Remembering the 18th anniversary of the UPA government’s flagship project, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge today slammed the Union Government for ‘suppressing the scheme with a ten-year low budgetary allocation.’

Taking to X, the congress president called the present state of the project, due to the alleged ignorance of the government, a “living monument of PM Modi’s betrayal  to rural India.” 

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The project was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led UPA government to ensure the right to work for India’s rural population and enhance the livelihood security of rural households. The scheme provides a legal guarantee of a hundred days of wage employment in a financial year to adult members of a rural household who demand employment and are willing to do unskilled manual work.

“Presently, there are 13.3 crore active workers who depend on MGNREGA, despite low wages, abysmal work days, and the deletion of job cards,” the Congress chief pointed out, noting that the Modi government has deleted over 7 crore workers job cards under the guise of using technology and AADHAAR, potentially cutting these households off from MGNREGA work.

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The Congress leader further highlighted the latest budgetary allocation for the scheme as just 1.78%, alleging that the Modi government contributes to artificially suppressing the demand for work under the scheme. “The Economic Survey has already laid the groundwork to justify the low allocation by claiming that MGNREGA demand does not necessarily correlate with rural distress,” Kharge added. 

The Congress president further noted that a recent Parliamentary Standing Committee report said that the daily wages paid under the MGNREGA are inadequate. To corroborate his argument, he noted that since 2014, the daily wage rate in Uttar Pradesh has increased by just 4% per year, when inflation has been much higher than that. “Today a laborer earns on average a mere Rs 213 per day,” Kharge said, promising that the Congress is committed to providing Rs 400 per day as the national minimum wage. 

“Even though rural inflation is higher than urban inflation for 13 straight months, the Modi government’s rank apathy towards the rural poor continues!” the Congress chief wrote. 

 

In 2005, on this day, our Congress-UPA Govt enacted Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to ensure ‘Right to Work’ to crores of people in rural India.

Presently, there are 13.3 Cr active workers who depend on MGNREGA, despite low wages, abysmal… pic.twitter.com/VC5dpoMUUi

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) August 23, 2024