-Scroll.in Data in Lucknow showed that mean monthly income for labour work fell 62%, from Rs 9,500 per month in pre-pandemic times to Rs 3,500 per month now. Asked how the lockdown-induced economic crisis affected the lives-livelihoods of daily wage workers, Rajesh Singh, in his early 20s in Lucknow said, “Since the time of Covid and the lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labor markets. Getting...
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India’s women and the workforce -Ashwini Deshpande
-Hindustan Times Women are not dropping out. They are being pushed out by the lack of demand for their labour. There has been movement out of agriculture into informal and casual jobs, where the work is sporadic, and often less than 30 days at a stretch. The new modern sector opportunities, especially in high value-added service sectors, mostly accrue to men. Why is women’s employment declining in India? The thrust of the...
More »The pandemic has hampered social auditing of MGNREGA
When a massive sum of public money is spent on a programme like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA)--a demand-driven programme, there is likelihood of financial misappropriations and mismanagement. Thankfully there are checks and balances in the rural employment guarantee legislation to counter such malpractices. It is worth noting that the total allocation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) for 2020-21 was Rs. 1,11,500.00 crore (R.E.), up...
More »Declining Wages, No Government Aid: Daily Wage Workers Are Stuck in a Deep Crisis -Deepanshu Mohan, Jignesh Mistry, Advaita Singh, Snehal Sreedhar, Sunanda Mishra, Shivani Agarwal, Vanshika Mittal and Ada Nagar
-TheWire.in A survey of mazdoor mandis in Surat, Lucknow and Pune shows that even many months after the lockdown ended, workers are struggling to make ends meet. “Since the time of COVID-19 lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labour markets. Getting work for even two days a week is difficult for us. Daily wages too, for any work possible, have dipped by half,” says Rajesh Singh,...
More »In quest of MGNREGA: 9.7 million households did not find employment despite seeking work during lockdown, says report -Kushal Mishra
-GaonConnection.com In the wake of the employment crisis caused by COVID-19, the Centre released Rs 1,000 billion under MGNREGA. 71% of this has already been spent, but of the 90 million active job cards, only about 1.9 million were able to complete 100 days of employment by November 2020. MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act), the world’s largest employment guarantee scheme, has so far failed to provide work to 9.7 million households...
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