Guaranteed employment, many households are demanding full 100 days employment.
This reflects the inability of MGNREGA to adequately address widespread
agrarian distress. The latest RBI Annual Report has highlighted the fact that
there is a lack of support for the urban informal sector and MGNREGA aims to
counter this loss. However, in FY 18 only 50 days were provided as compared to
none in FY 17, indicating a lack of sufficient resources and support for
MGNREGA workers. This has resulted in households not being able to access
adequate livelihood opportunities under the scheme. Therefore, despite its best
intentions, MGNREGA has failed to provide sufficient resources and support for
rural households seeking employment opportunities.
livelihood and provide social security, employment guarantee and empowerment
insurance. The scheme guarantees at least 100 days of employment to over 150
million workers in rural India and provides extra work when needed. The scheme
is an attempt by the government to reduce poverty and empower the people of
rural India. With Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of a National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme, the government has taken steps towards providing security and
empowerment for the people of rural India by providing them with extra work
opportunities.
plagued with a number of problems. The most prominent one is the delays in work
and non-payment of wages. Despite the government’s increased fund allocation
for the scheme, it still remains insufficient to provide adequate work for all
registered laborer’s. Additionally, wage rates remain low when compared to most
other welfare programmers and poverty schemes. Corruption is another major
issue which has been said to be responsible for consistent late payments.
mainly reflected in inadequate allocation of resources and need for unskilled
workers to receive gainful employment. The wage rates are much lower than the
legally prescribed minimum wages, with the average wage rate currently standing
at 60% less than the legal minimum wages. This low wage rate means that
households receive low earnings, leaving a sizeable number of households
without proper wages and employment. Insufficient funds have further aggravated
this issue by making it difficult to employ more workers and pay timely wages.
Administrative prerequisites for employment creation also remain unsolved,
which further impacts the ability of workers to access gainful employment and
adequate resources to survive.
Agricultural Wages Act 1966 and MGNREGA wage rate are the main laws that
provide wage rates to agricultural and rural workers. The minimum wage rates
established by the government are often too low to provide a fair living.
standard for workers, and it fails to reduce poverty in rural areas. This has
resulted in a lack of interest among both employers and workers in these
schemes. Employers take contractors as middlemen as they can pay them less than
the minimum wages set by the government, thus further reducing wages for agricultural.
workers. In addition, due to the lack of awareness about MGNREGA schemes, many
employers do not adhere to the set wage rates.
MGNREGA workers in India. According to NREGA Sangharsh, only 43% of workers
were able to get the wages as per the MGNREGA wage rate in 2018-19. This is
mainly due to reduced demand and reduced budget allocations for the scheme.
Further, the Ministry of Rural Development's own data showed that 57% of
payments made through Aadhaar-based payments were excluded from receiving.
central government employees' pensioners and rural development wages. Moreover,
Aadhaar based payments have been widely used as a supply-based program for
MGNREGA workers, where over 30% of employee wages are made through
Aadhaar-based payments. This has further decreased the amount received by
MGNREGA workers and excluded them from getting employment guarantee and wage.
rates set by rural development schemes. Therefore, it can be seen that there
are various problems faced by MGNREGA workers in India such as lack of
awareness about the scheme, reduced demand and budget allocations for it, use
of Aadhaar based payments which exclude some beneficiaries from receiving their
entitlements etc.
lack of transparency in the wage payments are also major issues that are
affecting MGNREGA workers. This has been highlighted by leading economists who
have demanded that the government should ensure timely payments to the workers.
Moreover, Minister Narendra Modi recently declared that he will be increasing.
the budget allocated for this scheme and demanded 100 days of work per year for
each rural household. However, it is important to note that this is not enough
as there are still issues such as till workers photographs being made mandatory
for wage payments or restrictions on the number of workers who can be enrolled
under it. Furthermore, there is also a need to increase material payments as
currently most MGNREGA workers receive a low wage which does not enable them to
escape poverty.
2.5 crore in 2006-07 to 5.48 crore in 2018-19, with about 7.9 crore individuals
now employed under the scheme. In 2020, the central government has cut its
expenditure on wages by Rs 35,132 crore for 100 days of employment due to the
pandemic crisis and this has saved millions of households from greater economic.
hardship as MGNREGA provides employment and income security.

Source: content generated by AI