India: Poster for First National Convention - NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (3-4 Oct 2023, New Delhi)

 

India: CPM leader Brinda Karat's letter to Minister of Rural Development on MGNREGA

 Brinda Karat's letter to Minister of Rural Development on MGNREGA

Date:  Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Smt. Brinda Karat, member, Polit Bureau of Communist Party of India (Marxist)  had written today the following letter to Shri Giriraj Singh, Minister of Rural Development, Government of India  drawing his attention to the negative impact of several policy decisions taken by the government regarding MGNREGA. 

We are herewith releasing the text of the letter for publication.

***

Shri Giriraj Singh ji,

Namaskar. I write this letter to you to draw your attention to the negative impact of several policy decisions taken by the government regarding MGNREGA. As one who was actively involved in the finalisation of the Act and the clauses regarding the rights of workers, it is a matter of deep concern that workers’ rights for demand based work are being compromised.  The fund allocation is woefully inadequate. According to the data on the Ministry’s website 91 per cent of funds allocated have been already spent. At present average workdays are at a low of just 35.4 days.  In such a situation MGNREGA workers will face acute problems. Moreover, mandatory stipulations such as online registration of attendance at worksites as well as Aadhaar based payments are converting unconditional rights embedded in the law into restricted access for job card holders.

Introduction of Aadhaar linked payments of wages has not resulted in much change in timely payment of wages. In June, the government in a press release from PIB had assured that the Ministry was not insisting on Aadhaar enabled system of payment but on Aadhaar based payment system (ABPS) which would be more flexible. However, a most revealing survey conducted by an organisation reported in The Hindu, August 30, 2023, shows that out of the “total 26 crore job holders, 41.1 per cent are still not eligible for this mode of payment. From five states with the largest number of active job holders, 1.2 crore workers will not be eligible for payments as they do not have ABPS accounts”. The survey also shows on the basis of an analysis of data recorded in the central data base of the government that there is statistically very little difference between ABPS and normal account transactions as far as the amount of time taken for payments are concerned or as far as percentage of rejections are concerned. In other words, while so far there is no significant benefit, there is certainly evidence of significant losses for workers.

In the last six months I have visited MGNREGA sites and interacted with workers across states. A common complaint has been the introduction of the attendance system through online registrations at the worksite at specific times during the day. Given that the connectivity is very poor in vast areas of rural India, particularly in remote tribal areas, mandatory online registration is leading to great difficulties for the workers. Women workers who comprise the majority of MGNREGA workers in many States, have been particularly affected. As you know, women workers are charged in our patriarchal cultures for the main responsibility of domestic work and care of families. Before and after their MGNREGA workday women put in many more hours of work. However, they complain that because of the lack of connectivity, sometimes they have to spend one hour extra getting their attendance registered. There are also examples of attendance not getting registered leading to denial of wages.

In my interaction with women workers, I found that the SORs and the piece rates decided are extremely difficult to complete. In the current situation as far as women’s work norms are concerned MNREGA sites are illustrations of the extraction of female labour at low rates to create public assets. There has been no Ministry initiated recent time use surveys on MNREGA sites. Earlier in many states, work norms for women were decided after such surveys. This is an urgent requirement.

I hope you will consider the issues I have raised and take appropriate action.

Thanking you,

Sd/-
Brinda Karat

India: The rural wage rule GOI must relinquish | Jean Dreze (May 30, 2023)

Times of India, May 30, 2023

The rural wage rule GOI must relinquish
by Jean Dreze

Making Aadhaar-based payments compulsory for NREGA has severely undermined workers’ rights. Rural development ministry should retract its January 30 order:

The poor history of wage payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act took another wrong turn earlier this year. On January 30, the rural development ministry issued an order making Aadhaar-based payments compulsory for all NREGA wages from February 1, 2023 – just two days later. This has led to utter chaos and worse, the injustice of unpaid NREGA work.

Until February 1, the wage payment system had two options: “account-based” and “Aadhaar-based”. The former is an ordinary bank transfer that simply requires a name, bank code and account number. The latter is an opaque and complex payment system that seeks to treat Aadhaar as a financial address. Like a precision-guided missile, it is supposed to find your latest Aadhaar-linked account on its own. How this is supposed to help, no one has clearly explained so far.

This Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS) has no demonstrated advantage over account-based payments. If anything, it is the opposite. For instance, rejection rates are similar with both options, but rejection problems are much harder to solve with ABPS. It has baffling glitches, like wages being redirected to Airtel wallets that workers know nothing about.

Further, account-based payments spare NREGA workers the ordeal of having to meet the norms of “ABPS eligibility”. This may require them to update their Aadhaar details, get their Aadhaar number authenticated, link their bank account with Aadhaar, “align” all the relevant documents (job card, Aadhaar card, bank account, and possibly even PAN card) with each other – any or all of those.
In early February 2023, just 43% of all NREGA workers were eligible for ABPS wage payments. The ministry’s order created a situation where a majority of workers were “unpayable”. Indeed, the mandatory imposition of ABPS has caused havoc for NREGA in the last few months. In some states, job cards of ABPS-ineligible workers have been deleted en masse to help meet the target of 100% ABPS eligibility.

Frontline NREGA functionaries are at a loss to implement the new order. Mostly, they try to discourage or prevent ABPS-ineligible workers from working at NREGA worksites – a violation of their right to work. Sometimes, attendance of ineligible workers is marked “zero” after they have worked, to ensure that the collective Fund Transfer Order (FTO) is not held up. Sometimes, ineligible workers are told that FTO cannot be processed until they meet the ABPS eligibility norms. In spite of all this pressure, the proportion of NREGA workers who are eligible for ABPS is still as low as 52% today.

The worst part of this chaos is that many workers have not been paid at all for their hard work, and will never be paid. Some are held hostage to ABPS, others to the National Mobile Monitoring System, an unreliable digital-attendance app.

The ministry’s order was immediately followed by a crash in wage payments. According to the officialNREGA portal, the number of FTOs submitted for payment declined by more than 50% in February, whether one takes the preceding month (January 2023) or the same month in the preceding year (February 2022) as the baseline. The volume of wage payments also declined by more than 50%.
Perhaps this is what led the ministry to reverse gear momentarily: The February 1 deadline was extended to April 1, and then to June 1.

Wage payments resumed normal levels, but confusion and irregularities persist.
Another extension would help, but only kick the can down the road. What is really needed is a retraction of the January 30 order. There is no case for disabling the account-based option for NREGA wage payments. In fact, it is the Aadhaar-based option that should be reviewed, as it disempowers workers by putting them at the mercy of an obscure and glitch-ridden payment system that few people understand.

An impression has been created that ABPS payments are relatively corruption-proof, but there is zero evidence of that.

In fact, Aadhaar-linked accounts are especially vulnerable to fraud. If your bank account is linked with Aadhaar, and you are not careful, scamsters can easily extract money from it. Even if they lack the simple skill of cloning fingerprints, they can persuade you to put your finger in a biometric ATM under some pretext. This has happened on a large scale in the last few years. Indeed, it is one of the top fraud types listed by the National Payment Corporation of India in its updated ‘Fraud Liability Guidelines’ for Aadhaar-enabled payments.

Payment delays have plagued NREGA for more than 12 years and now there’s even the injustice of unpaid work. The rural development ministry must put in place a reliable and timely payment system once and for all. Making Aadhaar based payments compulsory is a counterproductive distraction from this basic purpose.

The writer is Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University

India: Neglecting MGNREGS undermines workers’ rights | Zoya Hasan (Indian Express, Fed 10, 2023)

 The Tribune

 UNION BUDGET 2023-24

Neglecting MGNREGS undermines workers’ rights

The MGNREGS continues to be deeply relevant as millions of rural households have gained employment through it. It is particularly vital in times of economic stress and, hence, it is important to make a budgetary provision for the full 100 days and, perhaps, expand it to 150 days of work, given the prevailing dismal employment conditions in the country. The government violates workers’ legal rights every time it does not match the funds to demand or does not pay wages on time.

Zoya Hasan

Distinguished Professor, Council for social Development, New Delhi

The words ‘rights’ and ‘equity’ are conspicuous by their absence from the numerous assertions and claims made by leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with regard to their achievements in countless speeches and advertisements. A year ago, the Prime Minister stated that there was far too much emphasis on rights, and not enough on duties — even though the Constitution doesn’t place them on an equal footing. The realignment of rights and duties is not just about giving greater attention to duties; it is about giving less importance to rights.

This is evident from the niggardly attitude towards the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the constantly abridged budgetary allocation for it, which is tantamount to a disregard of this right. This has consequences for the larger issue of rights as it affects the well-being of the most vulnerable sections of our society.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), passed in 2005, was a path-breaking legislation aimed at providing guaranteed employment to rural citizens. It was the single largest rural employment scheme in independent India. It provided only 100 days of employment in a year and, that too, for just one member of a rural household, but the important thing is that it conferred an economic right, which means employment had to be provided on demand, and if the state could not deliver 100 days of work, then the person seeking employment had to be paid compensation.

However, this scheme has been hit hard by budgetary cuts. This started during the tenure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government itself, even though it had introduced the scheme; allocations practically froze during its second term, making no allowances for the rising prices or the increase in the number of job seekers.

But the NDA government has stretched the practice of making low budgetary allocations to the limit, which has weakened the legal guarantee of timely payment and employment. This comes at a time of rising unemployment and increased inequality in India. Both the World Inequality Report-2022 and Oxfam Inequality Report-2023 show India as one of the most unequal countries in the world in terms of incomes and assets. India registered the fastest increase in economic inequality in recent years, even as access to a number of social protection programmes has been severely undermined on the one hand, via restricting allocations and on the other, through the dilution of schemes, such as MGNREGS and even those that form part of the National Food Security Act.

This government has been lukewarm towards the MGNREGS in the last nine years. The Prime Minister spoke derisively about it in Parliament. The Finance Minister mentioned it only once (in the context of work for mangrove conservation) in her Budget speech this year. But the NDA government has not abolished the scheme; it has strangled it through low allocations. The budgetary allocation has been cut by 30 per cent to Rs 61,032.65 crore for 2023-24, the lowest in the past four years. It is lower than the budgetary estimate of Rs 73,000 crore for 2022-23. It is the second straight cut in the scheme’s budgetary allocation as in the Budget-2022-23 also, the allocation had been cut by 25 per cent to Rs 73,000 crore from the revised estimate of Rs 98,000 crore.

The gradual decrease in the budgetary allocation for the MGNREGS has created doubts about the government’s intentions. By cutting down the funds, the government sends out a signal that it wants to spend less on this scheme as opposed to the others, which means fewer initiatives can be undertaken under this scheme. Reduced funding also makes it difficult for the government to keep its promise of 100 days of employment, which is crucial for the survival of rural households. The average days of work offered is actually much below 100 days and, frequently, employees will not be able to get work even for half a year.

By law, it is a demand-driven scheme but the continuous decrease of funds has reduced its potential effectiveness. The government has always claimed that the actual allocation would be increased if it was found that a large number of persons were asking for employment under the scheme. While supplementary allocations for the MGNREGS have been increased substantially at the revised estimates stage, a low initial outlay acts as a discouragement. It diminishes demand, in fact, chokes it, which becomes a justification for the low initial budgetary allocation for the scheme. Even if the allocation gets increased later because of higher demand, this increase takes time, which means that wage payments as well as material costs will be delayed and workers get pushed into ‘forced labour’ in the intervening period.

Furthermore, almost half of the budget allocation is spent on clearing arrears. Consequently, the flagship scheme runs out of funds halfway through the financial year even for those who want work.

According to an analysis by Peoples’ Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG), a research and advocacy group, 21 per cent of the budget over the past five years has gone into clearing the arrears of previous years. In the current financial year 2022-23, the unpaid dues stand at Rs 16,070 crore. Hence, the PAEG demanded that the Centre allocate a higher budget of Rs 2.72 lakh crore for 2023-24, three per cent more than last year’s estimate to provide 100 days of work per household. This demand was calculated taking into account the pending dues and the increasing demand for work.

The MGNREGS continues to be deeply relevant as millions of rural households have gained employment through it. It had come to the government's rescue during the repeated Covid-19 lockdowns, providing a critical lifeline for millions of migrant workers trekking back from cities to their villages. But the low allocation of funds has undermined its significance.

However, the MGNREGS is particularly vital in times of economic stress and, hence, it is important to make a budgetary provision for the full 100 days and, perhaps, expand it to 150 days of work, given the prevailing dismal employment conditions in the country. The government violates workers’ legal rights every time it does not match the funds to demand or does not pay wages on time.

 

India: Prioritise Workers in NREGA Reforms [in the Hindu, Jan 30, 2023]

 

India: Press Release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha - Dec 26, 2022

 

One year of Injustice: One year of NREGA workers wage theft in West Bengal

 

●      Centre withheld over 7,500 cr funds, 2,744 cr due to NREGA workers

●      Centre hasn’t sanctioned labour budget for 2022-23

●      Loss of around 4687-6842 crores of NREGA wages this FY due to stoppage of work 

●      Average days of work for the current year dropped to meagre 23 from 63.46 days (pre-covid) and 49.96 days (post-covid)

 

Victimisation of workers:

MGNREGA workers in West Bengal have not been paid wages since 26th December 2021. Today, we mark one year of centre withholding the release of over Rs 7,500 crore MGNREGA funds to the state for ‘non-compliance of central government directives’ invoking the Section 27 of the Act. Out of this amount, the pending wages are touching a staggering figure of Rs. 2,744 crore. According to the report, there is around 4687 crores of perceived loss in NREGA wages from pre-Covid years^[1] and 6842 crores in comparison to post-Covid years^[2]. The present stoppage of wages is irrational and leads to victimization of workers who have done their work honestly. It has also pushed poor workers on the brink of starvation.

 

Violation of Fundamental Rights and Legal Provisions:

Section 27 of the Act may appear to allow the central government to “order stoppage of release of funds to the Scheme” in some circumstances, but this provision cannot be read as a license to stop wage payments to workers who have already worked. These workers have an unconditional right to be paid within 15 days. That line in Section 27 was formulated at a time when the release of funds preceded NREGA work. Today, work comes first, and then funds are effectively released when the central government pays the wages directly in workers’ accounts. Stopping the release of funds cannot be allowed, even under Section 27, when it has the effect of depriving workers of their rightful wages.

 

Both the Central and State Governments are guilty of violating the fundamental Right to life of 3.4 crore registered workers across the state. Denial of work and wages is also in contravention to the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Swaraj Abhiyan case^[3]. We understand from news reports that the Government of India (GoI) has stopped transfer of funds after discovering anomalies in the implementation of works under MGNREGA.

By turning a blind eye to corruption, the State Government has ensured that funds meant for workers are siphoned off by political goons from the ruling party in the state. With Panchayat elections due in mid 2023 , the Centre-State stand-off over NREGA funds is taking on political overtones. While the state asserts that all corrective measures have been taken, BJP at the Centre is however reluctant to release the money before the Panchayat elections. In this political slugfest the sufferers are workers who have been deprived of their wages for the past year. 

 

We encourage that measures should be taken to tackle corruption and increase transparency. Efforts should be made to ensure that social audits and grievance redressal mechanisms are effective. But, the standards of audits and action taken on audit findings are largely unsatisfactory in the state and across the country. The State Employment Guarantee Council (SEGC) and Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC)^[4] do not exist for the past couple of years.  This not only makes a mockery out of transparency and anti corruption measures, but also shows how the GoI is using anti corruption as an excuse while itself violating the Act. Eliminating leakages and irregularities cannot be used as an excuse to undermine the demand driven nature of the Act. This is a continuation of the government’s assault on NREGA and has once again exposed the central government’s lack of commitment for NREGA workers’ rights.

 

Our Demands

 In particular, we demand the following :-

 

1. Immediate release of MGNREGA  funds by Central Government, with immediate starting of new works and issue of new job cards.
2. The pending wages to the tune of Rs. 2,744 crores for all MGNREGA workers need to be released immediately along with the delay compensation at the rate of 0.05% per day for the entire duration of the delay^[5].
3. Sanction and transfer of the 2022-23 Labour Budget.
4. Action against anomalies and corruption in the scheme, and strengthening of social audits & grievance redressal mechanisms.
5. The State Government must start a revolving fund of Rs.1000 crores from which immediate payment of NREGA wages can be done and to ensure timely payment of wages, in the event of future delays or complications in receiving money from the Central Government.
6. All the documents pertaining to correspondence between the Central Government and the State Government on MGNREGA since 2019, including the reports of central team visits and action taken, should be made public.

 

For further information, please write at nrega.sangharsh.morcha@gmail.com or contact:

Anuradha (9433002064) | Nikhil  (9910421260) | Chakradhar (9246522344) |  Apurva (9313759050) |

---

^[1] average of 2018-19 and 2019-20

^[2] average of 2020-21 and 2021-22

^[3] Writ petition 857/2015; full judgement

^[4] The response to the RTI can be seen here

^[5] as per Para 29 of Schedule II of the Act.

India: NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Press releases for NREGA Dharna, Day 1 (2 August 2022 ) and Day 2 (3rd August 2022 )

 

NREGA Sangharsh Morcha

Ph: 9845371493/ 9433002064 / 7982910587

Twitter: @NREGA_Sangharsh
Facebook: @NREGASangharshMorcha Email: nrega.sangharsh.morcha[at]gmail.com

NREGA Dharna, Day 1, 2 August 2022

Workers Demand Increased Budgetary Allocations and Timely Payment

Hundreds of NREGA workers from 15+ states gathered for a three day protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi called under the banner of NREGA Sangharsh Morcha. The crucial role played by NREGA in supporting the rural population was highlighted during the pandemic, with work demand shooting up as lakhs of migrant workers streamed home. Even now, two years into the pandemic, NREGA’s demand remains high. And yet, NREGA is under attack by the government. Consistently decreasing budgetary allocations, wage payments delayed for months, negligible compensation paid for delays, and woefully low wages plague NREGA. These issues are widespread across the country.

The first day of protest was marked by the singing of protest songs, testimonies given by individual NREGA workers from different states, and enthusiastic sloganeering with some old, famous NREGA slogans: “Har haath ko kaam do, kaam ka poora daam do”, “Ladenge, Jeetenge!”, “Hum apna adhikaar maangte, nahin kisi se bheekh maangte”.

Anuradha Talwar from Pashchim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samiti shared about the Morcha’s demand of increasing the NREGA wage to Rs 800 a day, which roughly equals the monthly salary of the lowest paid government employees as per the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission. She also highlighted the situation of West Bengal, which suffers from the worst wage delays in the country – more than Rs. 2600 crores are yet to be paid over just the last 2 FYs, and no payments have been made since December 2021.

Workers from West Bengal, Telangana Bihar, and UP all highlighted the issues of delays in payments and unmet demand. Many of them have been demanding work since April with no response. They have also not received the unemployment allowance they are legally supposed to receive. The newly introduced NMMS application for marking attendance is causing much distress to workers across the country.

Political leaders also came to the event and expressed teir solidarity with the mazdoors. Binoy Viswam, CPI MP from Kerala, expressed his support of the ‘jal, jangal, zameen’ issue, and demanded the central govt. answer the mazdoors. Hannan Mollah, 8 time MP from CPI (M) in Howrah, and the senior leader of the All Indian Kisan Sabha, spoke about the common issues of farmers and NREGA labourers. He called the government an anti-farmer, anti-mazdoor government, and gave a call for unity of movements. Yogendra Yadav also joined the protest and expressed his solidarity with the cause. Annie Raja of NFIW was also present.

Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh of MKSS spoke passionately about the deeper issues underlying the eroson of NREGA. They emphasised the need to come together and demand greater accountability from the government, and also raised issues of freedom of speech and the right to protest.

The day ended with plans to send state-wise delegations to each state’s opposition parties on the next two days of the dharna.

For further details please call Abhay (9845371493), Anuradha (9433002064), Apurva (9313759050), Laavanya (9910746743), Richa (9452232663) or write to nrega.sangharsh.morcha[at]gmail.com 

o o

NREGA Sangharsh Morcha
Ph: 9845371493/ 9433002064 / 7982910587 Twitter: @NREGA_Sangharsh
Facebook: @NREGASangharshMorcha
Email: nrega.sangharsh.morcha[at]gmail.com

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NREGA Dharna, Day 2, 3rd August 2022

500+ NREGA workers from across 15 states gathered in Jantar Mantar for the second day of the dharna today. 

Workers from Haryana, U.P., Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka gave testimonies about the hardships they have faced owing to persistent delays in wage payments, on how they did not get work when they demanded it, and about how no compensation was provided when workers were injured or even killed at the workplace. Many raised concerns regarding the introduction of the NMMS app for attendance at worksites and other technological interventions making it difficult to work in NREGA.

Several workers’ delegations visited the MPs of their states to share their grievances and demands. Memoranda and the charter of demands was presented to the following Members of Parliament: R. Krishnaiah (YSRCP), Uttam Kumar Reddy (INC), Dhiraj Sahu (INC), Diya Kumari (BJP), Jagannath Sarkar (BJP). The documents were also submitted to the Samajwadi Party office. Some of these MPs received the charter of demands and some of them expressed their support and assured to raise it in the parliament. D. Raja, the General Secretary of the CPI and Kavita Krishnan of CPIML attended the dharna and endorsed all the demands.

Currently, more than Rs. 21,850 crores of wages are pending since April 20201. This year’s pendency is already Rs 6,800 crores. In particular, no wages for West Bengal have been processed since December 2021 and current dues are above Rs. 2,500 crores. An analysis done of 18 lakh wage invoices of the first half of FY 21-22 showed that only 29% of payments were processed within the mandated 7 day period by the Government of India (GoI). There is enough evidence suggesting that inadequate funds allocation lead to wage delays. As of July 31, 66.4% of the budget has already been spent with 8 months remaining in the FY.

Corruption in NREGA is a genuine concern and social audits have been mandated primarily to curtail corruption. However, Rakshita Swamy of SAFAR and Karuna M., of PHM Tamil Nadu highlighted how funds for social audits have been curbed by the GoI themself. In a circular dated 5th January 2022, the Ministry of Rural Development said that social audits are a “pre-requisite” for fund release to States. On the one hand, the GoI is curtailing funds for NREGA on grounds of increased corruption and on the other, it has curtailed funds for social audits. There will be a detailed note on the issue of corruption in NREGA in the release tomorrow.

The alarming situation of food insecurity in the country and the need for greater investments in food entitlement was highlighted. Workers spoke about the difficulties in affording even two meals a day due to high inflation with a gas cylinder costing more than Rs. 1000. Mandvi, a worker from Bihar asked to end the “Ram Mandir politics” and ensure food security. There were demands to universalise PDS and have quotas for NFSA based on 2022 population projections to be in compliance with Supreme Court orders. Further PDS must include pulses, millets and oils. The PMGKAY must be extended till such time that the pandemic continues.

For further details please call Abhay (9845371493), Anuradha (9433002064), Apurva (9313759050), Laavanya (9910746743) or write to nrega.sangharsh.morcha[at]gmail.com

1

http://mnregaweb4.nic.in/netnrega/pfms_response_latest_may.aspx?fin_year=2022-2023&source=national&Digest=tcKvO x2xp47V1TJeb2KhXQ

 

India: NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Charter of Demands - August 2022