Mgnrega Act, 2005

Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 the proportion of young workers is increasing.

> The ratio of young workers among total MGNREGA employees grew from 7.73 percent in 2017-18 to 9.1 percent in 2018-19 and 10.06 percent in 2019-20.

> In recent years , the overall number of individuals employed under MGNREGA has also increased.

> The rising trend of the young workforce among MGNREGA workers could be a reflection of the following events:

 

Z Approximately 1.5 million jobs have been lost following demonetization. There has been a fall in the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) amid this loss of jobs.

Z Many workers opted for MGNREGA for subsistence as a result of job losses.

Z GST implementation has increased economic performance, but many small businesses have been forced out of business by the complexity of the new tax system, forcing unemployment.

Many small and medium businesses have also been forced into debt by a uniform tax regime via GST.

Z Both of these occurrences have triggered economic instability, leading to a rise in workers opting for jobs under MGNREGA.

 

> The Act aims to improve the protection of rural people's livelihoods by ensuring a hundred days of wage employment for a rural household in a financial year whose adult members (at least 18 years of age) volunteer to do unqualified work.

> It is a demand-driven, social security and labour law that aims to enforce the ‘right to work’.

> The entire burden of unskilled labour is paid by the central government. The implementation of the scheme is being controlled by the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) in collaboration with state governments.

 

> More than 65 percent of the work performed under the project consists of agriculture and related activities.

> This has helped to a greater degree to minimise rural poverty. The World Development Report 2014 has also described it as a 'stellar example of rural development.'

> Moreover, as part of MGNREGA, the central government is working on an initiative to provide skills and training to make it not only a job creator, but also to improve skilled workers across the country.

 

> Low wage rates: Currently, MGNREGA 's wage rates are lower than the equivalent national minimum wages in 17 states. Different rulings have upheld that the MGNREGA wage rate can not be less than the state's minimum agricultural wage rate. The low wage rates have resulted in a lack of interest among employees in working for MGNREGA schemes, making way for local control of contractors and middle men.

> Inadequate allocation from the budget: The performance of MGNREGA at ground level is subject to the adequate and uninterrupted flow of funds to the States. In recent years, funds have dried up many times in states due to the lack of "mother sanctions" from the central government, which hampers work in the peak season. More than 80 percent of the funds are depleted within the first six months, almost every year. Thus, in real terms, the government's assertion of "record allocation" does not hold true.

> Regular payment delays: The Union Ministry of Rural Development considers wages paid once the FTO (Fund Transfer Order) is signed by the second signatory. However, delays take place even in the processing of signed FTOs, for which the Management Information System (MIS) does not calculate compensation. Despite the order of the Supreme Court and initiatives and GO (Government Order) by the Union Ministry of Finance, no provision has yet been worked out in the MIS for calculation of full wage delays and payment of compensation for the same. Therefore, the government's claims of producing 92 per cent on-time payments are misguided.

> Employees penalised for administrative lapses: The Ministry withholds wage payments for employees of states that do not comply with administrative requirements within a defined period of time (for example, submission of audited fund accounts of the previous financial year, certificates of use, certificates of bank reconciliation, etc.). This bizarre system has no logical or legal reason. It is beyond all reasoning as to why managerial lapses will penalize workers.

> The banking puzzle: In terms of workers and facilities, rural banks are highly de-capacitated and thus still remain extremely crowded. Usually, workers have to visit banks more than once to withdraw their salaries. In certain instances, the bank passbooks are not updated due to the great rush and weak infrastructure. Often, because of the difficulty and the expense involved in getting wages from the bank, workers do not get their wages during times of need.

> Defective MIS data: Increased corruption and weakened transparency are rooted in the excessive reliance (real-time MIS being one of them) on technology for the implementation of MGNREGA. There is increasing evidence of how real-time MIS has made MGNREGA less transparent for staff, decreased front-line officials' transparency, and helped centralise the program. It has also drawn an image on the ground which is far from the truth. One has to think about delinking the MGNREGA implementation from the real-time MIS. You should upload the data to the post-implementation MIS. It can also be a MIS based transactions.

> Non-payment of unemployment allowance: A significant number of unemployment allowances are actually shown in the MIS. But the central government's inaction to ensure payments of the same has shown that the government continues to use the MIS for its convenience and does not value its own database.

> Genuine job cards are deleted to meet 100% DBT targets: Genuine job cards are deleted at random as there is an immense administrative burden in MGNREGA to meet 100% Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) implementation targets. There are some examples in states such as Jharkhand where the districts later requested to resume work cards after interventions by civil society in the matter. Although the government has boasted about savings based on Aadhar, the fact is that a large number of legitimate work cards and ration cards are being removed and their due rights have been stripped of genuine individuals.

> Too much centralization weakens local governance: the real-time implementation of the MIS and the centralised payment system have left the members of the Panchayati Raj Institutions practically without any role in the implementation , monitoring and redress of MGNREGA grievances. As they hardly have any power to resolve problems or make payments, it has become a burden. The implementation of MGNREGA has been largely depoliticized by the over-centralization of the system, and local transparency has been largely diminished.

> Administration that does not meet local priorities: MGNREGA may be an instrument for the creation of decentralised governance. However, with the government almost dictating its execution, the responsibility now practically rests on the citizens and, in particular, on the local elected officials. Governments still use the planning tactic of bottom-up individuals to obtain political mileage, but when executing the schemes, they never reach local objectives. The spirit of the programme has been damaged by further connecting MGNREGA to the construction of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), individual household toilets, anganwadi centres and rural 'haats' and the plans of gramme sabhas and gramme panchayats are never honored. This is also a direct infringement of the Act.

 

Transparency in wage payments, asset development and payment for materials: 100% of asset geo-tagging, AADHAAR linkage of bank accounts, IT / DBT transfers for all salaries, and material payments and job planning based on the Geographic Information System (GIS) have been initiated.

The generation of payments within 15 days has risen from 26% in 2014-15 to 91% in the current period.

 

Durable asset formation: The 60:40 wage-material ratio mandated at Gram Panchayat level frequently led to the creation of non-productive assets simply because in that Gram Panchayat, 60 percent had to be spent on unskilled wage labour. The first major change was to allow 60:40 at the level of the District rather than at the level of Gram Panchayat.

The ratio of expenditure on unskilled wage labour to total expenditure remains higher than 65 percent, despite this change. This has provided for a new emphasis on sustainable

income-generating assets. It allows for the versatility to pursue only certain efficient properties.

A very large number of individual beneficiary schemes such as goat sheds, dairy sheds, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), farm ponds, water soak pits etc. have also been taken up.

Development of sustainable community and individual beneficiary assets Such services have allowed the underprivileged to have access to alternative livelihoods that are sustainable.

Similarly, the development of the Anganwadi Centres (AWC) has been a major initiative to establish sustainable community properties. In collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, nearly 1,11,000 AWCs are being built. Work on solid waste management has also been taken up on a wide scale, leading to cleaner villages, higher wages, and more varied livelihoods for the poor. The research carried out in 2018 by the Council for Social Development of individual beneficiary schemes under MGNREGS also reported MGNREGS income gains and diversification of livelihoods.

 

Mission Water Conservation Guidelines: In collaboration with the Ministry of Water Resources , River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation and the Department of Land Resources, were established in 2015-16 to concentrate on the dark and grey blocks where the level of ground water dropped rapidly.

This collaboration has facilitated the professional expertise of engineers, scientists from the Central Ground Water Board, to establish a detailed technical manual and to introduce a capacity-building programme for frontline employees.

To ensure better technical oversight, a special Barefoot Technicians programme has been rolled out.

 

Natural Resource Management (NRM): Over 60% of the resources are spent on NRM. The work of the NRM focuses on ensuring higher farmers ' incomes by raising both the region under cultivation and the crop yield. This is achieved by enhancing land productivity and increasing the supply of water.

Control dam, reservoirs, renovation of conventional water bodies, land development, embankment, field bunds, field channels, plantations, contour trenches, etc. are the major works undertaken under NRM.