MGNREGA - Chanakya IAS Academy

MGNREGA

Source: Indian Express

(National Rural Employment Guarantee Act)

1. Why so much allocation for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGREGA)MGNREGA, which is the largest work guarantee programme in the world, was enacted in 2005 with the primary objective ofguaranteeing 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households. it aims at addressing causes of chronic povertythrough the 'works' (projects) that are undertaken, and thus ensuring sustainable development. there is also an emphasison strengthening the process of decentralisation through giving a significant role to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) inplanning and implementing these works. Hence to reduce rural distress and to boost rural economy, the allocation offunds become necessary.

2. What are the Salient features of MGREGASalient features of the scheme are:• Legal right to work: The Act provides a legal right to employment for adult members of rural households.✓ At least one third beneficiaries have to be women.✓ Wages must be paid according to the wages specified for agricultural labourers in the state under the Minimum Wages Act,1948, unless the central government notifies a wage rate (this should not be less than Rs 60 per day).

• Time bound guarantee of work and unemployment allowance: ✓ Employment must be provided with 15 days of being demanded failing which an ‘unemployment allowance’ must be given.

• Decentralized planning: ✓ Gram sabhas must recommend the works that are to be undertaken and at least 50% of the works must be executed by

them. ✓ PRIs are primarily responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of the works that are undertaken.

• Work site facilities: ✓ All work sites should have facilities such as crèches, drinking water and first aid.

• Transparency and accountability: ✓ There are provisions for proactive disclosure through wall writings, citizen information boards, Management Information

Systems and social audits. ✓ Social audits are conducted by gram sabhas to enable the community to monitor the implementation of the scheme.

• Funding:✓ Funding is shared between the centre and the states.✓ There are three major items of expenditure – wages (for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour), material and

administrative costs.✓ The central government bears 100% of the cost of unskilled labour, 75% of the cost of semi-skilled and skilled labour,

75% of the cost of materials and 6% of the administrative costs.

3. What is the trend of Allocation trend in MGREGA in the last 5 years• The budgetary allocation for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program (MGNREGA) has been

decreased when compared with the revised estimate of FY 2019-20.• In the Union Budget 2020-21, Rs 61,500 crore for MGNREGA scheme was allocated, which is lower than last year's revised

estimates of Rs 71,002 crore by 13.4 per cent.

• The allocation has seen a consistent year-on-year decline between FY16 and FY19 at 29.1 per cent,14.4 per cent and 12.1 per cent, respectively.

• Overall, the government's expenditure towards centrally sponsored schemes has marginally improved to 7.3 per cent inFY21 from 7 per cent growth in the revised estimates of FY20.

4. What are the benefits realized from MGNREGA? Should be discontinue it?

4.1. The Standing Committee on Rural development highlighted several achievements of MGNREGA in the seven years ofits implementation, especially:

• Ensuring livelihood for people in rural areas.

• Large scale participation of women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) and other traditionally marginalizedsections of society. SCs/STs account for 51% of the total person-days generated and women account for 47% of the totalperson-days generated.

• Increasing the wage rate in rural areas and strengthening the rural economy through the creation of infrastructure assets.

• Facilitating sustainable development

4.2. MGNREGA has been a powerful instrument for empowerment of poor women through its effect on livelihood securityand social protection. In FY2015-16 out of the total employment through MGNREGA, 56% was generated for women.

• Reduced distressed rural to urban migration and also seasonal migration by providing work closer to home and decentworking conditions.

• Recently amid Covid Crisis, A significant part of this workforce has reverse migrated from cities to rural areas. In order toaddress this migrant crisis, the government has allocated an additional fund of Rs 40,000 crore for MGNREGA, as part ofthe stimulus package under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

• The most important part of MGNREGA’s design is its legally-backed guarantee for any rural adult to get work within 15 daysof demanding it.

4.3. MGNREGA is a bottom-up, people-centred, demand-driven, self-selecting and rights-based programme. Thus,MGNREGA remains crucial for integrated resource management and livelihoods generation perspective.

5. What are the loopholes in MGREGA• Fabrication of job cards: While as many as 12.5 crore households have been issued job cards out of an estimated 13.8

crore rural households ( as per the 2001 census), there are several issues related to existence of fake job cards, inclusionof fictitious names, missing entries and delays in making entries in job cards.

• Delay in payment of wages: Most states have failed to disburse wages within 15 days as mandated by MGNREGA.In addition, workers are not compensated for a delay in payment of wages.

• Non-payment of unemployment allowances: Most states do not pay an unemployment allowance when work isnot given on demand. The non-issuance of dated receipts of demanded work prevents workers from claiming anunemployment allowance.

• Large number of incomplete works: There has been a delay in the completion of works under MGNREGA and inspection• of projects has been irregular. Implementing agencies were able to complete only 98 lakh works out of 296 lakh works.

6. What are the recent interventions in MGREGA

Some of the recent initiatives and reforms taken up by the Government of India (GoI) as part of the next level ofimplementation of MGNREGA:

• The list of permissible works under MGNREGA has been expanded.

• To strengthen the positive synergy between MGNREGA and agriculture and allied rural livelihoods

• To respond to the demands of the States for greater location-specific flexibility in permissible works. To help improvethe ecological balance in rural India.

• The order of priority of works will be determined by the Gram Panchayat (GP)

• 60:40 ratio for labour: material costs should be maintained at the GP level

• No contractors/labour-displacing machinery to be used.

• The MGNREGA software will automatically generate the pay-order for payment of unemployment allowance to suchwage seekers whose demand for work is not met within 15 days (of demand).

• Reports prepared on this will have to be part of the essential set of reports to be tracked at the State level.

• State Governments have to ensure that the MGNREGA MIS will record the demand for work, i.e. the monitoringsystem has to ensure it captures even households3 that may have been purposely denied employment

• To estimate demand in advance, the district administration may conduct a door to door survey of Job Card (JC)4 holders.

• The GoI has notified Social Audit10 Rules that mandate the establishment of a Social Audit Unit (SAU), to facilitate socialaudit by GSs.

• The SAU can be either a society or a directorate, in each case independent of the implementing departments/agencies.

• An MoU was signed between the implementing agency of the MGNREGS, the Department of Rural Development (DoRD),Ministry of Rural Development, and National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO, Hyderabad for geo-tagging assetscreated under MGNREGA.

• The NRSC developed the Bhuvan geo-portal app, a mobile-based geo-tagging application for the MGNREGA scheme.

7. Recent data trend says that Jobs allocation under MGREGA is increasing. Is it a sign of good Economic health?

The Rationale for MGNREGA:

• A theoretical rationale of MGNREGA is Workfare is a crucial part of comprehensive social protection that serves asa safety net for those who are most vulnerable.

• An empirical rationale, pertains to whether MGNREGA has delivered on its promise. Here, despite its many shortcomings, MGNREGA has done remarkably well from the perspective of addressing deprivation.

• The third rationale is in recognizing the larger contribution of MGNREGA as a focal point for organizing around the rights of rural workers and its capacity for transformative politics, an issue that is particularly relevant today. It is hard to think of any other social programme that has this potential.

MCQ:

Q. Which of the following acts made social audits as statutory?A. Right to Information Act, 2005B. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005C. Right to Education Act, 2009D. The National Food Security Act, 2013

Answer: B

Explanation:• In India, social audits were first made statutory in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 and government also

issued the Social Audit Rules in 2011 under the MGNREGA Act.

• Social audits are generally supervised by autonomous bodies consisting of government and nongovernment representatives.

• The 73rd Amendment of the Constitution empowered the Gram Sabhas to conduct Social Audits in addition to other functions.

• CAG not empowered to conduct Accounting Audit of PRIs in the whole country. No central policy or regulation making accounting audit and social audit mandatory.

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