Rural women earn better wages than urban counterparts

World’s biggest employment guarantee scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREG) has ensured better wages for rural women.

Updated on: May 26, 2010, 24:18:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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World’s biggest employment guarantee scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREG) has ensured better wages for rural women.

In a survey report, the National Sample Survey (NSS) organisation has found that disparity in wages between male and female workers in rural India has reduced between 2004-05 — when there was no MGNREG, and 2007-08 — when the scheme was introduced in most parts of rural India.

Now, the rural women working in MGNREG areas are getting 54 per cent higher wages than casual women workers in urban areas.

Traditionally, wages in rural areas have been less than those in urban areas but MGNEGS has changed the trend.

So, as compared to an average daily wage of Rs 48.5 for a woman in urban areas, women enrolled under the scheme get Rs 79 every day in rural India.

Introduction of the scheme in rural India has also helped reduce the wage difference between men and women workers. This disparity, in turn, has increased in urban India, where there is no job guarantee scheme.

Despite the scheme ensuring higher wages to workers, the NSS survey has found the wages being given are still less than Rs 100 a day stipulated by the government.

As the survey was based on answer from the respondents it failed to provide reason for the government failing to disburse the mandatory amount.

The survey also found that 92 per cent of Indians were employed on a given day but finding work all through the year was still a challenge.

About 20 per cent of those employed on a given day were found to be underemployed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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