The government has ruled out any change in the wage-to-material ratio for the flagship MGNREGA rural jobs scheme, an issue which had kicked up a row soon after the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014.
Minister of State for Rural Development Sudarshan Bhagat, in his reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, said "the government has undertaken and completed the consultation process to amend Schedules I and II of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
"However, there is no proposal to change the wage-to- material ratio under the scheme from 60:40 to 51:49."
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Just after the NDA came to power, the then Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari had announced that his government will increase the proportion of material component in the scheme to up to 49 per cent to enable creation of large durable assets like check dams.
That proposal was, however, slammed by critics who felt that with the material component going up, there would be a substantial reduction in funds available as wages, thus diluting the scheme.
The issue had fuelled a controversy and the proposal was not pushed subsequently.
Chaudhary Birender Singh, who replaced Gadkari as Rural Development Minister the same year had, however, ruled out any such move while assuring that the wage-to-material ratio would remain unchanged at 60:40 under the scheme.
The government had recently sought suggestions for bringing amendments in Schedules I and II of MGNREGA 2005, which deals with the minimum features of the scheme and conditions for guaranteed rural employment under it along with minimum entitlement to labourers.
It wanted to amend Schedule I to clearly put the focus on agriculture and on the need for increasing the efficiency.
Bhagat hailed the scheme, saying it had reduced distress migration among rural poor, smoothened rural consumption in the lean season, set high standards of transparency, addressed the problem of under-employment, created assets that improved livelihoods, boosted financial inclusion and improved wage levels in the rural areas.
He said the programme also faced major challenges in terms of delay in payment of wages, corrupt practices in implementation, denial of entitlements, poor technical capacity to implement large number of works and poor quality of assets created.
To another query, the minister replied that more than 40 surveys on MGNREGA show that the scheme appears to have been largely successful in meeting its target. Due to its self- selecting demand-driven design, it is able to engage with the most vulnerable and marginalised, he added.
As MGNREGA completed 10 years in the first week of February this year, the Modi government, which was earlier critical of the UPA's flagship rural jobs scheme, had hailed the measure saying the achievements under it during a decade are a "cause of "national pride and celebration".
