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NEWS ALERTS | Open letter from NREGA workers put Govt. to shame
Open letter from NREGA workers put Govt. to shame

Open letter from NREGA workers put Govt. to shame

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published Published on May 3, 2016   modified Modified on May 6, 2016
It seems that not only civil society activists, but even the poor and marginalized themselves are not happy with the Centre’s social welfare policies.

Following the recent protest by 150 eminent persons regarding failure of the NDA Government to take-up urgent measures for employment generation and ensuring food, nutrition & drinking water security in the backdrop of severe drought in roughly 1/3rd of Indian districts (please click here to access), MGNREGA workers from Jharkhand on 1st May, 2016 have written an open letter to the Prime Minister of India to protest against the Rs. 5 hike in NREGS wage rate.

After the Rs. 5 rise, the wage rate in Jharkhand has increased marginally from Rs. 162 per day to Rs. 167 per day. Therefore, on 1st May this year, NREGA workers of Jharkhand under the banner of Grameen Swaraj Mazdoor Sangh in their open letter to the PM have expressed dissatisfaction over the revised wage rate, which comes far below the existing minimum wage rate of Rs. 212 per day in the state.
 
Along with every letter written by a NREGA worker, Rs. 5 was enclosed to be sent to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in Delhi. The protest took place in Manika Block of Latehar District (Jharkhand) on 1st May, 2016.
 
In the open letter to PM Modi, which is written in a sarcastic style, it has been said that "(w)e feel that you need the extra five rupees more than we do, since your government has so many expenses. To implement therecommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, you will have to spend an additional Rs 1 lakh crore at least on salaries and pensions of government employees. Defence expenditure is about Rs 2.5 lakh crore. You must also be spending a lot of money on tax concessions for big companies, aside from giving them cheap land and other resources".
 
It is further mentioned in the letter that "(c)onsidering all this, we NREGA workers have made a collective decision to give up our extra wages for a day and return the extra five rupees to you. We hope that this will help you to keep your corporate friends and government employees happy".
 
From the open letter to the PM, one comes to know that in 17 states the increase was even less. In the state of Odisha, there was no hike in the MGNREGA wage rate this year as compared to last year. Please click here to access the open letter to PM Modi, dated 1 May, 2016.

In the following chart, the Inclusive Media for Change team has provided a comparison between the wage rates fixed for unskilled manual labour in various states/ UTs during 2015-16 and 2016-17. 




Source: State/UT-wise wage rate for unskilled manual workers (Rs. per day) in 2016-17, please click here to access
 
State/UT-wise wage rate for unskilled manual workers (Rs. per day) in 2015-16, please click here to access

From the chart, we come to know that for 9 states/ UTs, the rate of increase in wage rate (over previous year's wage rate) was lesser than that of Jharkhand (i.e. 3.09 percent). Also, for 4 states/ UTs, the increase in wage rate (over previous year's wage rate) was lesser than that of Jharkhand (i.e. hike of Rs. 5).
 
During April 2016, the Centre raised the MGNREGA wage rates in West Bengal and Assam by Rs 2 and Rs 3, respectively (as compared to previous year).Among the states/UTs, Haryana has the highest NREGS wage rate of Rs. 259 per day in 2016-17, as per the official notification (see chart).  

MGNREGA wage determination

The High-level Committee (HLC) set up under development economist S. Mahendra Dev in 2014 recommended that the wages paid to unskilled agricultural labourers under the MGNREGA should be the minimum wage fixed by the respective state or the current wage as per the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL), whichever is higher. However, in most states one finds that wage rate for unskilled manual workers stands below the minimum wage rate.

The HLC also recommended linking the wages to the Consumer Price Index, Rural (CPI-R), for protecting MGNREGA wages against inflation.

According to a report by The Economic Times, dated 23 March, 2016, the Government has calculated the rise in MGNREGA wage rates across the states in 2016-17 on the basis of CPI-AL, instead of the HLC recommended CPI-R (please click here to access).

Experts feel that the revision of wage calculation method will make the job guarantee scheme more attractive for rural poor. It could be observed in many states that the wages paid under MGNREGS fall below the minimum wages for agriculture labour as notified by the state governments. It must be noted here that minimum wages vary across states.

However, some experts have argued that instead of focusing on wage rates, the Government must ensure timely delivery of wage payments.

Shrinking budgetary allocation for MGNREGA

Although in a drought year like this, everyone expects that more employment will be generated under the MGNREGA. However, the Centre has not allocated enough funds this year so as to sustain the level of employment generated in the last financial year, which was 235.3 crore person-days, as per official data.

The government had approved a labour budget of 239.1 crore person-days in 2015-16, which reduced to 217 crore person-days in 2016-17. This is expected to adversely impact employment this financial year (please click here to access).

In an article written for The Hindu entitled A drought of action, dated 27 April, 2016, Jean Drèze has explained that why the budgetary allocation of Rs. 38,500 crore under MGNREGA in 2016-17 is inadequate. He says that the Central Government needs to spend at least Rs. 50,000 crore if it wants to maintain last year's employment level under the scheme. On top of it, the Government needs to spend Rs. 10,000 crore extra if the arrears are to be cleared (please click here to access).  
 

References

May Day Press Release from Grameen Swaraj Mazdoor Sangh, please click here to access

State-wise wage rate for unskilled manual workers (Rs. per day) in 2016-17, please click here to access
 
State-wise wage rate for unskilled manual workers (Rs. per day) in 2015-16, please click here to access

MGNREGA at a glance (dashboard), Ministry of Rural Development, please click here to access
 
May Day protest: Why MGNREGA workers in Jharkhand are returning Rs 5 to PM Modi, The Indian Express, 1 May, 2016, please click here to access

NREGA Workers Protest Low Wages by Returning Five Rupees to PM Modi, TheWire.in, 1 May, 2016, please click here to access

Rs 5 in a letter: Jharkhand's Unpaid Workers Return PM Modi's Wage Hike -Alok Pandey and Haribansh Sharma, NDTV, 2 May, 2016, please click here to access

A drought of action -Jean Drèze, The Hindu, 27 April, 2016, please click here to access

Activists, Academics Write Open Letter to PM Modi on the Drought, TheWire.in, 26 April, 2016, please click here to access 

Withdrawing the lifeline -Jayati Ghosh, The Indian Express, 21 April, 2016, please click here to access

To tackle drought woes, Centre to release 55% MGNREGA funds by June -Shalini Nair, The Indian Express, 19 April, 2016, please click here to access 
 
NREGA Vs Drought: Why The Centre's Promises Don't Add Up -Sreenivasan Jain, NDTV, 17 April, 2016, please click here to access

As India reels from drought, govt slammed for poor policies -Nirmala George, Livemint.com, 15 April, 2016, please click here to access

MNREGA labour budget cut by 220 million person-days -Nitin Sethi, Business Standard, 9 April, 2016, please click here to access

NDA Government starves NREGA of funds for the second year in a row -Steering Committee of Right to Food Campaign, 9 April, 2016, please click here to access
 
Revised MGNREGA wages put States in a quandary, PTI/ The Indian Express, 3 April, 2016, please click here to access
 
Starving MGNREGA -Nikhil Dey & Aruna Roy, The Indian Express, 30 March, 2016, please click here to access

Government increases wages for NREGS by about 6%, no revision in pay calculation formula -Ruchika Chitravanshi, The Economic Times, 23 March, 2016, please click here to access

MGNREGA wages should not be less than minimum wage of a state: expert panel -Jitendra, Down to Earth, 24 July, 2014, please click here to access
 
 
Image Courtesy: Jean Drèze


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