Centre's push for multi-pronged strategy

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 11

The Centre has devised a multi-pronged mechanism for timely payment of wages to workers harnessed under its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS).

The strategy to prevent delay in payment of the wages to workers includes the timely release of funds by the Rural Development Ministry and payment through the National Electronic Fund Management System (NeFMS) for direct payment into workers’ accounts.

Also, update guidelines for monitoring of timely payment and enabling appropriate provisions in the Ministry’s NREGA portal to monitor timely disbursement of wages.

The reason to buff up the measures for timely payment of the wages stems from the government’s realisation of the utilitarian role played by the scheme in providing jobs during the Covid pandemic-generated national lockdown, especially to migrants who resorted to reverse migration in droves to their native places.

The scheme emerged as a pivotal source for jobs locally amidst the ruins of job losses and loss of livelihood during the lockdown.

The employment under the scheme also helped keep up the pace of farming.

The economy of the agriculture sector in the country did not slack in spite of the wreck of other sectors during the turbulent periods of the lockdown.

Data from the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment says that more than a whopping 1.14 crore inter-State workers returned home during the nationwide lockdown amidst the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The unofficial figure would be more in the backdrop of umpteen jobs in the unorganised sector in the cities remaining below the official radar.

MGNREGS is a demand-driven wage employment programme that provides for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

The financial allocation for the MGNREGS is Rs.73,000 crore at the Budget Estimate stage in the current financial year which is 18.69 % more than the Budget Estimate of the previous financial year ( 2020-21).

The Rural Development Ministry has released Rs. 46,705.24 crore so fare during the current financial year to States/UTs for the implementation of the scheme.

The Ministry seeks additional funds for the scheme as and when required for meeting the demand for work on the ground.