More people enrolled for work under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in Telangana in this year — however, not everyone found employment in May, at the height of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. MGNREGA workers in Telangana suffered owing to the second COVID-19 wave, with many gram panchayats choosing to not take up work under the scheme, despite demand. The state's decision in 2019 to lay off field assistants under the scheme has also impacted work adoption under MGNREGA, according to a new report.
An analysis by LibTech India showed that 17 lakh households received employment through MGNREGA during April 2021 in Telangana, and that there has been a drop in the number of persondays under the scheme (the number of people working per day times the number of days worked). The number of persondays generated under the scheme has fallen from 8.27 crore in 2020 to 5.85 crore in 2021, finds the report.
For the month of April alone, 3.2 crore persondays were generated but in May 2021, it dropped to just 2.6 crore persondays. This is less than the 6 crore persondays generated in May 2020. The number of households employed has also reduced from 10 lakh in May 2020 to 4.3 lakh in May 2021.
A similar situation was observed in a majority of gram panchayats in Telangana. Of the 12,779 gram panchayats, 8,400 have seen a growth in the persondays generated in April this year compared to the same period in the previous year. However, in May 2021, more than 85% of the gram panchayats (about 11,000) saw a decrease in the persondays generated, compared to May 2020, the report says.
In the wake of the second wave of COVID-19, the office of the Commissioner of Rural Development in Telangana issued a government circular on April 17 with guidelines for local authorities to implement MGNREGA. While the circular mentioned several vital precautions and types of work to be taken up, there was no word about the provision for free face masks and hand sanitisers at workplaces for worker safety.
It was also observed that at several gram panchayats, the works were halted by the local governments owing to the rise in COVD-19 cases. As the government laid off the field assistants in 2019, there are no field functionaries to persuade and counsel the workers to take up work during the pandemic, the report says. The field assistants operate at a gram panchayath level, where they coordinate between the workers and government officials. They are the ones who inform district administration if there is a demand for work among locals under the MGNREGA scheme.
The report recommends several measures to be adopted with urgency to overcome income loss among MGNREGA workers which are pushing them to food insecurity, inclusion provisions for unemployment allowance, guaranteed payment of full wages to workers who may have contracted COVID-19 during MGNREGA work, prioritising new job cards for migrant workers returning home, delivering wages at the worksite instead of bank transfer etc.
The report also recommends that field assistants should be reinstated, and that a special helpline should be set up to record demand for work via phone at the panchayat level. “Fair implementation of MGNREGA has never been this important before. The government’s steps towards this will enhance livelihood and food security for millions of households in the state, and prevent a disaster,” the report says.