THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, December 17: The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission Gramin (VB G RAM G) Bill brought in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday has evoked sharp reactions.
It’s still a long journey of this Bill to become an Act, as it is to be passed in identical form in both the Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and then, with the assent of the President, the Bill may become a law.
However, the ingredients in this VB G RAM G are less unskilled labour-friendly and empowers the central government to interfere with the avenues for the employment of unskilled labour.
When MGNREGA was brought in, it was believed to be a kind of dam against the overflow (migration) of labour from one state to another for employment. It failed. Migration became severe and exhaustive year after year since the launching of the MGNREGA.
Migration and Worker Exploitation Overlooked
Now this Bill VB G RAM G is quite religious in pronunciation, hardly speaks about the issue of the migration of labour and their exploitation.
A migrant worker is often held captive, denied wages and made to live a subhuman life.
The Bill is a replacement of the highly popular MGNREGA, launched nationwide in 2005.
MGNREGA guarantees 100 days of employment in a year. This new Bill reads 125 days. It’s a welcome, but how it will come to a worker is most tedious.
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Centralisation Risks Panchayati Raj Institutions
Gram Sabha used to be a centre point of the MGNREGA. Here in this Bill, it’s a high-sounding National Rural Infrastructure Stack.
This National Rural Infrastructure Stack will do all like identifying, prioritising and standardising the works!
The Panchayati Raj Institution will die a slow death by this Bill if enacted into law.
Funding, Area Identification, and Disaster Coverage Concerns
MGNREGA began to starve year by year for want of central funding. 90 per cent of the fund for it was coming from the centre. Now this Bill speaks about 60 per cent of the central funding for VB G RAM G of all the plain states barring North East, J&K, Uttarakhand etc.
Again, who will decide the area if it is urban or semi-urban or rural. With this Bill, the identification of the area is a big task.
It’s the Central Government to identify the area as Rural and only then will the adult members of that particular area have the entitlement of 125 days of employment under VB G RAM G in a financial year.
What is the need for dropping in MGNREGA and bringing in such a G RAM G!
Further, the Bill states there will be no work for 60 days in a year when agricultural activities remain at their peak.
There is no word of mitigation for unskilled labour in the VB G RAM G Bill in the event of disasters like flooding or drought, or any pandemic etc. How will an unskilled labourer and his family survive?
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NAREGA Sangharsh Morcha Jharkhand Voices Strong Opposition
NAREGA Sangharsh Morcha Jharkhand is all out against this Bill now on the floor of the Lok Sabha. It wants its withdrawal. This Morcha has appealed to all like-minded organisations to be up in arms against the Bill.
NAREGA Sangharsh Morcha Jharkhand has accused the central government of bypassing workers’ groups and organisations that stand for the workers as prior to the formation of the Bill, there was neither any call from the central government for pooling in suggestions from the people of India nor any consultation with any of the workers’ organisations.
Many civil society activists told this Jharkhand Story Network correspondent that the Central Government ought to have first cleared the dues in respect of wages for the MGNREGA works done instead of bringing in such a Bill.
Jharkhand has 1.36 crore labour force out of the 69 lakhs households registered under the MGNREGA.
A whopping 5 crores of rupees stand as pending wages for unskilled labour here in Jharkhand.
Jharkhand state has a poor per Man Day wages @ 282 with a state share of 27 rupees. States like Haryana, Karnataka have very high per Man Day wages for the MGNREGA workers.
