As much as 94% of families enrolled in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the country may be deprived of the lockdown package announced by the Centre if it insists on restricting the benefit to those who have got 100 days’ employment in the current financial year.
As per official statistics, only 6% of the 3,51,2009 families got regular employment for 100 days in the current year and in Kerala 2,35,793 families (17%) completed the 100-day mark as mandated by the law.
Sources privy to the execution of the scheme told The Hindu that 5.42 crore families actively participated in the job scheme in the country in the current financial year and the average number of days they got jobs had been pegged at 47.
Against the national average of 47 days, Kerala registered the active presence of 14 lakh families and provided employment for 55 days. The State had another record of providing jobs for 77 days to Scheduled Tribe families.
Since the scheme was primarily aimed at families below the poverty line and women formed the majority of the workforce, the package was expected to offer relief for those rendered unemployed following the lockdown.
The sources said wages for the scheme were linked to the Consumer Price Index and revised annually. The Centre through a notification on March 23 revised the wage from ₹271 to ₹291 for those in Kerala. Harayana had the highest wage rate of ₹309 followed by three panchayats in Sikkim with ₹308.
Lower wage rate
Still, the wage rate was much lesser than the agriculture minimum wage rate of ₹490 fixed by the State Labour Department in 2017 and the demand for revising the rate had remained a cry in the wilderness.
The Centre needed to clarify whether it would waive the 100-day norm or would strictly insist that the benefit would be extended only those who had completed the mandated work schedule. Considering the intensity of the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak, the Centre was unlikely to adopt a rigid stance and might not restrict the benefit to a minuscule minority of the beneficiary families, the sources said.
