Congress leaders flag ‘dilution’ of MNREGA, launch awareness drive in Ropar villages

Senior Congress leaders led by former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, PPCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and former Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha KP Rana on Thursday met residents of Golani village in the Nangal area of Ropar district to create awareness about what they termed as changes in the name and spirit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).

Addressing villagers, Bhupesh Baghel said MNREGA, enacted during the UPA government, gave people in rural India a legal right to demand up to 100 days of employment in a year.

“Under MNREGA, employment was a right. If a person demanded work, the government was legally bound to provide it,” he said.

Baghel alleged that under the new proposed framework, referred to by Congress leaders as the “GRAM G scheme,” the discretion to provide work would lie with the government, thereby weakening the statutory guarantee that existed earlier.

He cautioned that such changes could severely impact rural households that depend on MNREGA wages for survival, especially during agricultural off-seasons, and accused the BJP-led Union government of attempting to dilute a landmark welfare legislation.

PPCC president Raja Warring said another major concern was the proposed financial structure of the new scheme. He pointed out that under MNREGA, the state government’s contribution was limited to around 10 per cent, while the Centre bore the major share of expenditure. “Now states are expected to contribute nearly 40 per cent. Cash-strapped states like Punjab will find it extremely difficult to meet this requirement,” he said, adding that this could effectively cripple the rural employment guarantee programme.

Warring said MNREGA, introduced during the tenure of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, had played a crucial role in providing livelihood security to rural families across the country. Any dilution, he said, would directly hurt the rural poor.

Former Speaker KP Rana said the Congress would intensify its outreach in rural Punjab to educate people about the implications of the changes being introduced by the BJP government. “We will go village to village and build a mass movement to protect people’s right to employment,” he said.

During their visit, the Congress leaders also met Keshow Devi, a widow from Golani village, at her residence. They explained how changes in the employment scheme could affect vulnerable sections such as widows and landless labourers, and assured that the Congress would continue to raise the issue both on the streets and in Parliament.