{"id":225432,"date":"2023-02-07T18:53:19","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T13:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=225432"},"modified":"2023-02-20T14:23:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T08:53:31","slug":"the-demand-for-mgnregs-work-is-unmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-demand-for-mgnregs-work-is-unmet\/","title":{"rendered":"The demand for MGNREGS work is unmet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article \u201cThe demand for MGNREGS work is unmet\u201d <\/strong>published in The Hindu <\/b>on 7th February 2023<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 2 \u2013 Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About the demand for MGNREGS.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: The allocation for MGNREGA in the Budget is \u20b960,000 crore. This is less than 0.2% of the GDP, the lowest ever allocation as a percentage of GDP. World Bank economists had estimated that the allocation should be 1.6% of the GDP.<\/p>\n

What is Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read here: <\/strong>Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What is the rationale behind the reduction in funds for MGNREGA?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read here: What could be the govt\u2019s calculations behind the slashing of the MGNREGA budget<\/a> and <\/strong>Cut in MGNREGS outlay is not a concern: Somanathan<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the challenges in meeting the demand for MGNREGS?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

MGNREGA is a demand-driven law. Every household must get work within 15 days of demanding work, failing which the workers are legally entitled to an unemployment allowance. But the demand-driven aspect is not functioning well at present.<\/p>\n

For instance, Two crore new job cards were issued between 2019-20 and 2022-23 showing the continued demand. But the average number of days of employment continues to be around 45 days highlighting the demand suppression.<\/p>\n

Management Information System (MIS) used in MGNREGA has been used to subvert the Act in many ways. Such as a)<\/strong> The aggregated persondays of work demanded at the State and national level is not available as a national MIS report, b)<\/strong> National MIS reports also grossly underestimate the unmet demand. A private study conducted in four States highlights that 39% of the households did not get a single day of work despite wanting 77 days on average. On the other hand, national MIS reports shows that almost all the households that demanded work were offered work.<\/p>\n

Hence the Rural Development Ministry claims that low demand has resulted in Budget cuts, but the reality is opposite.<\/p>\n

What are the challenges associated with the inadequate allocation of funds and the demand for MGNREGS?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Inadequate allocations led to\u00a0a)<\/strong> A steady centralisation of the programme architecture even as wages for most States remain lower than minimum agricultural wages, b)<\/strong> wage payment delays in many areas, c)<\/strong> a rise in unmet demands for the scheme, d)<\/strong> Officials might give fewer days of work to many households or provide many days of work to a few households and e)<\/strong> Officials might not even register work demand on the MIS owing to inadequate funds.<\/p>\n

Over all, budget cuts have created a vicious cycle of demand suppression, wage payment delays, overburdened field staff and corruption. These further discourage workers from doing MGNREGA work.<\/p>\n

What should be done to meet the demand for MGNREGS?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The person-days of work demanded must be made readily available for each State for that the government should address the real problem of underfunding and excessive centralisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cThe demand for MGNREGS work is unmet\u201d published in The Hindu on 7th February 2023. Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes. Relevance: About the demand for MGNREGS. News: The allocation… Continue reading The demand for MGNREGS work is unmet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-225432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":4,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1699014141},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}