Bhopal: Government’s flagship scheme MGNREGA, which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, has failed to guarantee livelihood to people in the state. In the financial year 2016-17, less than 3% job card holders of MNREGA – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – were able to get 100-day work.
Rural development minister Gopal Bhargava cited budgetary shortage and weak execution of the scheme reasons for its dismal performance. As per the data, there are around 62.84 lakh job card holder families in the state, of which only 1.41 lakh managed to get 100-day work under MNREGA. In as many as in 40 districts of the state not even 1000 families were able to get work for 100 days in a year. However, the department continues to paint very rosy picture. If their records are taken into consideration, around 1,130.63 lakh person-days employment was generated during this period.
The government had maintained that scheme will help to check seasonal migration, however, figures portray a different picture. Migration continues unabated in the state, a reality which even the government could not refute.
Recently, in a statement on the department demand, Bhargava had stated that 30 per cent of population has migrated. The statement makes it clear that daily wage labourers are migrating in search of livelihood and MNREGA has failed to stem it.
There is some delay on the part of Central government in releasing the funds and due to which labourers are losing faith in government machinery, said the minister. However, assuring that things will improve, the minister informed that recently a team of the department headed by ACS Iqbal Singh Bais visited New Delhi and gave representation before the Central government officials. They were assured that funds will be released in time, the minister said.
In January 2016, Bhargava had written to Union government seeking the financial assistance of Rs 2000 crore. The department then had a debt of Rs 350 crore which were taken from the other heads to settle the labour payments. The department had then asked for Rs 2000 crore assistance from the Centre. Department officials and district panchayat CEOs too accepts discrepancies in the execution of the scheme, however, they are not ready to come on record.
One of the officials informed that the labourers are getting Rs 172 daily wage under the MNREGA scheme, which is far less than the amount fixed by the labour department guidelines and thus they are less keen on taking up work under the scheme. The assistant labour commissioner BP Singh, informed that collector rate for unskilled labourer is Rs 274 per day, while under MNREGA the wage rate is Rs 172.
One of the officials of rural development department informed that the untimely release of funds from the Centre government has also affected the scheme implementation. “The GoI releases the funds too late and following delay in payment, labourers feel cheated and they refuse to seek work under the scheme,” he said.
