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New Delhi: Protesting the impending repeal of MGNREGA, social rights activists Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy said “VB-G RAM G” will mark the end of the “right to work” since the job scheme provided every needy poor with a fall-back employment security. Dey said the proposed bill is insidious as the Centre has given itself the power to determine where to implement the scheme under section 5(1), which is in line with the recommendations of some so-called expert committees that the scheme be operated only in a limited number of blocks.NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, a collective of job scheme activist bodies, including Jean Dreze, dubbed the proposed new scheme as “not a reform but a rollback of democratic and constitutional guarantees won by workers through decades of sustained struggle…the GOI is seeking to dismantle a historic rights-based legislation.”Dey, Roy and Dreze, all members of Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council which served as an influential policy body during UPA govt’s decade-long run, had a key role in designing MGNREGA.According to Dey and Roy, states will not be willing to shoulder the burden of 40% expenditure, which will essentially mark the end of MGNREGA, and badly hurt the poor who depend on the programme for survival. “States are starved for resources, and will be reluctant to implement the scheme. The reason MGNREGA worked was because Centre did not depend on states for funds,” they argued.Sounding catastrophic, Dey said the job scheme saved the country by helping poor during all major crises. “In all economic distress, including the global crash of 2008 and Covid, it allowed rural poor India to survive. It is something that all the governments will have to turn to in times of crises because it provides a framework that allows you to reach all the citizens,” he said.Dey said, “MGNREGA covered entire country. It allowed self-selection of those who wanted to work, as against ‘BPL framework’ which suffered from issues of inclusion and exclusion of beneficiaries.”Marks end of right to work, say activistsActivists Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy said VB-G RAM G will mark the end of the “right to work”. NREGA Sangharsh Morcha said the proposed new scheme was “not a reform but a rollback of democratic and constitutional guarantees won by workers through decades of sustained struggle”.
