If the match winner "MGNERGA" for Congress in 2009 has lost its charm and utility in 2014, with the introduction of another vote winner scheme the "Food Security bill ".
Employment under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act had provision for "Guaranteed Employment" to any adult member of a rural household applying for work under the Act is entitled to employment.
Every rural household is entitled to not more than 100 days of employment. The Act provides for "Guaranteed Wages" that are to be paid on a weekly basis. If work is not provided within 15 days of applying, the state is expected to pay an "Unemployment Allowance" that is one- fourth of the wage rate.
The required funds are provided by the central government in full for wages payments and part of materials used and unemployment allowance and the rest is paid by the concerned states.
But the Budget outlays at the Central level have been cut drastically by Rs 7,000cr in 2013-14. so the expenditure on this has declined, as a Central release informed.
The expenditure on MGNREGA has gone down substantially from nearly 1% of the GDP in 2008-09 to only 0.3% in 2012-13 and thus that has reduced employment opportunities under the scheme. It has declined consistently from 54 man days in 2009-10 to 47 in 2010-11,and to 43 in 2011-12, and finally gone down by 30% to 39 in 2012-13.
Moreover the highest decline has happened in the most unexpected places like in the poorest states and poorest sections in the country for whom the act was basically formulated. Likewise employment for dalit and adivasis has also declined drastically.
A three-day conference in Bhopal, where more than 250 representatives associated with the MGNREGA in nine states gathered, has released the above figures and expressed utmost dissatisfaction as regards to the implementation of the MGNREGA.
They said that the 100 days' work guarantee under the Act has become an unachievable distant dream now, with steep decline in provisions in the central budget and they condemned both the state and Central governments for making this law totally ineffective. They warned that the rural and migrant workers are facing a severe livelihood crisis.
"MGNREGA" had generated a hope, eight years back, is demolished now in 2013 . They argued that for the UPA 2 led central government , the MGNREGA has lost its charm and utility in 2014 election year, with the fresh introduction of new vote winning scheme, the Food Security bill , so the funds on this old scheme has been taken away.
In the context of the forthcoming coming Lok Sabha and assembly elections, a joint forum ( morcha ) has been formed for sustained and coordinated struggle for such loss of workers' rights. This morcha would organise campaigns and protests in their respective states over the next four months to draw attention to their plight.