A transformed MGNREGS is an effective tool to tackle rural distress | Opinion
The Hindustan Times
June 24, 2020
Posted by Aparajita Sarangi
As our country goes through one of the toughest crises, it is expected that there would be political consensus, not political mudslinging, around our response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Right from upgrading hospital infrastructure, developing emergency beds and ICUs to economic measures. It was interesting to see Abhishek Manu Singhvi, in a recent newspaper article, taking umbrage at PM Modi’s ‘monumental failure’ expression for MGNREGS in 2014. However, the entire discourse, carried on by many opposition leaders, amounts to ‘missing the wood for the trees’.
The recent announcement of an additional Rs 40,000 crore under MGNREGS to mitigate rural distress could not have come at a more appropriate time. This has further been supplemented by the “PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojna” that aims at providing Rs 50,000 crore worth of work to 69 lakh migrant workers in 116 districts. While the naysayers are recollecting PM Modi’s description of MGNREGS as ‘monumental failure’, they intentionally forget to mention the context in which such a statement was made. Prior to May 2014, a series of objections raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General, PILs filed before the Supreme Court, a plethora of circulars issued by the Ministry of Rural Development - many of the circulars contradicting the ones issued earlier - frequent interference of the then National Advisory Council in policy making and implementation and lack of proper monitoring and transparency had led to tremendous chaos and confusion in the field. Consequently, there was rampant corruption and a large number of earthworks, which would facilitate such corruption, became the order of the day. PM Modi’s statement regarding ‘monumental failure’ was basically intended to highlight the urgent need to transform MGNREGS with a focus on transparency, durable asset creation and convergence of MGNREGS with other schemes to maximize the impact.
Having been directly associated with the entire transformation exercise taken up under MGNREGS, I would like to list out some of the major governance reforms that ensured a complete overhaul of the programme. If MGNREGS has been able to stand by the poor and the deprived in the villages today, it is due to a series of painstaking reforms that were ushered in pursuant to PM Modi’s directions.
In the midst of the chaos and confusion prevailing in MGNREGS implementation in the UPA-2 regime, a major intervention for removing the possibility of ‘ghost assets’ and repeat works on the same site was geo-tagging of all assets created since April, 2014. With the help of space technology and tie up with National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO, Hyderabad, the MORD, with support from states, geo-tagged nearly 4 crore assets within a short period and the effort continues. This was a path-breaking initiative which was emulated in many central government schemes at a later date.
Coupled with this, came the National Electronic Fund Management System (e-FMS) on 1 January 2015. While Dr Singhvi is right that the DBT announcement had been made in the 2013 budget, he conveniently chose not to mention the extremely poor implementation of all DBT announcements by the UPA-2 Government. Because of strong monitoring and guidance of the Prime Minister, 99% of the MGNREGA funds are being transferred directly to the bank account of the beneficiaries today. Holding on to Aadhaar database, without making effective use was one more glaring example of the policy paralysis afflicting the system in UPA-2 days.
In sharp contrast to the earlier focus on taking up any kind of earthwork in the name of addressing rural unemployment, there was a conscious effort after 2014 to move towards durable asset creation and taking up more individual land based activities to enable small and marginal farmers to gain long term benefits through MGNREGS interventions. For example, only 3,488 works were taken up under the rural infrastructure component of MGNREGS in the financial year 2013-14. This shot up to 2,52,628 in 2019-20. Works on individual land go a long way in augmenting the income of a household and they ensure more tangible asset creation due to personal involvement of the landowner or the small and marginal farmer. A massive push was given to such works and consequently, this figure jumped from 18 lakh individual works in 2013-14 to 1.42 crore works in 2019-20.
Dr Singhvi’s overenthusiastic suggestion to increase the number of mandays from 100 days to 200 days misses the fact that the law itself provides for adding 50 more mandays only to the existing 100 days. That too is permissible only in the event of drought or other natural calamities. The cynics must note that the Labour Budget of MGNREGS has been increasing with focus on poor and needy states like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. The Labour Budget of 2014-15 and 2020-21 are 220 crore and 281 crore mandays respectively. That means more resources are made available for which PM Modi and team deserve accolades; this is another dimension of the transformative approach adopted by the central government.
To maximize the impact of MGNREGS interventions, works under convergence have increased immensely in recent years. Convergence has helped in combining necessary resources for generating an asset. Increased demand from beneficiaries from all the states for convergence works has further cemented the utility of this initiative. This thrust of the government on convergence has resulted in creation of useful and durable assets - anganwadi centres, food storage godowns, variety of roads including those with paver blocks as well as plastic waste and water conservation structures. While 66,525 works were taken up under the ‘convergence’ category in 2014-15, this number has gone up to 4,51,779 in 2019-20.
That Dr Singhvi has not checked facts before putting in certain figures mesmerizes many of us keeping in view his level of wisdom. His allegation that Rs 16,000 crore is outstanding is divorced from reality. In April 2020 itself, all pending dues have been cleared, thanks to the proactive approach of the central government.
Times like these require a proper appreciation of the gravity of the situation and a constructive approach to overcome the present crisis which is staring at us. Statements of Dr Singhvi and other opposition leaders at this critical juncture smack of cynicism and apathy. PM Modi is leading from the front. His clarion call for constructing an Atma Nirbhar Bharat requires all of us, from all segments, to join hands for various nation-building activities with hearts full of compassion, empathy and hope.
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