NREGA Sangharsh Morcha warns govt of 'deepening crisis'

New Delhi, Sep 6 (PTI) An rights group on Saturday said budget cuts have crippled the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and warned the Centre of a deepening crisis.

The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, an amalgam of unions and organisations working on the scheme, alerted authorities at a press conference in the national capital.

In a statement issued after the press conference, the NSM said it crisis looms over the scheme as a result of the Union Government's "persistent neglect of rural workers' rights." The group accused the Union government of underfunding the MGNREGS, a wage employment scheme which provides livelihood security for the rural households, when no better employment opportunity is available.

It said suppressing demand, and imposing exclusionary digital controls, turning a decentralised, demand-driven guarantee into a rigid top-down bureaucracy.

"World Bank researchers had said that for the program to run effectively at least an allocation of 1.6 per cent of the GDP should be made for the program to run. How much is allocated now? It's about 0.3 per cent of the GDP. That's the allocation today. The only time the allocation reached a little higher was in the COVID year, that was 0.58 per cent of the GDP," economist Rajendran Narayanan said.

The NSM emphasised that budget cuts have crippled the programme.

"MoRD data confirms that by August 2025, 60 per cent of the annual budget, or Rs 51,521 crore, was already exhausted. Chronic underfunding has led to payment delays and suppression of work demand, causing worker drop-outs," it said.

The group pointed out that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development has also expressed concern at the static fund allocation, calling it "uncomprehensible," but the MoRD continues to ignore these concerns.

"In the current financial year, NREGA wages are below the statutory minimum agricultural wages in 27 states/Union Territories," it said.

The NSM demanded that wages be brought on par with every state's statutory minimum wage at the least, and make it Rs 800 per day.

It also alleged there was a growing assault on workers' rights through "opaque, arbitrary, and ill-designed technological interventions" in the scheme.

"This includes the NMMS app for capturing attendance as well as the Aadhaar-Based Payment System (ABPS) for all wage payments," it said.

The NMMS, mandated in 2022 to reduce corruption, has in fact led to an increase in "misuse and manipulation" and workers have been demanding a rollback for more than two years, and went on a 60-day dharna at Jantar Mantar in 2023, the NSM said.

The ABPS, they said, has led to sweeping exclusions.

"Minor discrepancies between Aadhaar and Job Cards results in the denial of both wages and work, in contravention of the MGNREG Act," it said.

The NSM also condemned the Union government's continued punitive suspension of MGNREGA in West Bengal, stalled for nearly four years from December 2021.

The group demanded that the government strengthen social audits and grievance redressal and ensure their independence to fight corruption under the Act.

It also demanded that government release all pending funds to states and remove the 60 per cent budget cap imposed in the first half of 2025-26.

It said 38 per cent of the 2025-26 budget was diverted to cover pending liabilities from 2024-25-and called for an end to the practice to safeguard the demand-driven nature of the Act. PTI AO VN VN