Govt tweaks MGNREGS for benefit of unskilled workers Rlys urges states to send back labourers

Migrants can now participate in the construction of complexes under the flagship Swachh Bharat scheme

NEW DELHI: With millions of unskilled migrant workers in the cities having returned to rural India in the aftermath of the lockdown imposed for the Covid-19 pandemic, the Narendra Modi government has tweaked the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for the benefit of the workers.

The government notified on July 2 that unskilled workers can now participate in the construction of community sanitary complexes under its flagship Swachh Bharat scheme—a priority welfare measure for the government.

The phrase “Unskilled wage component for construction of Community Sanitary Complexes in convergence with Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen)” has been added to schedule 1 of the MGNREGS where it talks about “Rural sanitation related works, such as, individual household latrines, School toilet units, Anganwadi toilets either independently or in convergence with schemes of other Government Departments to achieve “open defecation free status, and solid and liquid waste management”.

The arrangement, officials said, would help in getting more hands for Swachh Bharat-related construction and for the unskilled workers, opens a dedicated area of work. MGNREGS promises 100 days of manual work a year to at least one member of every rural household.

The government recently announced a targeted programme comprising 25 types of existing work to offer jobs to migrant labourers who have returned home in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Out of these 25, construction of community sanitation complexes was mentioned at the top of the presentation made at a press conference.

Public works worth ~50,000 crore would be offered to create jobs for migrant workers through this programme.

The skill mapping done in 116 districts across six states for the rozgar (employment)programme has revealed the high share of unskilled workers from the construction sector who came back to rural India during the pandemic. While construction workers comprised nearly 60% of all migrant daily-wagers, about 40% were unskilled.

Officials pointed out that last year too, the MGNREGS laws had been tweaked when the government renewed its emphasis on rain water harvesting. In November 2019, schedule 1 was amended to allow “rooftop rain water harvesting structures in Government or Panchayat buildings.”

MGNREGS was cleared by Parliament in 2005 and many changes have been made to make the programme more attractive to the poor beneficiaries. An official pointed out, “the changes are only made in the schedule or an appendix of the main law. So, it doesn’t require the Parliament’s sanction.”

The union government is heavily banking on the MGNREGS to provide relief to India’s vast rural sector. It has pumped in an additional ~40,000 crore to beef up the MGNREGS annual budget to ~1.05 lakh crore-the highest ever allocation to the rural jobs scheme. The government also plans to create 300 crore persondays of work under MGNREGS this financial year.

“MGNREGS is anyway demand-driven and works of Swachh Bharat were already included. creating job opportunities for unskilled workers is good but the main question is where is the money? the government has hiked MGNREGS budget by ~40,000 crore but the budget won’t be sufficient for the entire year given the very high demand for work,” said Himanshu, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

NEW DELHI: Indian Railways is in talks with states to bring back labourers for construction work on its biggest infrastructure projects—the dedicated freight corridors.

The project implementation agency, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), which had been left with about 50% of its workforce after the lockdown for Covid-19 was enforced on March 25, has begun the process of getting back nearly 20,000 labourers, officials said.

DFCCIL has sought help from state governments including those of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand to arrange workers for the ~81,000 crore project, scheduled to be completed by 2021, officials aware of the development said. DFCCIIL has begun booking special trains in bulk and deploying buses to get the labourers back.

“We had nearly 40,000 labourers working for us before the lockdown. After the first lockdown was announced, a bulk of migrants went back in the first 15 days. Once the Shramik Special trains began plying, nearly 50% of our workforce had gone back. We have major agencies including L&T, Tata, GMR group etc who requested us to get the labour back. We have written to the UP government, we are also talking to the governments of Bihar and Jharkhand for the same as a majority of the workers come from the eastern states,” said Anurag Sachan, managing director, DFCCIL.

Railways until now has transported more than 6.28 million migrants on board 4,594 Shramik

Special trains that began plying from May 1 to ferry stranded migrants to their home states.

“So far around 8,000 labourers have returned and we are arranging transportation for more to return. Several of the special trains that are plying were returning nearly empty, we managed to make bookings in bulk for the labourers. States like UP and Bihar have also made of the migrants and their skills and we are in touch with them. At present we are still at 50% of our total workforce,” Sachan added.

These workers are needed for technical jobs which cannot be done by local labour. Around 11,000 workers of the total workforce were skilled labour, officials said.

The ministry of railways is implementing two dedicated freight corridors, namely the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor from Ludhiana to Dankuni (1,856 km.) and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor from Dadri to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (1m504 km.). These corridors are targeted to be completed in phases by December 2021. DFCCIL had completed a total of 500 kms till January this year.

The railway ministry last month said the trend of migrants returning by special trains from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal --states with a high migrant worker population – showed signs of economic activity picking up.

Special trains returning from high migrant population states have shown over 100% occupancy from June 26 till June 30, according to railway ministry data, indicating that many of them may be migrants who had gone back to their home states on Shramik Specials during the lockdown.