Want Centre to increase MGNREGA man-days in Bengal, says panchayat minister

With scores of migrants workers

returning to their native villages in West Bengal, amid the lockdown, the rural development department has contended that the Centre should increase the number of man-days under MGNREGA scheme to ensure employment for them.

According to sources in the state rural and panchayat department, many of these labourers would be completely dependent on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme for their livelihood, in the days to come.

"We have been the number one state for the last four years in terms of allotting jobs and utilising funds under the MGNREGA scheme. This year, we have been allotted 27 crore man-days. In order to accommodate more people, the number of man-days allotted to us has to be increased," State Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee told PTI.

 

The state government is trying its best to ensure that these labourers find work in West Bengal to keep their households running, he said.

Thousands of labourers had migrated to other states - such as Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi - in the past two decades - with industries and tea gardens shutting down and cyclone Aila destroying large parts of deltaic South Bengal.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, however, triggered a reverse migration of workers many of them now staring at an uncertain future.

CITU state president and former state labour minister Anadi Sahoo noted that these labourers do not have requisite skills to work in agricultural fields.

"Just increasing man-days won't solve the problem, because the 100-day work scheme is aimed at generating rural employment, mainly in the agricultural and irrigation sector. And most of these labourers don't have requisite skills for that. The state and the central governments have to work together to bring in new projects where these labourers could be employed," Sahoo said.

According to Sahoo, the workers will be prone to exploitation as there will be an oversupply of labour in the rural areas.

"Due to this sudden increase in labour supply, the market wages, including those in agriculture, will come down which, in turn, will further increase the woes of the labourers," he said.