Discard caste based disbursement of wages under MNREGA: Parl Panel to Govt

Asserting that the welfare-oriented nature of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) should not be divided on a caste basis, a Parliamentary committee has reiterated to the Rural Development Ministry to restore the previous mechanism of generation of single Fund Transfer Order without any sort of segregation on the basis of caste while releasing funds. Reports Gautam Debroy.

New Delhi:New Delhi: Asserting that the welfare-oriented nature of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) should not be divided on a caste basis, a Parliamentary committee has reiterated to the Rural Development Ministry to restore the previous mechanism of generation of single Fund Transfer Order without any sort of segregation on the basis of caste while releasing funds.

In its 26th report tabled in the Lok Sabha last week, the Parliamentary Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj has emphasized that the flow of funds on the ground should not be noted on the basis of the caste system. Rajya Sabha MP from Trinamool Congress, Shanta Chhetri who is also a member of the Parliamentary Committee told ETV Bharat that by giving the caste-based prominence in distributing MNREGA “Government is creating differences amongst different sections of MNREGA workers.”

“The flow of funds to various population groups on the ground should be noted without a caste-based system. There should be a single Fund Transfer Order without any sort of segregation,” said Chettri. She further claimed that apart from this, the government is also creating differences while distributing the money to different States.

“Prominence is being given to the BJP-ruled States whereas the non-BJP ruled States are getting lesser funds,” said Chettri. A startling fact that came to the fore during the examination of Demands for Grants 2022-23 in March pertaining to the mechanism of payment of wages being employed under MGNREGA was the audacious practice of wages being paid to the MGNREGA beneficiaries on the basis of caste, and in the order of priority starting from SC and ST to remaining others.

“Belying all logic and employing such modality, surpasses any prudence whatsoever. The Committee members finding themselves at a total ‘loss of words’ could not fathom the rationale behind such an idea. The scheme of MGNREGA draws its origin from a statutory source, MGNREG Act, 2005. Such absurdity is nowhere mentioned in the Act and digressing from the basic tenets of treating all the MGNREGA beneficiaries at par call for sternest possible criticism,” the committee chaired by Lok Sabha MP Prataprao Jadhav said in its latest report.

The beneficiaries of MGNREGA cutting across different sections of society have only one thing in common, “they are poor, destitute and have no other option to fall back on, except MGNREGA to look after their basic source of survival.”

“Thus, they are an economically weak populace and can come from any religion/caste, creation of such a payment system wherein one specific community is preferred over the other solely on the ground of caste will only give rise to resentment and create a rift among the beneficiaries of MGNREGA. The practice which started from 2021-22 needs to be addressed urgently and not be encouraged any further by ensuring that each and every worker working under the Scheme, irrespective of caste, gets the payment within the time frame fixed by the MGNREGA,” the committee said.

The mandate of the MGNREGA is to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

However, officials from the Ministry of Rural Development said that the category-wise (SC, ST, and Others) wage payment system, which was made applicable from the FY 2021-22, has been introduced to accurately reflect on ground flow of funds to various population groups. Its further streamlining has been undertaken. “From FY 2022-23 single FTO for wage payment has been started keeping the provisioning for separate budgets for different categories to reflect the accurate flow of funds on the ground,” the officials said.

The Committee, on the other hand, said that any rift created among the rural masses due to caste-based payment could defy the spirit of a welfare scheme and should be immediately stopped.

“Such practice needs to be done away with completely and payment under MGNREGA should be only in consonance with the provisions enshrined in the legal statute,” the Parliamentary committee said.

As per government records, during the year 2022-23, there are 15,32,67,216 active MNREGA workers across India with States like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal registering more than 1 crore active workers.