There is an emerging consensus among various policy makers, progressive movements and academics regarding the efficacy of MGNREGS in dealing with the unprecedented unemployment crisis that followed the unplanned Covid-19 lockdown. The scheme is being considered as an essential source of generating demand in the rural economy, when most other sources of non-agricultural employment have vanished.

The Finance Minister as part of the second round of economic packages, announced on May 14, 2020, reported that there has been a rise in the number of enrolments under MGNREGS. Reports from various States suggest that wide sections of rural households who previously did not enrol in the scheme are now considering MGNREGS as the only viable employment opportunity left to them. Such sections also include many migrant workers returning from the cities. Some States are planning to expand the scope of work under the scheme. Haryana, for instance, proposes to include agricultural work under MGNREGS (currently the scheme is limited to unskilled manual works). Such a step is also promoted as a measure to tackle the shortage of labour supply in agriculture. Recognising its importance, the Central Government made exemptions for MGNREGS works to function outside the ambit of the lockdown measures. Further, a sum of Rs. 40,000 crores was allocated to the scheme in a new package announced by the Finance Minister on May 17, 2020.

Notwithstanding this impetus, the number of days of employment created under the scheme has plummeted drastically in the aftermath of the lockdown. The number of work days generated under MGNREGS in the month of April, 2020, was 3.08 crores, a decline of 88 per cent as compared to the same month last year. These numbers point towards a failure of the supply side efforts. The inability of governments and administration to respond to calls for an expansion of the scope of MGNREGS is also indicative of the institutional weaknesses that have arisen due to systematic negligence over the past few years. The scheme suffered budgetary cuts, and had been left to relinquish. In the 2020 budget, the funds for the scheme were slashed by Rs 9,500 crores from its previous year’s revised estimates.

In this note, we discuss the systematic dismantling of the framework of MGNREGS in the State of Tripura in the last three years, and the implications of this for rural incomes and livelihoods in the times of the Covid-19 crisis.

MGNREGS in Tripura: A story of debilitating a public institution

In Tripura, after years of violence and insurgency, rural employment generation under MGNREGS was adopted by the Left Front government as part of its overall agenda of enhancing human development and peace (Ramachandran and Swaminathan 2019).

The Foundation for Agrarian Studies carried out household surveys in three villages of Tripura in 2016. These villages were Khakchang in North Tripura district, Mainama in Dhalai district and Muhuripur in South Tripura district. One distinct feature of MGNREGS in all three villages was the demand for employment from households belonging to all rural classes, higher caste groups and socio-economic classes, tribal and non-tribal populations.

In all three surveyed villages a large number of household received employment from MGNREGS in 2016, ranging from 59 per cent in Mainama, and 81 per cent in Muhuripur, to 88 per cent in Khakchang[1]. On an average each household received 109 days of employment in Khakchang, 90 days in Muhuripur and 73 days in Mainama. MGNREGS also had a crucial role in increasing women work participation rate (WPR) (Das and Patra 2019). The female work participation rate in Khakchang was 76 per cent, while in Mainama and Muhuripur the percentages were 59 and 48 respectively. Labour Bureau (EUS 2015-16) data showed that while female WPR in rural Tripura was 51 per cent, the same was only 30 per cent for rural India.

Incomes from MGNREGS contributed to 4 per cent of annual household incomes in Mainama, while in Muhuripur it was 8 per cent and in Khakchang it was 12 per cent in 2016. The incomes from MGNREGS formed a much higher proportion of household incomes for landless manual labourer households; 35 per cent in Khakchang, 22 per cent in Mainama and 30 per cent in Muhuripur. This implies that while the scheme was universal, its benefits were much higher for the poorer section of households in rural Tripura, particularly for the landless and manual worker households.

Another unique feature of the scheme in Tripura was that MGNREGS was linked with other state departments to provide additional days of employment to beneficiary households. For instance, in Khakchang households identified as beneficiaries by the Forest department were eligible for getting an additional 50 days of employment under MGNREGS (Basu et al. 2019).  It is worth noting that of these three surveyed villages Khakchang, situated in North district, is the most remote in terms of accessibility and has the most rugged terrain. It is a tribal dominated forest village and households practice jhum or shifting cultivation. MGNREGS was the most important source of cash flow into the village economy of Khakchang.

The point to be noted is that the thrust on income support through MGNREGS to rural households in Tripura by the previous Left led state government continued despite squeezed fiscal allocation from the central government[2].

Changing Scenario since 2016

Official statistics show that the days of employment under MGNREGS have rapidly fallen in recent years. In 2015-16, when the national average of person days of work generated under MGNREGS was 46 days, rural households in Tripura were receiving 94.5 days of employment under the scheme on an average. Unsurprisingly, it ranked first in the country in terms of the number of days of employment generated under the scheme. However, by 2018-19, the average number of days of employment per household had dropped to 46 days, lower than the national average of 51 days (figure 1). The drop was registered at the same time when the State saw a change in its ruling dispensation, indicating a change in priorities of the government.

These figures are in contrast to the claims made by the present state government in Tripura of raising employment under MGNREGS. In this period there has been no decline in the demand for work under the scheme in the state. On an average 5.6 lakh households demanded work under MGNREGS between 2017-18 and 2019-20. However, the bigger issue lies in the reduction registered in the average number of days generated per household as compared to the earlier period, a point which has been missed out practically from all reports on the state.

Since the 2016 survey, there has been no re-surveys carried out in the villages, however, there was a Rapid Assessment Survey carried out by the Foundation to assess the impact of Covid-19 lockdown on rural India, which included key respondents from the Tripura villages. Responses from key informants brought out the changes the rural economy has undergone in the intervening period, along with the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown. A landless peasant from Mainama village reported that

The days of employment under MGNREGS has declined sharply since the last two-three years in the village. Last year, we received on average only 40 days of employment, while earlier it was around 70-80 days in a year. Even, the wage payments which were usually paid weekly, now comes after a month.

The reduction in days of employment received under MGNREGS, the most important non-agricultural employment in these villages and an important source of income, has had a deep impact on landless and manual worker households. MGNREGS work has come to a complete halt during the lockdown in Mainama. In the forest village of Khakchang, where cash payments from MGNREGS formed the main source of cash flow into the village economy, there has not been a single day of employment generated under the scheme since January, informed another anxious respondent.

Concluding remarks

The demand for reinstating MGNREGS for generating employment to deal with the unprecedented levels of unemployment and economic distress due to the pandemic comes at a time when the scheme has already been weakened due to successive budgetary cuts and lackadaisical implementation. The deep negative outcome of weakening of this public institution has become stark in this period of the Covid-19 crisis.

In Tripura, the scheme in particular had an exemplary effect in generating incomes for poor rural households, as was found in FAS survey of 2016. Incomes from MGNREGS constituted as significant as 31 per cent of manual labourer households. MGNREGS was one of the many public institutions which formed a crucial part of the public support driven agenda of the Left ruled of Tripura. However, in recent times, the days of employment generated under the MGNREGS in the State has seen a drastic fall. As a fallout, during this pandemic crisis rural households are being denied a source of income, when all other sources have dried up. The experience of Tripura shows that shifting priorities of a state government has come to play havoc with livelihoods of the poor in this pandemic crisis.

Notes

[1] In 2015-16, in Tripura, 93 per cent of registered households received employment under MGNREGS, as compared to 36.6 per cent at the all-India level.

[2] In an interview, Manik Sarkar, previous Chief Minister of Tripura remark the successive budgetary cuts in MGNREGS by the centre  as a “class attack.”

References

Basu, Ranjini, Dutta, Ritam, Patra, Subhajit and Das, Arindam (2019), “Agrarian Structure, Production and Agrarian Relations in Khakchang”, in Swaminathan, Madhura and Basu, Ranjini (ed.), Socio-Economic Surveys of Three Villages in Tripura: A Study of Agrarian Relations, Tulika Books, New Delhi.

Das, Arindam and Patra, Subhajit (2019), “Employment and Wages of Manual Workers”, in Swaminathan, Madhura and Basu, Ranjini (ed.), op.cit.

Ramachandran, V.K and Swaminathan, Madhura (2019), “The Tripura Model” in Swaminathan, Madhura and Basu, Ranjini (ed.), op. cit.

Swaminathan, Madhura (2019), “Public Support for Rural Households” in Swaminathan, Madhura and Basu, Ranjini (ed.) op.cit.