“Rural employment through MGNREGA-An Insight Into Wage Rates and Other Matters Relating Thereto” report presented in Lok Sabha

Posted 10 Feb 2024

Updated 16 Mar 2024

2 min read

It was presented by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development.
MGNREGA launched in 2005, gives a legal guarantee of a hundred days of wage employment to adult members of a rural household willing for unskilled manual work.
- Implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development.
- The Central Government notifies the wage rate for each financial year.

Issues with the scheme as observed by the committee
- Shortage of funds: It has a cascading effect on various important aspects such as the timely release of wages, the release of materials, etc.
- Issue of Fake Job Cards: deprives genuine beneficiaries of their dues and acts as a tool for diverting funds.
- Low wages rate: labourers involved in miscellaneous work earn higher wages.
- Lack of social audits: only 14% of planned gram panchayats were audited in 2020-21.

Recommendation of the committee
- Revision of Base Rate and base year to solve the issue of lower wage rates.
- Utilisation of a better inflation-linked index as the current index (Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour) is not sufficient.
- Increase in number of days of work.
- Issuance of separate job card for a differently abled person in a household.

National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app to capture the attendance of MGNREGS workers.
Geo-MGNREGA for geo-tagging of all completed works under MGNREGS.
Project “UNNATI” to upgrade the skill base of the MGNREGS workers.
Aadhaar Payment Bridge System (APBS) to ensure speedy payments and reduce rejection.

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