By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Ever since the Union Budget 2023-24 was tabled in the Parliament, MGNREGA workers across the country have been protesting against substantial budget cuts for the second year reducing the earlier employment guarantee, thereby making the rural workforce restive. The reduction in budget allocation would adversely affect 15.51 crore active rural workers enrolled under the scheme.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the scheme was ramped up, and an allocation of Rs1.11 lakh crore were made. It provided critical livelihood support to 11 crore workers. However, despite rise of about 4.5 crore workers demanding work from this scheme the Union Budget 2023-24 has reduced allocation from Rs89,400 crore in the Revised Estimate to Rs60,000 crore. The MGNREGA Sangharsh Morcha says that this level of allocation can support only 20 days of work in a year as against the 100 days guaranteed under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005.
As per the rules, MGNREGA scheme is a demand-driven scheme aiming at enhancing the livelihood security of rural households. Hundred days of unskilled work every year was guaranteed for anyone who wanted it. These provisions have been exploited by the government by systematically creating an environment in which demand for work is kept as low as possible. The ways to do this included, but not limited to, non-payment of wages to workers for months, and non-payment to the states their dues under this scheme. The wages were for a long time even kept below the minimum wages, and the process of getting work kept difficult and cumbersome.
It is contrary to the provision under the MGNREGA that says, if work is not provided within 15 days from when it is demanded, the worker has to be given a daily unemployment allowance. Additionally, 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.
Against such tactics, in the Swaraj Abhiyan case judgement in 2016, the Supreme Court had ruled that delay in payment and non-payment of minimum wages was an abrogation of Article 23 of the Constitution of India, wherein NREGA workers were made to work, given late wages, workers have no choice but to work due to the severe constraints of economic circumstance – amounting to forced labour.
Despite all the problems created for the workforce so as to not demand work, many workers had no option but to demand even under such exploitative work environments. The record shows that about 8.55 crore households demanded MGNREGA work in 2020-21, followed by 8.5 crore in 2021-22, compared to a total of 6.16 crore households asking for work in the pre-pandemic year 2019-20. Economic Survey 2022-23 says that as on January 24, 2023, about 6.49 crore households had already demanded work under the scheme.
Nonetheless, it is a demand-side figure, against 15.51 crore active rural workers enrolled under the scheme. Moreover, as of January 20, 2023, the average days of employment provided per household is just 42 days, while it was 50 days in 2021-22, 52 days in 2020-21, 48 days in 2019-20 and 51 days in 2018-19, much less than guaranteed 100 days, against a demand for increasing it to 200 days.
Peoples’ Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) and the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has said in a joint statement that if the government intends to provide legally guaranteed 100 days of work per household for at least those that worked in the scheme in the current financial year, that minimum budget for it in the upcoming financial year 2023-24 should be at least Rs2.72 lakh crore.
The Modi government’s Union Budget 2022-23 had reduced MGNREGA budget by 25 per cent to Rs73,000 crore which was lower than the revised estimate or Rs98,000 crore for the financial year 2021-22. The Economic Survey of 2021-22 had even admitted that the demand for work was still higher than the pre-pandemic level. For the financial year 2023-24, the MGNREGA budget has been reduced by about 33 per cent compared to the revised estimate for the current financial year.
MGNREGA workers have been protesting this attitude of the Modi government for a long time. The year 2022 had also seen protests across the country. However, the Modi government ignored all the protests and made a further cut in allocation in the budget of this year apart from not paying the states their share.
The Union government has recently told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre owes Rs6,157 crore to 14 states as on February 3, 2023. The payment is due under the material component head of the MGNREGA scheme that pays for wages and construction material for skilled labourers. Out of these 8 are opposition ruled states, and West Bengal is the worst sufferer since the amount unpaid is nearly Rs 2,700 crore. Moreover, as per data released by the Centre, it owed Rs 4,700 crore in wages to 18 States as of December 14, 2022. The Modi government has taken a stand that the payments are stopped for various reasons, including violation of rules and widespread corruption, but then who will protect the interest of the rural workforce?
The People’s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) had recently revealed that there has always been delay in payment by the Modi government. In the past five years, about 21 per cent of the budget was used to clear the arrears of the previous years. According to their estimates, the arrears in the current financial year is about 25 per cent of the budget outlay.
MGNREGS activist Nikhil Dey says, “Rs1.24 crore was required just to give assured 40 days of work to all those active job cardholders this year. As of today, there are pending liabilities of almost Rs17,000 crore. The amount given in the budget means in real terms only about 20 days of guarantee for those who go for work as of today.”
NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has now brought the protest to Delhi, and is organising similar protests across the country. (IPA Service)