The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme, which proved a major savior for migrant workers and ‘face saver’ for the government during Covid-19 pandemic, witnessed major fund cut in the Budget allocations for the financial year 2023-24.
According to the Budget estimates announced for 2023-24 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the rural job scheme has been allocated Rs 60,000, which is 18 per cent lesser than the Rs 73,000 crore Budget estimates for the current fiscal and 33 per cent
lower than the 89,000 crore revised estimates for populist scheme.
It’s not that allocation for MGNREGA has been slashed for the first time as it had witnessed a 25 per cent cut in the last Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman when the allocation for the scheme was made at Rs 73,000 crore,
However, following the protest over ‘huge’ unpaid balance at the end of the year by the states, the Rural Development Ministry had demanded an additional Rs 25,000 crore to meet the shortfall. Notably, the Finance Ministry approved only Rs 16,000 crore against the total demand of Rs 25,000 crore. Reacting to the huge cut in Budget allocation for rural job guarantee scheme, noted social activist Nikhil Dey said, “Now, it very clear that the government ‘wants’ to kill the scheme, which is meant for the survival of poor people.”
“We have been raising the fund cut issue for a long. Now, it has become very clear that the government wants to close this scheme. When workers won’t get their payments, then why would they work under the scheme,” said Dey, who represents NREGA Sangharsh Morcha.
A day before the Union Budget presentation, a group of social activists working under the umbrella group of Peoples’ Action for Employment Guarantee and the NREGA Sangarsh Morcha had urged an allocation of Rs 2.72 lakh crore for MGNREGA in 2023-24 in view of the existing inflation, pending worker wages and high demand. Justifying the demand, Dey had said, “The unpaid dues in the financial year 2021-22 were registered to be Rs 24,403 crore against the Budget allocation of Rs 73,000 crore. Consequently, 25 percent of the Budget was utilised to clear the dues, thereby creating a shortage of funds for the latter year.”
Terming it as an assault on the poor, former Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said, “The Modi government’s latest assault on the poor is a backdoor move to reduce expenditure on MGNREGA. Forcing MGNREGA workers to register their attendance via an app will introduce new avenues of corruption and disempower women, Dalits and Adivasis.”