Mumtaz Alam, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, Jan 06: If the additional amount of Rs 5,000 crore that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised in his last year budget speech is not released immediately, 1.82 crore workers with MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in 12 states would face wage crisis.
Addressing a press conference at the Indian Women’s Press Corps here on Wednesday, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Jayati Ghosh, the three eminent personalities behind the MGNREGA movement, expressed serious concern at the decision of the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make huge cuts in the social sectors and for an indifferent attitude towards the rural employment scheme launched by the previous Congress government.
At present the following 12 states have a negative balance: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh.
“They are negative states in the sense that they have already got a negative balance because the people have worked and the money has not gone to pay their wages,” said Aruna Roy.
“We strongly urge the Central Government to, at the very least, immediately allot the additional Rs 5,000 crores promised for the programme…if funds aren’t released the following are the immediate consequences: 1.82 crore workers are currently working on issued muster rolls in the 12 states with negative balance. They will not get paid their wages at least till April,” they said and provided copies of correspondence between the ministries of Finance and Rural Development to bring home the point that 95% of the budgetary allocation (Rs 34,699 crores) had been spent by 30th Dec 2015 and there was urgent need to release the promised amount of Rs 5,000 crores.
“…As the correspondence between the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Finance reveals that as of 30th Dec 2015, 95% of the funds allocated for the program so far have already been spent. And even though the funds with MoRD (Ministry of Rural Development) have finished, there is no allocation of the promised amount,” they said.
Responding to a question, Nikhil Dey said: “We faced this year in social sector a complete dictatorship of the Finance Ministry. Be it Education, Health, ICDS, Food Security – all of them have faced terrible cuts. NREGA was the only one hope because there is a law that the Finance Ministry cannot overwrite it and decide on its own. They made cuts even in pension.”
Responding to a question from IndiaTomorrow.net, Jayati Ghosh said: “I think the current government has very different notion of what development is. At least in so far we are getting the ideas from the PMO it is confined to things like heavy infrastructure and smart cities etc. There is very little in terms of recognizing that development is a process that necessarily has to improve the standard of living of the entire population.”
“There has to be political will. Whether we are serious about growth with some kind of equality and equity or we are going to fund and finance one small part of India and leave others without anything,” said Roy.
They demanded hike in the MGNREGA allocation in the coming national budget.
“We feel allocations for this year should be increased even beyond that amount, to enable workers across the country, particularly in drought states, to get the much needed respite they require. States with negative balance should have funds released to them immediately, and all requests for funds from states, based on labour demand, should be honoured,” they said.
