Don’t Use MGNREGA to Subsidise Agricultural Labour, Say Experts

Several economists and activists have written a letter to Rural Development Minister N S Tomar urging the Ministry to clarify its position with regard to the NITI Aayog’s attempt to subsidise agricultural labour by re-aligning the already cash-strapped MGNREGA works ostensibly to reduce agrarian distress.

 Citing a letter released by the NITI Aayog, dated July 12, economist and activists such as Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy, Sunanda Sen, Prabhat Patnaik, Abhijit Sen and others noted that the government had constituted a sub-group of seven chief ministers to chalk out a framework..

 “The first meeting of this group took place at NITI Aayog on 12th July and five regional consultations have been conducted since. The Terms of Reference of the working group calls for its members to “make recommendations on interventions of MGNREGS that can facilitate reduction of agrarian distress”, “explore the possibilities of MGNREGS as a livelihood resource for development and diversification of livelihoods of small and marginal farmers” and “to align works under MGNREGS fully to the requirements of achieving the goal of higher Farmers’ Incomes”, the experts said, adding that while these terms were “seemingly innocuous and even echo the position of peoples’ campaigns and small farmers’ unions, it is puzzling why a new committee needed to be constituted for an agenda that is already being actively pursued at the national and state levels.”

They said the proposal to subsidise agricultural labor through NREGA funds indicated by the statements of some members of this working committee poses a real threat to the programme.

 “While the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh proposed “the use of MGNREGA funds in supplementing labour costs in agriculture”, the Chief Minister of Bihar also stated that there is “a need for adequate farm labor”, indicating that this may be brought into the scope of the NREGA.”. they said, adding that while they support to the demand for guaranteeing incomes and input subsidies for farmers, they were vehemently opposed to NREGA funds being used for this. 

 “First, subsidizing agricultural labor through MGNREGA is unlikely to generate much additional employment and will only end up serving the interests of employers by reducing their wage bill instead of workers… The benefits of dalits, adivasis and marginal farmers will be usurped by landed interests. It will also open up the possibility of large farmers extracting tasks from farm labor which are not permissible under the act or rules,” they said in the letter to the Minister. 

Also, measurement and monitoring of such work will be close to impossible even if it is restricted to people working on their own land and will open up the flood gates to not just monetary corruption but exploitation of workers as well, said the experts, noting the programe already suffered from various other forms of corruption that had not been fully addressed. 

The letter called for more agricultural jobs to be created in addition to NREGA employment in order to stabilise rural incomes. 

“An electoral promise to “double farmers’ incomes by 2022” must develop alternative strategies to deal with the agrarian crisis instead of undermining the one safety net protected by law available to the most vulnerable of the rural poor, said the letter.