MGNREGA’s future ‘uncertain’ due to underfunding: Cong

As the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) completed 20 years on Friday, the Congress accused the Centre of systematically throttling what it called the world’s largest social welfare programme. Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said the scheme, which once stood as a “lifeline for rural families”, now faces an uncertain future due to chronic underfunding, delayed wages and exclusionary technology.

In a statement on social media, Ramesh pointed out that the Finance Ministry’s own regulations prohibit schemes from spending more than 60 per cent of their budget in the first half of the financial year.

“The ministry has blown through 60 per cent of its budget within five months itself, leaving a question mark on what the future holds for crores of India’s rural families,” he said.

The Congress argued that this was not a one-off lapse but part of a larger pattern. “For 11 years, MGNREGA has been deliberately underfunded. The budget has stayed static for the last three years despite rising inflation, which makes a mockery of the scheme’s demand-driven vision,” Ramesh alleged.

He added that every year, between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of the scheme’s allocation was diverted to clearing pending dues from the previous year.

Citing further distortions, the Congress highlighted that payments were rarely made within the statutory 15-day period, leaving workers waiting months without compensation. Wages, it said, had seen negligible revision in over a decade, worsening rural distress.

The party also attacked the government’s introduction of the Aadhaar-based payment system and the National Mobile Monitoring System app, arguing that “in the name of transparency” they had pushed out crores of workers. “Estimates suggest more than 2 crore workers have been excluded from their legal right to work and wages,” Ramesh claimed.

The Congress reiterated its demands for a significant budget enhancement, enforcement of timely wage payments, a minimum daily wage of Rs 400 under MGNREGA, and the creation of a standing committee to set wages in the future. It also sought an immediate halt to the mandatory use of exclusionary digital systems.

“Today, instead of celebrating the achievements of a transformative law passed in 2005, we are forced to question if the government is intent on strangling it,” Ramesh said, urging the Centre to “stop undermining the rural safety net that crores depend upon.”