The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a universalised programme for any adult living in rural areas who is willing to do manual work, and law can’t be reinterpreted to introduce a policy of divisible allocations by social categories, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has said in a letter to Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
The Rural Development Ministry has issued an advisory to the States asking them to ensure social categorisation in every aspect of the implementation of the law— from the projected expenditure for anticipated demand among SC/ST households in the Labour budget, to separate State level accounting for wage payments to SC and ST categories, to utilisation certificates and so on.
The advisory is questionable in its intent and highly bureaucratic in its conception, Ms. Karat wrote. “The MNREGA is a universalized programme for any adult living in rural India who is willing to do manual work. The budgetary provisions are made for the implementation of the law as a whole. Thus, this cannot be determined by any new interpretations of the law to introduce a policy of divisible allocations by social categories, which is what the advisory appears to be,” she stated.
The ministry had indicated that the categorisation could be linked to budget allocation. And the changes have been made without holding any consultations, she pointed out.
The main issue at present, Ms Karat said, was the lack of work available under MGNREGA. “The average days of work in April-May this year of just 20 days per household is less than last year. This at a time when the second wave of the pandemic has eliminated job opportunities, and provision of work under NREGA is essential to prevent widespread hunger and deprivation.”
