Is implementation of NREGA (national rural employment guarantee legislation) being fundamentally altered to the extent that instead of being a deliverable for regular rural work, the law becomes a source of exploitation?

This and other disturbing questions were raised at a press conference organized in Delhi on March 3 by the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (a collective which has been monitoring NREGA implementation carefully for some years and also campaigning for its proper, improved implementation.

This press conference was part of a wider mobilisation to demand significant improvements, as reflected in a protest dharna at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. While several national level injustices have been highlighted in the course of this protest, a special focus has been on the extreme injustices suffered by NREGA workers in West Bengal.

As the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has pointed out, most NREGA workers in West Bengal have not been paid their wages for over one year. According to the Morcha, the union government has withheld the release of over Rs. 7500 crore worth of NREGA funds out of which pending wages amounting to Rs 2762 crore have not been paid to nearly 3.4 crore registered workers from the state. This is for work already completed by them (one crore=10 million people ). In addition,  there was a near shutdown of NREGA work in the state for financial year 2022-23.

According to news reports, the union government authorities held back funds after discovering anomalies in the implementation of NREGA in this state. However, as was repeatedly emphasised in the press conference and at the protest dharna, when corruption is discovered, the response should be to punish the corrupt persons concerned and not to victimise innocent workers.

A wider, national level aspect of implementation which came in for repeated criticism at the press conference and at the dharna relates to the mandatory imposition of a centralized digital attendance system (NNMS) and Aadhaar based payments that has “caused havoc”. Many workers cannot be paid in time due to technical problems related to the NNMS App for no fault of theirs.

Brinda Karat, former Rajya Sabha member and CPMleader said that the big reduction in NREGA budget this year, the huge numbers of workers who demand work but are denied work, extremely low average wages of around Rs 218 per day as well as the fact of nearly 20 states being in deficit due to spending being higher than allocation received from the central government have led to serious questions regarding the future of NREGA. The union government has been very unfavorable towards NREGA as well as other pro-poor laws like the Forest Rights Act, 2006 Karat also said.

Anjali Bhardwaj, a senior social activist, stated that most of the weaker sections have continued to suffer from a worsening livelihood situation and inflation in the post-pandemic phase and therefore the weakening of important pro-poor schemes like rural employment guarantee is a cause for very serious concern. She called for genuine, comprehensive anti-corruption steps, while avoiding the imposition of more difficulties on the poor in the name of checking irregularities, as has been seen in the context of NREGA.

Rajiv Dimri, senior trade union leader (AICCTU), said that while the assault on NREGA is very regrettable, there is also a much wider assault on the entire working class and the central trade unions are preparing to resist this in various ways.

Several NREGA workers from West Bengal stated how they have been denied wages after toiling for up to 90 days at NREGA sites , and this as well as loss of work opportunities has led to hunger and starvation in their households.

The various speakers extended their support to the demands raised by the ongoing protest movement and dharna. These demands include—

• Immediate payment of the pending wages by the central government,

• immediate release of the withheld funds by the central government,

• Establishment of a revolving fund of Rs 1000 crore by the state government  for timely payment of NREGA wages,

• Checking irregularities in implementation of NREGA ad action against all those who are complicit in these.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine and Planet in Peril)

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