In wake of the upcoming Budget 2016-17, noted writers and social activists have written an open letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, requesting him to accord “highest priority” to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA).
The activists have also urged the Minister to allocate additional Rs 5,000 crore to the Rural Development Ministry on an urgent basis.
Raising key issues, academicians, economists, editors, social activists and activists have expressed concern to the Finance Minister over the continuing trend of meagre and slashed budget allocations for rural employment guarantee scheme.
Among the noted personalities who have written the letter to Jaitley are Girish Karnad, Romila Thapar, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Abhijit Sen, Jean Dreze, Wajahat Habibullah, N Ram,? Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Kuldip Nayar, ?Biraj Patnaik.
The writers said in the letter, “Subsequent Budget estimations and allocations to the programme must be brought in line with inflation; be measured and maintained as a percentage of share of GDP and fundamentally operate through a ‘demand pull’ system as required by the law.”
“We would also like to point out that simply maintaining the allocation in 2010-11 at Rs 40,100 crore, taking into account inflation, would imply a budget in 2015-16 of Rs 61,445 crore. In terms of percentage of GDP, the MGNREGA budget allocation has fallen from 0.59 per cent in 2009-10 to 0.25 per cent in 2014-15,” the letter said, adding, “In 2015-16 budget, out of Rs 34,699 crore fund allocation, Rs 6,426 crore was required simply to meet the pending obligations of the previous year.”
The letter, submitted to the Minister and Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian prior to the pre-Budget talks?, has asked the minister to make available additional Rs 5,000 crore to Rural Development Ministry immediately.