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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | MGNREGA not replacement for existing job avenues: Government to SC

MGNREGA not replacement for existing job avenues: Government to SC

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published Published on Jan 5, 2012   modified Modified on Jan 5, 2012
-The Economic Times

The government has told the Supreme Court that its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MNREGA) is a social security safeguard and not an alternative employment avenue.

Challenging the Karanataka High Court ruling on wages under the MGNREGA, the Centre has said that its flagship programme is a "supplement" and not a "replacement" for existing employment opportunities. Though meant as a dole, the MNREGA programme has more often than not projected as an employment option for rural wage earners.

The Special Leave Petition filed on January 2 challenges the Karnataka HC's September 23 order that wages under the MNREGA have to be fixed as per Minimum Wages Act. The government has argued that equating MNREGA with the agricultural labour for which wages are prescribed under the Minimum Wages Act, would be akin to comparing apples and oranges.

The MNREGA Act is "a special piece of legislation aimed at granting a social security net that would be supplemental and not a replacement to enhance or augment livelihood security for rural household," the government's SLP stated.

The decision of the Supreme Court is crucial as several cases on the issue are pending in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is understood to have told rural development minister Jairam Ramesh that all effort has to be made to ensure that the HC's order doesn't become the final word on the subject without the government getting an opportunity to consider the issue properly.

The prime minister's directive would explain why the government has gone out of its way to differentiate the MNREGA, stressing on its temporary and subsistence nature, from regular agricultural employment.

Explaining the rationale, the government has argued that the programme is meant provide relief to the poor as unemployment is widespread and endemic in rural areas. "An urgent need was felt to ensure that at the very least a basic and justiciable minimum guarantee of employment (through the fixation of a number of days for manual labour) should be provided through the means of an independent legal instrument."

The government has argued that since the minimum wages for agriculture labour is fixed by states, pegging the MNREGA wage to it would lead to "an iniquitous situation".

The petition also makes the case that pegging wage rates to those of MNREGA could result in uncertainty and difficulty in finalising the central Budget as states could raise minimum wage at will with the object of drawing more central resources. Ramesh had initially opposed challenging the Karnataka High Court order.

The Economic Times, 5 January, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/mgnrega-not-replacement-for-existing-job-avenues-government-to-sc/articleshow/11370395.cms


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