, about a year before the CAG report. Aruna Roy
Aruna Roy (née Jayaram, born 6 June 1946) is an Indian social activist, professor, union organiser and former civil servant. She is the president of the National Federation of Indian Women and founder of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan.
E ...
and Nikhil Dey
Narega Day . He works for the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sangthan), Suchna Evum Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan and NCPRI (National Campaign for People's Right to Information). He has been actively working for Right to Informat ...
said that "the MGNREGA Sameeksha is a significant innovation to evaluate policy and delivery". The anthology draws on independent assessments of MGNREGA conducted by Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and others in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published from 2008 to 2012.
The Prime Minister said, "The Mahatma Gandhi NREGA story in numbers is a story worth telling... (but) statistics do not tell the whole truth": Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh
Jairam Ramesh (born 9 April 1954) is an Indian politician belonging to Indian National Congress. He is a Member of Parliament representing Karnataka state in the Rajya Sabha. In July 2011, Jairam was elevated to the Union Council of Ministers o ...
says in the 'MGNREGA Sameeksha':
Proponents of the scheme enumerate number of benefits. For example, Rejaul Karim Laskar
Rejaul Karim Laskar is an Indian politician from the state of Assam belonging to the Indian National Congress. He is a Congress ideologue and has written extensively on the policies of the United Progressive Alliance governments. He is also a p ...
, an ideologue of the Congress party- the largest constituent of the UPA Government which introduced the scheme, claims that the scheme has multifarious benefits including "reduction in poverty, reduction in migration, women empowerment, improvement of productivity of agricultural land and regeneration of water resources".
Social audit
Civil society organisations (CSOs), nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), political representatives, civil servants and workers of Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
and Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
collectively organise social audits to prevent corruption under the NREGA. As the corruption is attributed to the secrecy in governance, the 'Jansunwai' or public hearing and the right to information (RTI), enacted in 2005, are used to fight this secrecy. Official records obtained using RTI are read out at the public hearing to identify and rectify irregularities. "This process of reviewing official records and determining whether state reported expenditures reflect the actual monies spent on the ground is referred to as a social audit." Participation of informed citizens promotes collective responsibility and awareness about entitlements.
A continuous process of social audit on NREGA works involves public vigilance and verification at the stipulated 11 stages of implementation: registration of families; distribution of job cards; receipt of work applications; selection of suitable public works; preparation of technical estimates; work allocation; implementation and supervision; payment of wages; payment of unemployment allowance; evaluation of outcomes; and mandatory social audit in the Gram Sabha or Social Audit Forum. The Gram Panchayat Secretary is designated as the authority responsible for carrying out the social audit at all stages. For some stages, the programme officer and the junior engineer is also responsible along with Sarpanch.
The statute designates the Gram Sabha meetings held to conduct social audit as the 'Social Audit Forums' and spells out three steps to make them effective: publicity and preparation of documents; organizational and procedural aspects; and the mandatory agenda involving questions verifying compliance with norms specified at each of the 11 stages of implementation.
An application under the RTI to access relevant official documents is the first step of the social audit. Then the management personnel of the social audit verify these official records by conducting field visits. Finally, the 'Jansunwai' or public hearing is organised at two levels: the Panchayat
The Panchayat raj is a political system, originating from the Indian subcontinent, found mainly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It is the oldest system of local government in the Indian subcontinent, and historical ment ...
or village level and the Mandal
A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...
level. The direct public debate involving the beneficiaries, political representatives, civil servants and, above all, the government officers responsible for implementing the NREGA works highlights corruption like the practice of rigging muster rolls (attendance registers) and also generates public awareness about the scheme.
These social audits on NREGA works in Rajasthan highlight: a significant demand for the scheme, less that 2 per cent corruption in the form of fudging of muster rolls, building the water harvesting infrastructure as the first priority in the drought-prone district, reduction of out-migration, and above all the women participation of more than 80 per cent in the employment guarantee scheme. The need for effective management of tasks, timely payment of wages and provision of support facilities at work sites is also emphasised.
To assess the effectiveness of the mass social audits on NREGA works in Andhra Pradesh, a World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
study investigated the effect of the social audit on the level of public awareness about NREGA, its effect on the NREGA implementation, and its efficacy as a grievance redressal mechanism. The study found that the public awareness about the NREGA increased from about 30 per cent before the social audit to about 99 per cent after the social audit. Further, the efficacy of NREGA implementation increased from an average of about 60 per cent to about 97 per cent. In 2014 a large number of localities did not conduct NREGA social audits. Social audits have been found lacking in terms of quality and retrievability.
Wages
Wage transfer processes in relation to NREGA have undergone significant changes since its initial implementation. In 2011/2016, the wage payment method was shifted to the National electronic Fund Management System (Ne-FMS), a Direct Benefit Transfer
Direct Benefit Transfer or DBT is an attempt to change the mechanism of transferring subsidies launched by Government of India on 1 January 2013. This scheme or program aims to establish a Giro system to transfer subsidies directly to the peopl ...
system. The Consumer Price Index-Agriculture Labour (CPI-AL) now provides a guide to fixing MGNREGA wages. The scheme has resulted in an increase in the growth rate of wages when the initial pre and post NREGA years are considered.
As of 2019, the wages are less than the minimum wages in a majority of states and union territories. Since 2009 wages stipulated under MGNREGA are disconnected from wages determined by the Minimum Wages Act. There has been some debate with regard to comparison between the two wages. One day is considered as 9 hours of work with one hour of rest. Payment is on a piece work
Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time.
Context
When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...
basis.
Wage payments face delays, in some cases up to 200 days. Center-state disunity, compliance, and "infrastructural bottlenecks" are some of the causes of delay. By 2021, 99.7% of payments under the Act were through electronic transfer. These are also affected by "last mile" issues. Ideal financial inclusion
Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. It refers to a process by which individuals and businesses can access appropriate, affordable, and timely financial products and service ...
in still lacking. While the scheme stipulates 100 days, in practice the average is around 45 days.
Asset creation
Assets created include rural connectivity assets such as pucca roads and brick soling, land development assets which improve productivity of land such as the creation of new plantations, unskilled construction such as poultry shelters, cattle shelters and fish drying yard platform. Water-related assets include village tanks and ponds, check dams, water harvesting tanks, bunding, irrigation channels, renovation of existing water assets. Infrastructure construction also includes sanitation works and grain storage facilities. The act also provides for maintenance of created assets. Asset creation varies widely between states with five states accounting for a majority of the assets. The focus of MNREGA has also shifted to quality of assets and skilling workers to map assets.
Over the last decade, it has been observed that more than half the NREGA funds have been spent on water related projects. This was very much needed because water bodies have been shrinking, especially in rural India. India became a water deficient nation 5 years ago, and every year since then, the water level has shrunk further. Though over Rs 20,000 crores under MGNREGA has been spent each year during the last decade on developing rural water bodies, wells, aquifers, catchment areas, etc, these were not permanent assets.
Convergence
There has been increasing rationale for convergence of MNREGA with othe
government schemes
Assets created under the act have been converged with aligning assets from other schemes such as housing and sanitation schemes. Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme was converged in 2012. Trekking trails have been planned in Himachal Pradesh. Convergence calls for greater inter-department cooperation. While convergence has been seen as a way to save resources, at the same time it weakens income means for those availing the scheme.
Composition of youth workforce
In 2013-14, the ratio of young workers among total MGNREGA workers was 13.64 per cent which came down to 7.73 percent in 2017-18 before rising to 9.1 percent in 2018-19 and 10.06 percent in 2019-20.The trend shows that a steady decline in the proportion of young workers, those between 18 and 30, under the Act has halted and has begun to rise in the wake of demonetisation and the rollout of GST GST may refer to:
Taxes
* General sales tax
* Goods and Services Tax, the name for the value-added tax in several jurisdictions:
** Goods and services tax (Australia)
** Goods and Services Tax (Canada)
** Goods and Services Tax (Hong Kong)
**G ...
. This has been projected by a section of analysts as a reflection of rural distress intensifying.
Subsequent developments
By 2015, over a thousand advisories and circulars related to the act had been issued.
New amendments proposed in 2014
Union Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari
Nitin Jairam Gadkari (; born 27 May 1957) is an Indian politician from Maharashtra who is the current Minister for Road Transport & Highways in the Government of India. He is also the longest serving Minister for Road Transport & Highways cur ...
proposed to limit MGNREGA programmes within tribal and poor areas. He also proposed to change the labour: material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49. As per the new proposal, the programme will be implemented in 2,500 backward blocks. Both proposals came in for sharp criticism. A number of economists with diverse views opposed the idea of restricting or "focusing" implementation in a few districts or blocks.
In the November 2014 cabinet expansion, Birender Singh replaced Nitin Gadkari as rural development minister. Among the first statements made by the new minister was an assurance that NREGA would continue in all districts. Around the same time, however, NREGA budget saw a sharp cut, and in the name of 'focusing' on a few blocks the programme has been limited to those blocks.
Save MGNREGA
In September 2014 'Save MGNREGA' is a set of demands proposed during the joint meeting of the national leadership of Centre of Indian Trade Unions
Centre of Indian Trade Unions, CITU is a National level Trade Union in India and its trade union wing is a spearhead of the Indian Trade Union Movement. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions is today one of biggest assemblies of workers and classe ...
(CITU), All India Agricultural Workers Union
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in term ...
(AIAWU), All India Democratic Women's Association
All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) is a women's organisation committed to achieving democracy, equality and women's emancipation. It has an organizational presence in 23 states in India, with a current membership of more than 11 m ...
(AIDWA) and All India Kisan Sabha
All India Kisan Sabha ( AIKS; lit. ''All India Farmers Union'', also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 19 ...
(AIKS) in New Delhi. The agenda
Agenda may refer to:
Information management
* Agenda (meeting), points to be discussed and acted upon, displayed as a list
* Political agenda, the set of goals of an ideological group
* Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based personal information manager
* Pers ...
was to discuss the dilution of MGNREGA scheme by the new government. Following demands were proposed:
# Government of India should increase the Central allocation for the scheme so that number of workdays can be increased to 200 and per day wage can be increased to Rs. 300.
# Job card to be issued for everyone who demands job, failing which, after 15 days employment benefits should be given.
# Minimum 150 days of work should be ensured to all card holders
# Minimum wage act should be strictly implemented. Delay in wage payment should be resolved.
# MGNREGA should be extended to urban areas.
# Gram Sabhas should be strengthened to monitor proper implementation of the scheme and also to check corruption.
New amendments proposed in 2017
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...
announced Rs. 48,000 crore to be allocated to the MGNREGA as a part of 2017 Union budget of India
The 2017 Union Budget of India is the
* Annual Financial Statement (AFS) mandated by Article 112 of Constitution of India
* Demands for Grants mandated by Article113 of Constitution of India
* Appropriation Bill mandated by Article 114(3) of Co ...
.
Criticism
A major criticism of the MGNREGA is that a lot of money disbursed by the government gets siphoned off by middlemen, thus leaving a number of MGNREGA workers either with unpaid wages or less than standard wages. In Mahuadand, Jharkhand
Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...
, most of the people who had worked under the MGNREGA did not get paid, while some either got paid less than stipulated or were given 5 kg of rice by private contractors instead. Following allegations of corruption in the scheme, the NDA government ordered a re-evaluation of MNREGA in 2015. Between 2017 and 2021 about 1000 crore of funds were stolen in the form of bribes, ghost accounts and fake material rates. However there are proponents that claim NREGA is relatively successful in reducing corruption.
Another criticism of NREGA
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 or MNREGA, earlier known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA, is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work'. This a ...
is that it is making agriculture less profitable. Landholders often oppose it on these grounds. The big farmer's point of view can be summed up as follows: landless labourers are lazy and they don't want to work on farms as they can get money without doing anything at NREGA worksites; farmers may have to sell their land, thereby laying foundation for the corporate farming
Corporate farming is the practice of large-scale agriculture on farms owned or greatly influenced by large companies. This includes corporate ownership of farms and selling of agricultural products, as well as the roles of these companies in influ ...
.
Economists like Jagdish Bhagwati
Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati (born July 26, 1934) is an Indian-born naturalized American economist and one of the most influential trade theorists of his generation.
He is a University Professor of economics and law at Columbia University and a Sen ...
and Arvind Panagariya
Arvind Panagariya (born 30 September 1952) is an Indian-American economist who is the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University and is also the Director of Deepak and Neera Raj Center on Indian Economic Polic ...
have described NREGA as "an inefficient instrument of shifting income to the poor" – the general notion being that it takes five rupees to transfer one rupee to NREGA workers. Economists including Surjit Bhalla
Surjit Bhalla is an Indian economist, author and columnist, who is currently the Executive Director for India at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was appointed as a member of the newly formed Economic Advisory Council to the second ...
have termed it as unsuccessful suggesting that schemes such as the NREGA need to be junked, saying that any scheme with 85 percent leakages can't be proclaimed to be "working successfully".
Issues related to delayed/inadequate wage payments persist in the programme’s implementation.
The workers points of view can be summed up as: labourers do not get more than Rs. 80 in the private agricultural labour market, there is no farm work for several months; few old age people who are jobless for at least 8 months a year; when farm work is available they go there first; farmers employ only young and strong persons to work in their farms and reject the others and hence many go jobless most of the time.
See also
* Economic development in India
The economic development in India followed socialist-inspired politicians for most of its independent history, including state-ownership of many sectors; India's per capita income increased at only around 1% annualised rate in the three deca ...
* Poverty in India
India is a developing nation. Although its economy is growing, poverty is still a major challenge. However, poverty is on the decline in India. According to an International Monetary Fund paper, extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank a ...
* Midday Meal Scheme
The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide. The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in government primary and upper primary sc ...
* Public Distribution System
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is an Indian food security system that was established by the Government of India under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to distribute food and non-food items to India's poor a ...
* National Food Security Act, 2013
The National Food Security Act 2013, also known as Right to Food Act, is an Indian Act of Parliament which aims to provide subsidized food grains to approximately two thirds of the country's 1.2 billion people. It was signed into law on 12 Sept ...
* Attacks on RTI activists in India
Many Right to Information Act (RTI) activists, including policemen, have been harassed and even murdered for seeking information to "promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority" in India. Many face assaults on ...
* Job guarantee
A job guarantee is an economic policy proposal that aims to provide a sustainable solution to inflation and unemployment. Its aim is to create full employment and price stability by having the state promise to hire unemployed workers as an emplo ...
* Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana
Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) in India is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme which came into effect on 1 December 1997. The scheme strives to provide gainful employment to the urban unemployed and underemployed poor, through encouraging ...
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External links
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Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India
MGNREGA Sameeksha, An Anthology of Research Studies on MGNREGA
MGNREGA Master Circular Guide FY2018-19
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Watershed Works Manual 2006
Women in NREGA: Issues of Child Care. Case Studies from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh
MGNREGA : Registration on Portal
{{India topics
Employment in India
Rural development in India
Welfare in India
Indian labour law
Right to work
Work relief programs