- Deccan Herald Covid-19 reverse migration of labour added to joblessness A rise in self-employment and unpaid family labour three years into the Covid-19 pandemic even as wage rates fell is an indication that rural distress has risen, the economist Santosh Mehrotra writes. Economic distress was on an upward trajectory even before the Pandemic and the sudden arrival of millions of reverse migrants in 2020 added to the stock of unemployed people...
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Quality of work matters, and not just job creation
Contrary to the rising economic distress on the ground since the last few years, the official press release related to the fourth Annual Report on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) at first glance seems to give a rosy picture about the employment situation in India. Defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force, the unemployment rate in usual status (principal activity status + subsidiary economic activity status)...
More »In Nandurbar, delayed MGNREGA wages trap workers in a vicious cycle of debt and migration -Tabassum Barnagarwala
-Scroll.in A rise in work allocation through the pandemic saw an enthusiastic response. Now, delayed wages and reduced allocation forces workers out of the district again. Bardha Girdhar had to wait more than six months to get Rs 2,976 he had earned for digging trenches in Nandurbar. A farmer who own a patch of land of a little over two acres in the district, Giridhar spends some part of the year growing...
More »Graft claims in MGNREGA squeezing poor workers, millions unpaid for months -Himanshu Nitnaware
-Down to Earth Zero funds to Bengal, Lakshadweep this year, Centre admits in Parliament; activists ask to use pre-existing mechanisms to handle graft Millions of workers employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have not received wages for months. Workers from West Bengal are especially affected, with 13.2 million people unpaid for seven months. Bengal is the only state that received no funds under the 100-day work scheme in...
More »In charts: As MGNREGS funds fall short, Unpaid Wages are piling up -Nushaiba Iqbal
-Scroll.in/ IndiaSpend.com Across India, more than Rs 2,850 crore in wages are pending approval from the Centre for work done between April and September. India’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme provided more days of work in 2020-’21 than in any year since the programme began in 2008. But states are falling short of funds to pay workers. In three charts, we take a quick look at the current status of...
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