Govt panel recommends overhaul of MGNREGS, adjusting wages every 5 years
Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is scheduled to get a briefing from the committee on its recommendations in January.
NEW DELHI: A government panel has recommended a complete overhaul of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) including allocating more work in areas with a higher number of deprived households.
The panel, formed by the ministry of rural development (MoRD) in October 2022 to study the performance of the states and governance under MGNREGS, also argued for a separate rural infrastructure development programme in places with greater job opportunities, called for adjusting MGNREGS wages every five years, integrating the gram panchayat development plans with MGNREGS work, and increasing the workdays ‘per job card’ to 150-200 days annually.
The nine-member committee headed by former rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha included a representative each from Niti Aayog and the panchayati raj ministry, submitted its report to the government in March 2023. MoRD has yet to accept the report that is yet to be made public.
People aware of the matter said that Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is scheduled to get a briefing from the committee on its recommendations in January.
In a presentation to the states in March last year, the reforms committee said: “Should one form of MGNREGS be open for the whole country and another focused intervention for higher person days be open only for blocks/districts with very high number of deprived households? Yes..We need to identify blocks/districts/states on deprivation… This needs a data-driven approach. There is a need for strengthening real-time data analysis based on reliable data.”
HT has reviewed a copy of the reforms committee’s report and the presentation.
The committee pitched for increasing the number of workdays per job card to 150-200 days, particularly in backward regions with a higher percentage of deprived households and households dependent on wage earning. “The focus of MGNREGS should shift from solely generating wages to strengthening sustainable rural livelihoods and restoring ecology.”
Started in 2005, MGNREGS was envisaged as a demand-based rural asset creation scheme to provide livelihood security through 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to every rural household. It has been described as poverty alleviation, social security, infrastructure building and participatory development programme. However, various studies have also pointed out the leakages and the failings of the program due to poor implementation.
MGREGS has also been a contentious issue since Prime Minister Narendra Modi first led the NDA to victory in 2014. In February 2015, PM Modi described NREGA as a ‘living monument’ of the UPA’s failures to tackle poverty in 60 years, and called the employment scheme the ‘nation’s pride’ the following year.
According to MoRD data, the budget estimate for the job guarantee scheme has risen from ₹33,000 crore in budget estimates for 2013-14 to ₹86,000 crore in the current financial year.
The Amarjeet Sinha committee also found some key problems with how the programme was being implemented based on their field survey – ‘very low wage rate interfering with productivity and quality’, ‘resistance to the national mobile monitoring system (NMMS)’, ‘glitches in timely transfer’ and ‘lack of coordination in the governance of MGNREGS.
To this end, it called for ‘systematic’ wage rate revision by using Consumer Price Index (Rural Labourers) as one of the benchmarks.
The committee said: “...should the wage rate be determined by market wages or be pegged to something else? As one of the district collectors noted, the NREGS wage rate serves as a reservation wage below which employers would be unlikely to find workers. Thus, an increase in NREGS wage would also lead to an improvement in market wages… Thus, it may be essential to find a middle ground for wage setting using an indexation method independent of local wages but mindful of inflation. Consumer Price Index (Rural Labourers) published by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation could be one such benchmark.”
On NMMS, the committee said that there was very little information on the ground for solving the problems. “In conversation with MoRD officials, most of these logistical issues can be solved, but it is clear that there is very little information on the ground.” On Aadhaar-based payments, the committee said that ‘while the incidence (of glitches) have come down considerably over the years, any delay in payments with an inability to check where it is stuck, brings a lack of credibility to the programme.”
The committee said there ‘seemed to be a distinct lack of coordination’ between the panchayati raj administration and the MGNREGS administration, even in states where significant investments are being made in enhancing the capacity of panchayats’.
The committee also used two National Sample Surveys – the 66th round conducted between July 2009 and June 2010, and the 77th round between January and December 2019–to study the study availability of MGNREGS job cards and their use by households across rural India. The reforms Committee has recommended increasing its use among low to moderate MGNREGS use states from low rural wealth index states such as MP, Odissa, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand.
As part of the recommendations, the committee also said: “Special policy interventions will be required to examine alternatives for MGNREGS in states with high to middle wealth index states but currently having high use of MGNREGS: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.”
The reforms committee praised the scheme’s achievements in the last 19 years.
“It is undeniable, however, that the programme has been a saviour in difficult times and a resource for diversified incomes and livelihoods at all times for the deprived. Its pro-poor character due to self-selection for unskilled work and all-round village infrastructure development, cannot be questioned,” the committee said in its report.
People familiar with the development said a decision on the report’s recommendations was expected after the minister’s briefing. Certain administrative decisions if accepted by the ministry could be implemented quickly. However, a call on the substantive recommendations which have financial implications would be taken in consultation with the finance ministry.
