-Press release by Working Peoples' Charter dated 21st September, 2020 Amidst the micro and macro-economic crisis of the last 5 years, the union government has aggressively pushed the agenda of labour law reforms -- purportedly to simplify India’s ‘complex’ labour legislations, improve the business environment, and augment growth and employment. These changes, driven primarily by the business fraternity, have been aimed at improving India’s ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’...

-Press Note by People's Action for Employment Guarantee dated September 10th, 2020 MGNREGA during the pandemic and beyond: Implementation highlights, concerns and questions and demands for parliamentarians We are confronting an unprecedented crisis in the history of modern India. On the one hand, the increasing number of COVID cases point to a dubious distinction for India on the world stage. On the other hand, the unplanned lockdown has resulted in a massive...

-Press release by Peoples' Action for Employment Guarantee, dated 29th July, 2020 The present Covid -19 crisis has brought to the fore the importance of MGNREGA in providing employment to rural workers as well as to those urban workers who due to lack of employment opportunities in urban areas were forced to migrate back to their villages. The Central Government is planning to launch an urban employment guarantee (UEG) programme at...

-The Indian Express Covid-related crisis offers NDA government opportunity to increase work days, entitlements under the employment guarantee scheme. In a recent article (‘Credit where it isn’t due’, IE, June 10), Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar described the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as a “failing scheme” before 2014. MGNREGA under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was by no means perfect, but when the National...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...