Babu warns of 40% fall in MGNREGS jobs, but overruled

NEW DELHI: Overriding objections raised by senior officials, rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has ordered far-reaching changes in the job guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) which has provided seasonal work to one in three rural households in the last eight years.

Documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by activists show file notings by a senior official in the ministry arguing that Gadkari's announcements run contrary to the "spirit of the Act" and that reducing the wage component of the total funds allocated for the scheme would lead to a 40% fall in jobs, affecting five crore rural households.

In response to this dire warning, Gadkari notes in the file that reducing the wage component "is reflective of the view of the legislature" and hence it should be "brought about immediately".

These and other documents revealing the intense churning in the government on the job guarantee programme's fate were released on Wednesday by People's Action for Employment Guarantee, led by RTI activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey. An open letter to the Prime Minister protesting against attempts to dilute MGNREGS and signed by more than 200 personalities, including economists, women's activists, lawyers, former bureaucrats and others was also released.

At a press conference in Delhi, Roy said the present government never sought votes on the platform of killing the job guarantee scheme, otherwise people would have rejected them.

The starving of the MGNREGS by cutting down on funds and the changes proposed by the minister were described as attempts to abrogate a right of the people, economists Prabhat Patnaik and Abhijit Sen said.

Sen, a former Planning Commission member said creation of assets under MGNREGS was nine times more than the earlier Jawahar Rozgar Yojana although spending in both as a proportion of GDP was about the same.

Norati Devi, head of the Hamada panchayat in Ajmer district, Rajasthan, said that every month, their panchayat paid between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 1.25 crore for work under the job guarantee scheme. "It is a lifeline for poor people. For the first time, their children are going to school and getting medicines when sick. If the government stops this, people will face starvation," she said.

In the documents obtained under RTI, joint secretary R Subrahmanyam notes that increasing the material component of funds from 40% to 49% - and decreasing the wage component accordingly - would mean reliance on "benami contractors" with resultant corruption. He also points out that the more vulnerable unskilled workers would lose out to skilled workers in a contractor-based system.

Regarding the proposal of "targeting" the job guarantee scheme at areas where most needed, the notings by L C Goyal, secretary of rural development, are lauded by Gadkari who directs that these should be pursued "in a legally feasible manner on a separate file". Activists of PAEG, as well as the signatories of the open letter, have strongly condemned this proposal calling it a death knell for the job guarantee scheme.

Another concern highlighted by PAEG is that of liabilities of state governments. In a separate RTI reply, the ministry has revealed that state governments had to pay nearly Rs 6000 crore as on March 31, 2014, the bulk of which was delayed wages. The ministry is releasing funds in driblets and most of it is getting used up in settling pending wages and other liabilities, the activists said. For example, the Bihar government had outstanding liabilities of Rs 624 crore but till August-end, the union ministry had released only Rs 256 crore.