Once called 'monument of failure', MGNREGS proved to be lifeline during COVID-19 lockdown

NEW DELHI: Once called a "monument of failure" of the UPA government by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was one of the flagship schemes launched during the Manmohan Singh government's first tenure, and it proved to be a lifeline for rural workers during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020.

Launched in 2005, the MGNREGS was one of the first major schemes brought by the Manmohan Singh government, which at that time had Left parties supporting it. The UPA government had then described it as a "landmark in our history in removing poverty from the face of the nation".

The National Advisory Council (NAC) chaired by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, which had several social activists and experts in an advisory role to the prime minister, also played a key role in shaping the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) based on the "Right to Work".

The MGNREGA aims at enhancing the livelihood security of rural households by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household that has adult members engaged in unskilled manual work.

The scheme was lauded for its impact on reducing distress migration from villages.

However, as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power in 2014, it appeared to be critical of the UPA's flagship rural job scheme and reports surfaced that it may be restricted to the most backward districts, triggering a backlash from activists.

In 2015, Modi said in the Lok Sabha that the MGNREGS should not be discontinued as it is a "living monument" of the Congress's failure to tackle poverty in 60 years.

Paying tributes to the former prime minister, activist Nikhil Dey said the fulfilment of the National Common Minimum Programme initiated by the NAC and backed by social movements brought "significant and path-breaking economic rights legislations", empowering the unorganised and marginalised sectors through basic entitlements to food, employment, education and land, amongst others.

"Manmohan Singh is considered to be the person who heralded economic liberalisation in India in the early 1990s. Yet the UPA government that he headed came to power in 2004, with a message from India's electorate that for a vast number of people, India was not shining and the market had not given them the benefits of economic growth," Dey said.

He said the reforms undertaken during the UPA regime have withstood hostility from "market fundamentalists and subsequent governments" and have shown their enormous value, particularly during periods of economic recession -- including Covid.

"While there were many voices even in his cabinet who critiqued and opposed these measures, it was clear that Dr Manmohan Singh had himself realised that the market could not be relied on for distributive growth and ordinary people would have to be empowered economically, socially and politically for India to address poverty, malnutrition and deprivation," Dey said.

The MGNREGA proved to be a lifeline for many in 2020, when a lockdown was enforced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering a massive reverse migration to villages.

According to a 2022 study conducted by the Azim Premji University in a partnership with the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations on MGNREGA and Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD), the scheme helped compensate between 20 per cent and 80 per cent of the income loss incurred because of the lockdown for the most-vulnerable households.

Former bureaucrat and activist Aruna Roy, who was a member of the NAC and played a crucial role in several rights-based laws being brought during the UPA regime, said the government under Singh introduced a range of reforms and favoured transparency.

"The Manmohan Singh government initiated social audits in MGNREGA and was aware that transparency was an essential prerequisite to the more effective functioning of social sector legislations with a vast canvas, such as the employment guarantee, the right to food, the right to education and the forest rights Acts," Roy said.

According to a recent statement from the rural development ministry, more than 6.7 crore workers from about five crore families across the country have been provided employment through MGNREGA in this financial year so far and more than half of the beneficiaries are women.

Singh died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here on Thursday at the age of 92. A seven-day national mourning has been declared in his honour.